The story so far is a tale of love that takes place in the king’s antaḥpura and the garden. Though there are incidents connected with the politics of the kingdom, release of a captive, and a victorious military conquest, it all happens in the background and we only get to hear about it; none of those incidents are staged; however, they contribute towards enhancing the main plot.
Mālavikāgnimitram is a play in five acts. The following is the summary of the plot –
Kālidāsa uses astrological terms such as uccha and jāmitra in his works; these are from Greek origin. From this, we can estimate that he did not live before 350 CE. Mallinātha, the celebrated commentator on Kālidāsa’s poems interprets the line from Meghadūta – diṅnāgānāṃ pathi pariharan sthūla-hastāvalepān as a reference to a scholar named Diṅnāga who had voiced dissent against the poet’s views. Mallinātha lived at least a thousand years after Kālidāsa; therefore, it is hard to establish the veracity of his claim.
It is difficult to tell when and where Kālidāsa lived, just as in the case of Bhāsa. Quite an amount of research has taken place on the subject and there have been numerous debates about the poet’s details. In fact, no other Sanskrit poet appears to have been discussed to this extent; however, we must admit that the search has not yielded the required results yet. Just as with Bhāsa, there are two diverging opinions about Kālidāsa’s life.
There is another unique feature in the theme of the play Mṛcchakaṭika – it is the story of a brāhmaṇa; Cārudatta is a brāhmaṇa by birth but a trader by profession; he is like a kṣattriya in the dhārmic activities he engages himself in; he had spent all his wealth by performing dāna to those in need from time to time; Vasantasenā, who was moved by this quality, comes to him offering her love.
In these literary works, the life of Cārudatta is the central theme; the story of Āryaka is of secondary importance and only serves to bolster the main plot. The fact that Cārudatta and his associates are the focal point, is attested by the name of the play – Mṛcchakaṭika. The name refers to a toy cart made out of clay; Cārudatta’s son, Rohasena refuses this mṛcchakaṭika; the play is the story of this toy cart – it was a golden cart in the past and turned into a clay one due to a sad twist of fate; it again turns golden with time.
It is hard to say when and where Śūdraka was born. The following verses that occur at the beginning of his play, the Mṛcchakaṭika, provide us with some details about the playwright –
Dviradendra-gatiścakora-netraḥ pari-pūrṇendu-mukhaḥ suvigrahaśca |
Dvija-mukhyatamaḥ kavirbabhūva prathitaḥ śūdraka ityagādha-sattvaḥ ||
ṛg-vedaṃ sāma-vedaṃ gaṇitam-atha kalāṃ vaiśikiṃ hasti-śikṣāṃ
jñātvā śarva-prasādād-vyapagata-timire cakṣuṣī copalabhya |
Bhāsa’s plays contain quite a number of novel and fresh ideas and emotions. He also brings in proverbial statements through the dialogues of the characters; they inclusion bolsters the overall aesthetic experience. The following are examples from the Yajña-phala,
We don’t know if there are more plays written by Bhāsa. We have been able to find fourteen now. Many compendiums of poems quote quite a few verses that are supposedly penned by Bhāsa; however, they don’t appear as a part of the fourteen plays we have discussed so far. It is, therefore, possible that he had authored a few more plays and such verses were part of those. Even if it turns out that he had authored only these fourteen plays, it is quite a landmark in the history of Sanskrit literature; we say this because no other poet has single-handedly penned these many plays.