The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c7.s6.3

c7.s6.3

Lévi's suggestion, which was accompanied by an admission that the *Mṛcchakaṭikā* or its source was older than he had formerly argued, and that the possibility of Greek influence was thus increased, has been accepted by Professor Konow¹ with the important modification that in face of the fact that the oldest dramas known to us, the fragments of Aṣvaghoṣa and those of Bhāsa, ignore Māhārāṣṭrī and that Çaurasenī is the normal prose tongue, he accepts Mathurā as the home of the drama, and ascribes it to about the middle of the first century A.D. This view he supports by the fact that the rulers of Mathurā were also Çaka Kṣatrapas, or Satraps, whose control extends back at least to the beginning of the first century A.D.