The Little Clay Cart | Page 3

Harvard University
May 23, 1905
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The Mrichchhakatika of Sudraka with the commentary of
Prthvidhara. Edited by Kashinath Pandurang Parab. Bombay:
Nirnaya-Sagar Press. 1900. Price 1 Rupee. It may be had of O.
Harrassowitz in Leipzig for 2-1/2 Marks.]

INTRODUCTION
I. THE AUTHOR AND THE PLAY
Concerning the life, the date, and the very identity[2] of King Shudraka,
the reputed author of The Little Clay Cart, we are curiously ignorant.
No other work is ascribed to him, and we have no direct information
about him, beyond the somewhat fanciful statements of the Prologue to
this play. There are, to be sure, many tales which cluster about the
name of King Shudraka, but none of them represents him as an author.
Yet our very lack of information may prove, to some extent at least, a

disguised blessing. For our ignorance of external fact compels a closer
study of the text, if we would find out what manner of man it was who
wrote the play. And the case of King Shudraka is by no means unique
in India; in regard to every great Sanskrit writer,--so bare is Sanskrit
literature of biography,--we are forced to concentrate attention on the
man as he reveals himself in his works. First, however, it may be worth
while to compare Shudraka with two other great dramatists of India,
and thus to discover, if we may, in what ways he excels them or is
excelled by them.
Kalidasa, Shudraka, Bhavabhuti--assuredly, these are the greatest
names in the history of the Indian drama. So different are these men,
and so great, that it is not possible to assert for any one of them such
supremacy as Shakspere holds in the English drama. It is true that
Kalidasa's dramatic masterpiece, the Shakuntala, is the most widely
known of the Indian plays. It is true that the tender and elegant
Kalidasa has been called, with a not wholly fortunate enthusiasm, the
"Shakspere of India." But this rather exclusive admiration of the
Shakuntala results from lack of information about the other great Indian
dramas. Indeed, it is partly due to the accident that only the Shakuntala
became known in translation at a time when romantic Europe was in
full sympathy with the literature of India.
Bhavabhuti, too, is far less widely known than Kalidasa; and for this
the reason is deeper-seated. The austerity of Bhavabhuti's style, his lack
of humor, his insistent grandeur, are qualities which prevent his being a
truly popular poet. With reference to Kalidasa, he holds a position such
as Aeschylus holds with reference to Euripides. He will always seem to
minds that sympathize with his grandeur[3] the greatest of Indian poets;
while by other equally discerning minds of another order he will be
admired, but not passionately loved.
Yet however great the difference between Kalidasa, "the grace of
poetry,"[4] and Bhavabhuti, "the master of eloquence,"[5] these two
authors are far more intimately allied in spirit than is either of them
with the author of The Little Clay Cart. Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti are
Hindus of the Hindus; the Shakuntala and the Latter Acts of Rama

could have been written nowhere save in India: but Shudraka, alone in
the long line of Indian dramatists, has a cosmopolitan character.
Shakuntala is a Hindu maid, Madhava is a Hindu hero; but Sansthanaka
and Maitreya and Madanika are citizens of the world. In some of the
more striking characteristics of Sanskrit literature--in its fondness for
system, its elaboration of style, its love of epigram--Kalidasa and
Bhavabhuti are far truer to their native land than is Shudraka. In
Shudraka we find few of those splendid phrases in which, as the
Chinese[6] say, "it is only the words which stop, the sense goes
on,"--phrases like Kalidasa's[7] "there are doors of the inevitable
everywhere," or Bhavabhuti's[8] "for causeless love there is no
remedy." As regards the predominance of swift-moving action over the
poetical expression of great truths, The Little Clay Cart stands related
to the Latter Acts of Rama as Macbeth does to Hamlet. Again,
Shudraka's style is simple and direct, a rare quality in a Hindu; and
although this style, in the passages of higher emotion, is of an exquisite
simplicity, yet Shudraka cannot infuse into mere language the charm
which we find in Kalidasa or the majesty which we find in Bhavabhuti.
Yet Shudraka's limitations in regard to stylistic power are not without
their compensation. For love of style slowly strangled originality and
enterprise in Indian poets, and ultimately proved the death of Sanskrit
literature. Now just at this point, where other Hindu writers are weak,
Shudraka stands forth preëminent. Nowhere else in the hundreds of
Sanskrit dramas do we find such variety, and such drawing of character,
as in The Little Clay Cart; and nowhere else, in the drama at least,