The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c11.s2.9

c11.s2.9

These references seem to suggest that Ṣūdraka was a merely legendary person, a fact rather supported than otherwise by his quaint name, which is absurd in a king of normal type. Nevertheless, Professor Konow treats him as historical, and finds in him the Ābhīra prince Ṣivadatta, who, or whose son, Īṣvarasena, is held by Dr. Fleet to have overthrown the last of the Andhra dynasty and to have founded the Cedi era of A.D. 248-9.⁵ This remarkable result is held to be supported by the fact that (in the play the king of Ujjayinī is Pālaka, and is represented as being overthrown by Āryaka, son of a herdsman (*gopāla*),) and the Ābhīras are essentially herdsmen. But this is much more than dubious; we have in fact legendary history in the names of Pālaka, Gopāla—to be taken probably in the *Mṛcchakaṭikā* as a proper name—and Āryaka. (The proof is indeed overwhelming, for Bhāsa, who is the source of so much of the *Mṛcchakaṭikā*, mentions in his *Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa* as sons of Pradyota of Ujjayinī both Gopāla and Pālaka, and the *Bṛhatkathā* must have contained the story of Gopāla surrendering the kingdom on Pradyota’s death to Pālaka, and of the latter having to make room for Āryaka, his brother’s son. To make history out of these events, which belong to the period shortly after the Buddha’s death, say 483 B. C., and history of the third century A. D., is really impossible. Ṣūdraka is really clearly mythical, as is seen by the admission that he entered the fire, for no one can believe that he foresaw his death-day so precisely, or that the ceremony referred to is that performed on becoming an ascetic, or even that the prologue was added after his death if it had been, it would have doubtless been of a different type. Still less can we imagine that he was helped in his work by Rāmila and Somila.