The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c11.s2.4

c11.s2.4

The play itself presents Çūdraka, a king, as its author and gives curious details of his capacities; he was an expert in the Ṛgveda, the Sāmaveda, mathematics, the arts regarding courtesans, and the science of elephants, all facts which could be concluded from the knowledge shown in the play itself; he was cured of some complaint, and after establishing his son in his place, and performing the horse sacrifice, he entered the fire and died at the age of a hundred years and ten days) We have a good deal more information of a sort regarding his personality; he was to Kalhaṇa in the *Rājatarangiṇī*¹ a figure to be set beside Vikramāditya; the *Skanda Purāṇa*² makes him out the first of the Andhrabhṛtyas; the *Vetālapañcaviṃśati* knows of his age as a hundred, and gives as his capital either Vardhamāna or Ṣobhāvatī, which is the scene of his activities according to the *Kathāsaritsāgara*, which tells of the sacrifice of a Brahmin who saves him from imminent death and secures his life of a hundred years by killing himself. In the *Kādambarī* he is located at Vidiṣā, and in the *Harṣacarita* we hear of the device by which he got rid of his enemy Candraketu, prince of Cakora, while Daṇḍin in the *Daśakumāracarita* refers to his adventures in several lives. The fact that Rāmila and Somila wrote a Kathā on him is significant of his legendary character in their time, considerably before Kālidāsa. A very late tradition in the *Vīracarita* and the younger Rājaśekhara³ brings him into connexion with Sātavāhana or Ṣālivāhana, whose minister he was and from whom he obtained half his kingdom, including Pratiṣṭhāna.⁴