104 M. Nyayarafna — On the Authorship of the MrichchlialtatiTca. [Aug. 



S'udraka is said to have entered the fire (S£"3t%T5fTT ^f^€0- Babu Asutosh 

 thinks that S'udraka could by no means be the author when his entering 

 into fire is mentioned in the play itself. Another argument of Babu 

 Asutosh Mukerji is, that there are lengthy panegyrics on S'udraka 

 in several stanzas which could hardly have occurred in the play, had it 

 been written by himself. Babu Asutosh Mukerji concludes that the play 

 was composed under royal patronage, and that the dramatist assigned 

 the work to his patron ; such a supposition being, according to Babu 

 Asutosh Mukerji, in perfect accordance with what is known of poets 

 and their royal patrons. 



The second argument of Babu Asutosh Mukerji, viz., the presence 

 of verses laudatory of the author in the work itself, has hardly any 

 weight. There is a rule* that in Sanskrit dramas there should be 

 praise of the author and his work in the introduction, through the 

 mouth of one of the actors, in order to excite the interest of the 

 audience ; and in almost all Sanskrit dramas extant we find this rule 

 strictly observed. It need hardly be noticed that the verses come out of 

 the mouth of one of the dramatis persons and therefore the author does 

 not directly take upon himself the indelicacy of praising himself. 



Babu Asutosh Mukerji's first and chief argument is also not a very 

 strong one. 



It can easily be met by supposing that the stanza in question is an 

 interpolation. There are three other stanzas in the introduction as- 

 cribing the play to S'udraka, and the play is traditionally ascribed to 

 him. Prithvidhara and other commentators of the play all hold that 

 S'udraka was the author. The rulesf elaborated for the construction 

 of Sanskrit dramas require that the name of the author should be given 

 at the beginning of a play. Here the name of S'udraka has been given 

 as that of the author in several stanzas. It is hardly possible to over- 

 look all these considerations simply because there is a line in one of 

 the stanzas which seems to indicate that S'udraka could not be its 

 author. It is hard to believe that a poet who wished the work to pass 

 for the work of S'udraka would put in a line from which the imposture 

 would at once be detected. If a modern critic can see the absurdity 

 of a poet's saying of himself that " he entered the fire," the same absur- 

 dity would doubtless have presented itself to the minds of the men 

 who set up the story. It is paying but a poor compliment to the intel- 

 ligence of the poet and his royal patron to suppose that they could not 

 perceive that this line would serve effectually to expose the imposture. 



