The World of Courtesans c10.2

c10.2

SANSKRIT PLAYS FOLLOW a stereotyped and rigid conventional pattern, and hardly provide vignettes of contemporary manners and customs. Their heroes and heroines wilt under the pangs of separation; sometimes they are the victims of palace intrigues. Usually they are served by a host of attendants, including the court buffoons, rakes, and other low characters. This might perhaps have pleased the jaded taste of the rulers, but they hardly offer any data about contemporary society. It is, therefore, pleasant to find that even in those days there existed some dramatists who diverged completely from the beaten path and presented to us a true picture of the contemporary morals. In these ancient plays we meet the so-called low characters in society—prostitutes, pimps, rakes, gamblers and tipsters. Their very vices and their trivial and vulgar conversations engage our attention. Their humour is, in its own way, unparalleled in Sanskrit literature. In this category of full-length dramas and one-act plays, the names of the play *Mrichchhakatika* by Shudraka and the *Chaturbhani*, a collection of four burlesques by different authors, stand out prominently.