The Little Clay Cart Part 1

The Little Clay Cart.

by (Attributed To) King Shudraka.

PREFACE

The text chosen as the basis of this translation is that given in the edition of Parab,[1] and I have chosen it for the following reasons.

Parab's edition is the most recent, and its editor is a most admirable Sanskrit scholar, who, it seems to me, has in several places understood the real meaning of the text better than his predecessors.

This edition contains the comment of P?thvidhara; it is far freer from misprints than many texts printed in India, and, in respect to arrangement and typography, it is clear and convenient. Besides, it is easily obtainable and very cheap. This last consideration may prove to be of importance, if the present translation should be found helpful in the cla.s.s-room. For the sake of cataloguers, I note that the proper transliteration of the Sanskrit names of this t.i.tle according to the rules laid down by the American Library a.s.sociation in its Journal for 1885, is as follows: M?cchaka?ika; cudraka; P?thvidhara; Kacinatha Pa??uranga Paraba; Nir?aya-Sagara.

The verse-numeration of each act follows the edition of Parab; fortunately, it is almost identical with the numeration in the editions of G.o.dabole and Jivananda. For the convenience of those who may desire to consult this book in connection with Stenzler's edition, I have added references at the top of the page to that edition as well as to the edition of Parab. In these references, the letter P. stands for Parab, the letter S. for Stenzler.

There are a few pa.s.sages in which I have deviated from Parab's text. A list of such pa.s.sages is given on page 177. From this list I have omitted a few minor matters, such as slight misprints and what seem to me to be errors in the _chaya_; these matters, and the pa.s.sages of unusual interest or difficulty, I shall treat in a series of notes on the play, which I hope soon to publish in the Journal of the American Oriental Society. It is hardly necessary to give reasons for the omission of the pa.s.sage inserted by Nilaka??ha in the tenth act (Parab. 288.3-292.9). This pa.s.sage is explicitly declared by tradition to be an interpolation by another hand, and it is clearly shown to be such by internal evidence. It will be noticed that the omission of this pa.s.sage causes a break in the verse-numeration of the tenth act, where the verse-number 54 is followed by the number 58.

Of the books which have been useful to me in the present work, I desire to mention especially the editions of Stenzler, G.o.dabole, Jivananda Vidyasagara, and Parab; the commentaries of P?thvidhara, Lalladik?ita, and Jivananda; further, the translations of Wilson, Regnaud, and Bohtlingk.

A number of friends were kind enough to read my ma.n.u.script, and each contributed something. I wish to mention especially my friend and pupil, Mr. Walter E. Clark, of Harvard University, whose careful reading of both text and translation was fruitful of many good suggestions.

But by far my greatest personal indebtedness is to Professor Lanman, whose generous interest in my work has never flagged from the day when I began the study of Sanskrit under his guidance.

He has criticized this translation with the utmost rigor; indeed, the pages are few which have not witnessed some improvement from his hand. It is to him also that I owe the accuracy and beauty which characterize the printed book: nothing has been hard enough to weary him, nothing small enough to escape him.

And more than all else, I am grateful to him for the opportunity of publis.h.i.+ng in the Harvard Oriental Series; for this series is that enterprise which, since the death of Professor Whitney, most honorably upholds in this country the standards of accurate scholars.h.i.+p set by the greatest of American Sanskritists.

ARTHUR W. RYDER

_Harvard University_

_May 23, 1905_

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The M?ichchhaka?ika of Sudraka with the commentary of P?thvidhara. Edited by Kas.h.i.+nath Pa??urang Parab. Bombay: Nir?aya-Sagar Press. 1900. Price 1 Rupee. It may be had of O. Harra.s.sowitz in Leipzig for 2-1/2 Marks.]

INTRODUCTION

I. THE AUTHOR AND THE PLAY

Concerning the life, the date, and the very ident.i.ty[2] of King Shudraka, the reputed author of The Little Clay Cart, we are curiously ignorant. No other work is ascribed to him, and we have no direct information about him, beyond the somewhat fanciful statements of the Prologue to this play. There are, to be sure, many tales which cl.u.s.ter about the name of King Shudraka, but none of them represents him as an author. Yet our very lack of information may prove, to some extent at least, a disguised blessing.

For our ignorance of external fact compels a closer study of the text, if we would find out what manner of man it was who wrote the play. And the case of King Shudraka is by no means unique in India; in regard to every great Sanskrit writer,--so bare is Sanskrit literature of biography,--we are forced to concentrate attention on the man as he reveals himself in his works. First, however, it may be worth while to compare Shudraka with two other great dramatists of India, and thus to discover, if we may, in what ways he excels them or is excelled by them.

Kalidasa, Shudraka, Bhavabhuti--a.s.suredly, these are the greatest names in the history of the Indian drama. So different are these men, and so great, that it is not possible to a.s.sert for any one of them such supremacy as Shakspere holds in the English drama.

It is true that Kalidasa's dramatic masterpiece, the Shakuntala, is the most widely known of the Indian plays. It is true that the tender and elegant Kalidasa has been called, with a not wholly fortunate enthusiasm, the "Shakspere of India." But this rather exclusive admiration of the Shakuntala results from lack of information about the other great Indian dramas. Indeed, it is partly due to the accident that only the Shakuntala became known in translation at a time when romantic Europe was in full sympathy with the literature of India.

Bhavabhuti, too, is far less widely known than Kalidasa; and for this the reason is deeper-seated. The austerity of Bhavabhuti's style, his lack of humor, his insistent grandeur, are qualities which prevent his being a truly popular poet. With reference to Kalidasa, he holds a position such as Aeschylus holds with reference to Euripides. He will always seem to minds that sympathize with his grandeur[3] the greatest of Indian poets; while by other equally discerning minds of another order he will be admired, but not pa.s.sionately loved.

Yet however great the difference between Kalidasa, "the grace of poetry,"[4] and Bhavabhuti, "the master of eloquence,"[5] these two authors are far more intimately allied in spirit than is either of them with the author of The Little Clay Cart. Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti are Hindus of the Hindus; the Shakuntala and the Latter Acts of Rama could have been written nowhere save in India: but Shudraka, alone in the long line of Indian dramatists, has a cosmopolitan character. Shakuntala is a Hindu maid, Madhava is a Hindu hero; but Sansthanaka and Maitreya and Madanika are citizens of the world. In some of the more striking characteristics of Sanskrit literature--in its fondness for system, its elaboration of style, its love of epigram--Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti are far truer to their native land than is Shudraka. In Shudraka we find few of those splendid phrases in which, as the Chinese[6] say, "it is only the words which stop, the sense goes on,"--phrases like Kalidasa's[7]

"there are doors of the inevitable everywhere," or Bhavabhuti's[8] "for causeless love there is no remedy." As regards the predominance of swift-moving action over the poetical expression of great truths, The Little Clay Cart stands related to the Latter Acts of Rama as Macbeth does to Hamlet. Again, Shudraka's style is simple and direct, a rare quality in a Hindu; and although this style, in the pa.s.sages of higher emotion, is of an exquisite simplicity, yet Shudraka cannot infuse into mere language the charm which we find in Kalidasa or the majesty which we find in Bhavabhuti.

Yet Shudraka's limitations in regard to stylistic power are not without their compensation. For love of style slowly strangled originality and enterprise in Indian poets, and ultimately proved the death of Sanskrit literature. Now just at this point, where other Hindu writers are weak, Shudraka stands forth preeminent. Nowhere else in the hundreds of Sanskrit dramas do we find such variety, and such drawing of character, as in The Little Clay Cart; and nowhere else, in the drama at least, is there such humor. Let us consider, a little more in detail, these three characteristics of our author; his variety, his skill in the drawing of character, his humor.

To gain a rough idea of Shudraka's variety, we have only to recall the names of the acts of the play. Here The Shampooer who Gambled and The Hole in the Wall are shortly followed by The Storm; and The Swapping of the Bullock-carts is closely succeeded by The Strangling of Vasantasena. From farce to tragedy, from satire to pathos, runs the story, with a breadth truly Shaksperian.

Here we have philosophy:

_The lack of money is the root of all evil._ (_i. 14_)

And pathos:

_My body wet by tear-drops falling, falling; My limbs polluted by the clinging mud; Flowers from the graveyard torn, my wreath appalling; For ghastly sacrifice hoa.r.s.e ravens calling, And for the fragrant incense of my blood._ (_x. 3_)

And nature description:

_But mistress, do not scold the lightning. She is your friend, This golden cord that trembles on the breast Of great Airavata; upon the crest Of rocky hills this banner all ablaze; This lamp tn Indra's palace; but most blest As telling where your most beloved stays._ (_v. 33_)

And genuine bitterness:

_Pride and tricks and lies and fraud Are in your face; False playground of the l.u.s.tful G.o.d, Such is your face; The wench's stock in trade, in fine, Epitome of joys divine, I mean your face-- For sale! the price is courtesy.

I trust you'll find a man to buy Your face._ (_v. 36_)

It is natural that Shudraka should choose for the expression of matters so diverse that type of drama which gives the greatest scope to the author's creative power. This type is the so-called "drama of invention,"[9] a category curiously subordinated in India to the heroic drama, the plot of which is drawn from history or mythology. Indeed, The Little Clay Cart is the only extant drama which fulfils the spirit of the drama of invention, as defined by the Sanskrit canons of dramaturgy. The plot of the "Malati and Madhava,"

or of the "Mallika and Maruta," is in no true sense the invention of the author; and The Little Clay Cart is the only drama of invention which is "full of rascals."[10]

But a spirit so powerful as that of King Shudraka could not be confined within the strait-jacket of the minute, and sometimes puerile, rules of the technical works. In the very t.i.tle of the drama, he has disregarded the rule[11] that the name of a drama of invention should be formed by compounding the names of heroine and hero.[12]

Again, the books prescribe[13] that the hero shall appear in every act; yet Charudatta does not appear in acts ii., iv., vi., and viii. And further, various characters, Vasantasena, Maitreya, the courtier, and others, have vastly gained because they do not conform too closely to the technical definitions.

The characters of The Little Clay Cart are living men and women. Even when the type makes no strong appeal to Western minds, as in the case of Charudatta, the character lives, in a sense in which Dushyanta[14]

or even Rama[15] can hardly be said to live. Shudraka's men are better individualized than his women; this fact alone differentiates him sharply from other Indian dramatists. He draws on every cla.s.s of society, from the high-souled Brahman to the executioner and the housemaid.

His greatest character is unquestionably Sansthanaka, this combination of ignorant conceit, brutal l.u.s.t, and cunning, this greater than Cloten, who, after strangling an innocent woman, can say:[16]

"Oh, come! Let's go and play in the pond." Most attractive characters are the five[17] conspirators, men whose home is "east of Suez and the ten commandments." They live from hand to mouth, ready at any moment to steal a gem-casket or to take part in a revolution, and preserving through it all their character as gentlemen and their irresistible conceit. And side by side with them moves the hero Charudatta, the Buddhist beau-ideal of manhood,

_A tree of life to them whose sorrows grow_, _Beneath its fruit of virtue bending low_. (_i. 48_)

To him, life itself is not dear, but only honor.[18] He values wealth only as it supplies him with the means of serving others. We may, with some justice, compare him with Antonio in The Merchant of Venice. There is some inconsistency, from our point of view, in making such a character the hero of a love-drama; and indeed, it is Vasantasena who does most of the love-making.[19]

Vasantasena is a character with neither the girlish charm of Shakuntala[20] nor the mature womanly dignity of Sita.[21] She is more admirable than lovable. Witty and wise she is, and in her love as true as steel; this too, in a social position which makes such constancy difficult. Yet she cannot be called a great character; she does not seem so true to life as her clever maid, Madanika. In making the heroine of his play a courtezan, Shudraka follows a suggestion of the technical works on the drama; he does not thereby cast any imputation of ill on Vasantasena's character. The courtezan cla.s.s in India corresponded roughly to the hetaerae of ancient Greece or the geishas of j.a.pan; it was possible to be a courtezan and retain one's self-respect. Yet the inherited[22] way of life proves distasteful to Vasantasena; her one desire is to escape its limitations and its dangers by becoming a legal wife.[23]

In Maitreya, the Vidushaka, we find an instance of our author's masterly skill in giving life to the dry bones of a rhetorical definition.

The Vidushaka is a stock character who has something in common with a jester; and in Maitreya the essential traits of the character--eagerness for good food and other creature comforts, and blundering devotion to his friend--are retained, to be sure, but clarified and elevated by his quaint humor and his readiness to follow Charudatta even in death. The grosser traits of the typical Vidushaka are lacking. Maitreya is neither a glutton nor a fool, but a simple-minded, whole-hearted friend.

The courtier is another character suggested by the technical works, and transformed by the genius of Shudraka. He is a man not only of education and social refinement, but also of real n.o.bility of nature. But he is in a false position from the first, this true gentleman at the wretched court of King Palaka; at last he finds the courage to break away, and risks life, and all that makes life attractive, by backing Aryaka. Of all the conspirators, it is he who runs the greatest risk. To his protection of Vasantasena is added a touch of infinite pathos when we remember that he was himself in love with her.[24] Only when Vasantasena leaves him[25] without a thought, to enter Charudatta's house, does he realize how much he loves her; then, indeed, he breaks forth in words of the most pa.s.sionate jealousy. We need not linger over the other characters, except to observe that each has his marked individuality, and that each helps to make vivid this picture of a society that seems at first so remote.

Shudraka's humor is the third of his vitally distinguis.h.i.+ng qualities.

This humor has an American flavor, both in its puns and in its situations. The plays on words can seldom be adequately reproduced in translation, but the situations are independent of language. And Shudraka's humor runs the whole gamut, from grim to farcical, from satirical to quaint. Its variety and keenness are such that King Shudraka need not fear a comparison with the greatest of Occidental writers of comedies.

It remains to say a word about the construction of the play. Obviously, it is too long. More than this, the main action halts through acts ii.