Mṛcchakatika

Vasantasena

Mṛcchakaṭika (The Little Clay Cart) (Sanskrit: मृच्छकटिकम्), also spelled Mrcchakatika, Mricchakatika, or Mrichchhakatika, is the name of a ten act Sanskrit play written by Śūdraka (Sanskrit: शूद्रक) in the 2nd century BC. It is set in Pataliputra (modern-day Patna).

Plot

Rife with romance, sex, court intrigue and comedy, the plot of the play has numerous twists and turns. The main story is about a young man named Charudatta (Sanskrit: चारुदत्त), and his love for Vasantasena (Sanskrit: वसन्तसेना), a rich courtesan or nagarvadhu. The love affair is complicated by a royal courtier, who is also attracted to Vasantasena. The plot is further complicated by thieves and mistaken identities, thus making it a hilarious and entertaining play.

Characters

• Charudatta
• Vasantsena
• Cheta-Kumbhilika
• Vidhushaka

Media

• Play adaptions: The play was translated into English, notably by Arthur W. Ryder in 1905 as The Little Clay Cart. (It had previously been translated as The Toy Cart by Horace Hayman Wilson in 1826.) Ryder's version was enacted at the Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley in 1907,^[1] and in New York in 1924 at the Neighborhood Playhouse,^[2] which was then an off-Broadway theatre, at the Theater de Lys in 1953,^[3] and at the Potboiler Art Theater in Los Angeles in 1926, when it featured actors such as James A. Marcus, Symona Boniface and Gale Gordon.^[4] The play has been adapted in several indian languages and performed by various theatre groups and directors, like Habib Tanvir.

• Film adaptations: The first silent film of Kannada film industry, 'Mricchakatika'(Vasantsena) (1931), starring Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay^[5] and Utsav, a 1984 Hindi Bollywood film by Girish Karnad was based on an adaptation of this play.

• The Indian play depicted in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, "Spectacular Spectacular", may have been based on The Little Clay Cart.

Additional reading

• Barrucand, Victor. Le Chariot De Terre Cuit, H. Piazza, Paris, 1921
• Parab, Kashinath Pandurang. Mrichchhakatika, commentary by Prithvidhara, Bombay: Nirlaya-Sagar Press. 1900

See also

• Śudraka
• Sanskrit drama
• Sanskrit literature

Notes

1. ^ http://illuminations.berkeley.edu/archives/2005/history.php?volume=9
2. ^ "PROF. A. W. RYDER, OF SANSKRIT FAME", The New York Times, March 22, 1938, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60B1EFD3C5C1B7A93C0AB1788D85F4C8385F9 
3. ^ Milton Bracker (June 7, 1953), "Story of a Determined Lady", The New York Times: X3, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00713FD3C5A117A93C5A9178DD85F478585F9 
4. ^ Edwin Schallert (December 9, 1926), "'Clay-Cart' Hero Wins: 'Twas Ever Thus—Even in the Sanskrit", The Los Angeles Times: A9, http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/362657072.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=CITE:AI 
5. ^ Kannada Cinema

Śūdraka; Arthur Llewellyn Basham (1994), Arvind Sharma, ed., The little clay cart: an English translation of the Mṛcchakaṭika of Śūdraka, as adapted for the stage, SUNY series in Hindu literature, ISBN 9780791417256, http://books.google.com/?id=Uhewt4X2eWQC 

External links

• The Little Clay Cart by Shudraka, translated by Arthur William Ryder (1905).
• Śūdraka; Horace Hayman Wilson (transl.) (1826), The Mrichchakati; Or, The Toy Cart: A Drama, V. Holcroft, Asiatic Press, http://books.google.com/?id=ZS4pAAAAYAAJ 
• Sunthar Visuvalingam, The 'Little Clay Cart' (Mrcchakatikâ) as sacrificial theater: Deciphering the 'anthropology' of the Nâtyashâstra, May–September 2010. Offers a detailed scene-by-scene hermeneutics of all 10 Acts of the play.