Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/135

130 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. Çūdraka 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.

Windisch, on the other hand, attempted to prove a close similarity between the plot of the political side of the play and the legend of Kṛṣṇa, instancing the prediction of Āryaka's attaining the throne, the jealousy of the king and his efforts to destroy him, and the final overthrow of the tyrant. The similarity, however, is really remote; the story is a commonplace in legend, and nothing can be made of the comparison.

We are left, therefore, to accept the view that the author who wrote up the Cārudatta, and combined with it a new play, thought it well to conceal his identity and to pass off the work under the appellation of a famous king. Lévi's suggestion that he chose Çūdraka for this purpose because he lived after Vikramāditya, patron of Kālidāsa, and wished to give his work the appearance of antiquity by associating it with a prince who preceded Vikramāditya, is clearly far-fetched, and insufficient to suggest a date. Nor can anything be deduced from the plentiful exhibition of Prākrits, which is not, to judge from Bhāsa, a sign of very early date; while the use of Māhārāṣṭrī Prākrit would be, if proved, conclusive that he is fairly late. Konow's effort to support Çūdraka's connexion with Pratiṣṭhāna by this use is clearly untenable.

There is more plausibility, in the argument from the simple form of the construction of the drama; the manner of Bhāsa is