Somewhere in the middle of third century king Shudraka’s Sanskrit and its dialects’ drama Mricchakatika (The Little Clay Cart) is an angry exchange of words between two soldiers, each denigrating the other by their caste. While one shouts “low caste fellow”, the response comes in the form of associating family with profession, in this case, making leather from the skin of dead animals. The aspersions in the play from nearly two millennia ago seem to resonate with a society today that continues to confront the challenges of class, caste and status. A new set of retellings of ancient Sanskrit plays by essayist and translator Arshia Sattar points to the dilemma of contemporary society.
Vasanta: Stories from Sanskrit Plays measures up social leanings in ancient and early medieval India with the help of nine plays, including Mricchakatika, written during the period. Set in Ujjain in present-day Madhya Pradesh and written in Sanskrit and Prakrit, dialects of Sanskrit, Mricchakatika tells the love story of Charudatta, a humble Brahmin, and Vasantasena, a rich courtesan. Considered as one of the finest examples of Sanskrit drama, Mricchakatika carries the weight of Sattar’s retellings with a defining sense and purpose. Set in the Maurya dynasty nerve centre of ancient Ujjain in central India, Shudraka’s only known play is curiously about a people’s revolution to dethrone a king. The language of the drama in both Sanskrit and Prakrit reveals the lines dividing society. The Brahmin Charudatta and other dominating male characters speak Sanskrit while the women speak the dialects.
Separating the best examples of classical Sanskrit drama in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the retelling of the nine plays forges a mix of stories to open a window to a world that hasn’t changed much to advance social ethics even after nearly two millennia. Sattar, the author of translations from classical Sanskrit literature such as Tales from Kathasaritsagara and The Ramayana of Valmiki, however, is eager to stress on the diversity that existed in those times that the playwrights express while reflecting a “culture of tolerance and co-existence”. Kalidasa’s Gupta empire classic Shakuntala is part of the stories along with eighth-century playwright and poet Bhavabhuti’s ten-act drama Malatimadhava, also a love story like Mricchakatika, retold as Malati and Madhava. Sattar also adds Kalidasa’s Malavikagnimitram, the tale of a king’s love for the queen’s handmaiden, retold as Malavika and Agnimitra. Playwright Bhasa, who is credited with writing 13 important Sanskrit plays, appears with his Pratijna Yaugandharayana, a story that combines both sentiments and statecraft, retold as Yaugandharayana’s Vow. Other plays include two of seventh-century Kannauj ruler Harshavardhana’s three plays—Nagananda, which shows the selfless sacrifice of the young prince Jimutavahana to save the life of an ordinary being, and Ratnavali, yet another palace love story, retold as The Lady With the Garland of Jewels.
Playwright Vishakadatta’s The Minister’s Signet Ring, originally known as the famous play Mudraraksasa, a story of spies and the wily prime minister Chanakya’s attempts to keep the new emperor Chandragupta Maurya in the throne, and seventh-century Pallava king Mahendravarman’s Bhagwatajjukam, attributed to author Bodhayana, retold as The Holy Man and the Courtesan, complete the collection. “While the plays represent the perspectives of the socially privileged, they also have elements of social and political critique and satire, often voiced by the vidushaka, the hero’s Brahmin companion, who tends to speak his mind and provides comic relief,” writes historian Upinder Singh in his introduction to the book, which covers Sanskrit plays over a millennium, from the common era’s second century to ninth century.
Faizal Khan is a freelancer.
Vasanta: Stories from Sanskrit Plays
Arshia Sattar
Juggernaut Books
Pp 196, Rs 599