Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/187

Rh 6. Mahendravikramavarman

Almost a contemporary to a day of Harṣa was Mahendravikramavarman, son of the Pallava king Siṅhaviṣṇuvarman, and himself a king with the styles of Avanibhājana, Guṇabhara, and Mattavilāsa, all alluded to in his play, who ruled in Kāñcī, the scene of his drama, in the first quarter of the seventh century A.D. Chance rather than any special merit has preserved for us his Prahasana, which is so far the only early farce published, and which has special interest as it comes from the south, and, as we have seen, shows signs of the same technique as that of Bhāsa. Thus the play is opened by the director at the close of the Nāndī, which is not preserved, and the prologue is styled Sthāpanā, and not, as usual, Prastāvanā. We have also a reference to Karpata as the writer of a text-book for thieves, as in the Cārudatta of Bhāsa, but there is an essential difference in the fact that great care is taken in the prologue to set out at length the merits of the author as well as the name of the drama.

The director introduces the play by a dialogue in which he by skilled flattery induces his first wife to aid him in the work, despite her annoyance at his taking to himself of a younger bride, and the transition to the actual drama is accomplished as in Bhāsa by his being interrupted in the midst of a verse by a cry from behind the scene, which leads him to complete his stanza by mentioning the appearance of the chief actor and his companion. They are a Çaiva mendicant of the skull-bearing order, a Kapālin, and his damsel, Devasomā by name. Both are intoxicated, and the maiden asks for her companion's aid to prevent her from falling; he would hold her if he could, but his own condition hinders aid; in remorse he proposes to forswear strong drink, but the lady entreats him not for her sake thus to break