The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c11.s3.4

c11.s3.4

To the author we may ascribe the originality of combining the political and the love intrigue, which give together a special value to the play. We know of no precise parallel to this combination of motifs, though in the *Bṛhatkathā* there was probably a story recorded later¹ of the hetaera Kumudikā who fell in love with a poor Brahmin, imprisoned by the king; she allied herself to the fortunes of a dethroned prince Vikramasiṃha, aided him by her arts to secure the throne, and was permitted by the grateful prince to marry her beloved, now released from prison. The idea was doubtless current in some form or another, just as for the incidents of Bhāsa's story we can trace parallels in the Kathā literature of hetaerae who love honest and poor men and desire to abandon for their sakes their hereditary and obligatory calling, which the law will compel them to follow.² The conception of the science of theft is neatly paralleled in the *Daçakumāracarita*, where a text-book of the subject is ascribed to Karṇisuta, and the same work contains interesting accounts of gambling which illustrate Act II. The *Kathāsaritsāgara*¹ tells of a ruined gambler, who takes refuge in an empty shrine, and describes in Sarga xxxviii the palace of the hetaera Madanamālā in terms which may be compared with the description by the Vidūṣaka in Act IV of the splendours of Vasantasenā’s palace.² The court scene conforms duly to the requirements of the legal Smṛtis of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., but the conservatism of the law renders this no sign of date.