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HARVARD ORIENTAL SERIES
WITH THE COÖPERATION OF VARIOUS SCHOLARS
BY
CHARLES ROCKWELL LANMAN
WALES PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Volume Nine
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Published by Harvard University
1905
* * * * *
THE LITTLE CLAY CART
[MRCCHAKATIKA]
A Hindu Drama
ATTRIBUTED TO KING SHUDRAKA
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL SANSKRIT AND PRAKRITS
INTO ENGLISH PROSE AND VERSE
BY
ARTHUR WILLIAM RYDER, PH.D.
INSTRUCTOR IN SANSKRIT IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Published by Harvard University
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY
* * * * *
TO MY FATHER
WILLIAM HENRY RYDER
* * * * *
CONTENTS
NOTE BY THE EDITOR OF THE SERIES
PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR
INTRODUCTION
THE AUTHOR AND THE PLAY
THE TRANSLATION
AN OUTLINE OF THE PLOT
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
TRANSLATION OF THE LITTLE CLAY CART
PROLOGUE
ACT I. THE GEMS ARE LEFT BEHIND
ACT II. THE SHAMPOOER WHO GAMBLED
ACT III. THE HOLE IN THE WALL
ACT IV. MADANIKA AND SHARVILAKA
ACT V. THE STORM
ACT VI. THE SWAPPING OF THE BULLOCK-CARTS
ACT VII. ARYAKA'S ESCAPE
ACT VIII. THE STRANGLING OF VASANTASENA
ACT IX. THE TRIAL
ACT X. THE END
EPILOGUE
DEPARTURES OF THE TRANSLATION FROM PARAB'S TEXT
* * * * *
NOTE BY THE EDITOR
With _the battle of the Sea of Japan another turning-point in the
brief course of recorded human history has been reached. Whatever the
outcome of the negotiations for peace, one thing is sure: for better,
for worse, and whether we will or no, the West must know the East, and
the East must know the West. With that knowledge will inevitably come
an interchange of potent influences, of influences that will affect
profoundly the religion and morals, the philosophy, the literature,
the art, in short, all the elements that make up the civilizations of
the two hemispheres. It is a part of the responsibility resting upon
the molders and leaders of the thought and life of our time, and upon
our Universities in particular, to see to it that these new forces,
mighty for good or for evil, are directed aright._
_The fruitfulness of those scions of Western civilization which the
Japanese have grafted upon their own stock is to-day the admiration
of the world. In our wonder, let us not forget that that stock is the
growth of centuries, and that it is rooted in a soil of racial character
informed by ethical ideals which we are wont to regard, with
arrogant self-complacency, as exclusively proper to Christianity, but
which were, in fact, inculcated twenty-four centuries ago through
precept and example by Gotama the Enlightened, or, as the Hindus
called him, Gotama the Buddha. It has often been said that India
has never influenced the development of humanity as a whole. Be that
as it may, it now seems no less probable than strange that she is yet
destined to do so, on the one hand, indirectly, through the influence
of Indian Buddhism upon Japan, and, on the other, directly, by the
diffusion in the West of a knowledge of her sacred writings, especially
those of Vedantism and Buddhism. To judge the East aright,
we must know not only what she is, but also how she has become what
she is; know, in short, some of the principal phases of her spiritual
history as they are reflected in her ancient literature, especially that
of India. To interpret to the West the thought of the East, to bring
her best and noblest achievements to bear upon our life_,--_that is to-day
the problem of Oriental philology._
_The Harvard Oriental Series embodies an attempt to present to Western
scholars, in trustworthy texts and translations, some of the greatest
works of the Hindu literature and philosophy and religion, together
with certain instruments, such as the Vedic Concordance or the History
of the Beast-fable, for their critical study or elucidation. Some
account of the volumes completed or in progress may be found at the
end of this book. Dr. Ryder, passing by for the present the more
momentous themes of religion and philosophy, has in this volume
attempted to show what the Indian genius, in its strength and in its
weakness, could do in the field of literature pure and simple. The
timeliness of the Series as a whole is an eloquent tribute to the
discernment of my loved and unforgotten pupil and friend, Henry Clarke
Warren. In him were united not only the will and the ability to
establish such a publication as this, but also the learning and
insight which enabled him to forecast in a general way its
possibilities of usefulness. He knew that the East had many a lesson
to teach the West; but whether the lesson be repose of spirit or
hygiene of the soldier in the field, whether it be the divine
immanence or simplicity of life or the overcoming of evil with good,
he knew that the first lesson to be taught us was the teachable habit
of mind._
C. R. L.
June, 1905
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 Prthvidhara; 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 class-room. For the sake of cataloguers, I note that the proper
transliteration of the Sanskrit names of this title according to the
rules laid down by the American Library Association in its Journal for
1885, is as follows: Mrcchakatika; Çudraka; Prthvidhara; Kaçinatha
Panduranga Paraba; Nirnaya-Sagara.
The verse-numeration of each act follows the edition of Parab;
fortunately, it is almost identical with the numeration in the editions
of Godabole 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 passages in which I have deviated from Parab's
text. A list of such passages 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
passages 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 passage inserted by Nilakantha
in the tenth act (Parab. 288.3-292.9). This passage 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 passage 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, Godabole,
Jivananda Vidyasagara, and Parab; the commentaries of Prthvidhara,
Lalladiksita, and Jivananda; further, the translations of
Wilson, Regnaud, and Böhtlingk.
A number of friends were kind enough to read my manuscript,
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 publishing 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 scholarship
set by the greatest of American Sanskritists.
ARTHUR W. RYDER
_Harvard University_
_May 23, 1905_
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The Mrichchhakatika of Sudraka with the commentary of
Prthvidhara. Edited by Kashinath Pandurang Parab. Bombay: Nirnaya-Sagar
Press. 1900. Price 1 Rupee. It may be had of O. Harrassowitz in Leipzig
for 2-1/2 Marks.]
INTRODUCTION
I. THE AUTHOR AND THE PLAY
Concerning the life, the date, and the very identity[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 cluster 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--assuredly, 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 assert 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 passionately 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 passages
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 preëminent. 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 hoarse 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 belovèd stays._ (_v. 33_)
And genuine bitterness:
_Pride and tricks and lies and fraud
Are in your face;
False playground of the lustful god,
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 title 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 class 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 lust, 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 class in India corresponded roughly to the hetæræ of
ancient Greece or the geishas of Japan; 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 nobility
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 passionate 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 distinguishing 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.
to v., and during these episodic acts we almost forget that the main
plot concerns the love of Vasantasena and Charudatta. Indeed, we have in
The Little Clay Cart the material for two plays. The larger part of act
i. forms with acts vi. to x. a consistent and ingenious plot; while the
remainder of act i. might be combined with acts iii. to v. to make a
pleasing comedy of lighter tone. The second act, clever as it is, has
little real connection either with the main plot or with the story of
the gems. The breadth of treatment which is observable in this play is
found in many other specimens of the Sanskrit drama, which has set
itself an ideal different from that of our own drama. The lack of
dramatic unity and consistency is often compensated, indeed, by lyrical
beauty and charms of style; but it suggests the question whether we
might not more justly speak of the Sanskrit plays as dramatic poems than
as dramas. In The Little Clay Cart, at any rate, we could ill afford to
spare a single scene, even though the very richness and variety of the
play remove it from the class of the world's greatest dramas.
II. THE TRANSLATION
The following translation is sufficiently different from previous
translations of Indian plays to require a word of explanation. The
difference consists chiefly in the manner in which I have endeavored to
preserve the form of the original. The Indian plays are written in
mingled prose and verse; and the verse portion forms so large a part of
the whole that the manner in which it is rendered is of much importance.
Now this verse is not analogous to the iambic trimeter of Sophocles or
the blank verse of Shakspere, but roughly corresponds to the Greek
choruses or the occasional rhymed songs of the Elizabethan stage. In
other words, the verse portion of a Sanskrit drama is not narrative; it
is sometimes descriptive, but more commonly lyrical: each stanza sums up
the emotional impression which the preceding action or dialogue has made
upon one of the actors. Such matter is in English cast into the form of
the rhymed stanza; and so, although rhymed verse is very rarely employed
in classical Sanskrit, it seems the most appropriate vehicle for the
translation of the stanzas of a Sanskrit drama. It is true that we
occasionally find stanzas which might fitly be rendered in English blank
verse, and, more frequently, stanzas which are so prosaic as not to
deserve a rendering in English verse at all.[26] But, as the present
translation may be regarded as in some sort an experiment, I have
preferred to hold rigidly to the distinction found in the original
between simple prose and types of stanza which seem to me to correspond
to English rhymed verse.
It is obvious that a translation into verse, and especially into
rhymed verse, cannot be as literal as a translation into prose; this
disadvantage I have used my best pains to minimize. I hope it
may be said that nothing of real moment has been omitted from
the verses; and where lack of metrical skill has compelled expansion,
I have striven to make the additions as insignificant as
possible.
There is another point, however, in which it is hardly feasible to
imitate the original; this is the difference in the dialects used by the
various characters. In The Little Clay Cart, as in other Indian dramas,
some of the characters speak Sanskrit, others Prakrit. Now Prakrit is
the generic name for a number of dialects derived from the Sanskrit and
closely akin to it. The inferior personages of an Indian play, and, with
rare exceptions, all the women, speak one or another of these Prakrits.
Of the thirty characters of this play, for example, only five
(Charudatta, the courtier, Aryaka, Sharvilaka, and the judge) speak
Sanskrit;[27] the others speak various Prakrit dialects. Only in the
case of Sansthanaka have I made a rude attempt to suggest the dialect by
substituting sh for s as he does. And the grandiloquence of Sharvilaka's
Sanskrit in the satirical portion of the third act I have endeavored to
imitate.
Whenever the language of the original is at all technical, the
translator labors under peculiar difficulty. Thus the legal terms
found in the ninth act are inadequately rendered, and, to some extent
at least, inevitably so; for the legal forms, or lack of forms,
pictured there were never contemplated by the makers of the English
legal vocabulary. It may be added here that in rendering from a
literature so artificial as the Sanskrit, one must lose not only the
sensuous beauty of the verse, but also many plays on words.
In regard to the not infrequent repetitions found in the text, I
have used my best judgment. Such repetitions have been given in
full where it seemed to me that the force or unity of the passage
gained by such treatment, or where the original repeats in full, as
in the case of v. 7, which is identical with iii. 29. Elsewhere, I have
merely indicated the repetition after the manner of the original.
The reader will notice that there was little effort to attain realism
in the presentation of an Indian play. He need not be surprised
therefore to find (page 145) that Viraka leaves the court-room,
mounts a horse, rides to the suburbs, makes an investigation
and returns--all within the limits of a stage-direction. The
simplicity of presentation also makes possible sudden shifts of
scene. In the first act, for example, there are six scenes, which take
place alternately in Charudatta's house and in the street outside.
In those cases where a character enters "seated" or "asleep," I have
substituted the verb "appear" for the verb "enter"; yet I am not
sure that this concession to realism is wise.
The system of transliteration which I have adopted is intended to render
the pronunciation of proper names as simple as may be to the English
reader. The consonants are to be pronounced as in English,[28] the
vowels as in Italian. Diacritical marks have been avoided, with the
exception of the macron. This sign has been used consistently[29] to
mark long vowels except _e_ and _o_, which are always long.
Three rules suffice for the placing of the accent. A long penult is
accented: Maitréya, Charudatta. If the penult is short, the antepenult
is accented provided it be long: Sansthanaka. If both penult and
antepenult of a four-syllabled word are short, the pre-antepenultimate
receives the accent: Mádanika, Sthavaraka.
III. AN OUTLINE OF THE PLOT
ACT I., entitled _The Gems are left Behind_. Evening of the first
day.--After the prologue, Charudatta, who is within his house, converses
with his friend Maitreya, and deplores his poverty. While they are
speaking, Vasantasena appears in the street outside. She is pursued by
the courtier and Sansthanaka; the latter makes her degrading offers of
his love, which she indignantly rejects. Charudatta sends Maitreya from
the house to offer sacrifice, and through the open door Vasantasena
slips unobserved into the house. Maitreya returns after an altercation
with Sansthanaka, and recognizes Vasantasena. Vasantasena leaves a
casket of gems in the house for safe keeping and returns to her home.