Mrchchhakatika (The Toy Cart)

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Mrchchhakatika is one of the best dramas in ten acts composed by Sudraka. He bypass many conventional rules of dramaturgy and shows such unusual scenes as the nocturnal pursuit of a girl by lustful men, street-fights of gamblers, open quarrel and abuse between king guards and between the contestants in a court of law, house-breaking and theft, sleep scene, murder and parade of the accused though city streets, and a scene of sati. Even the angel of love is different, because the heroine, a young woman and a young man goes to meet in pouring rain, thunder and darkness. The story is partly historical and partly invented, with no mythological ingredients.

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King Sudraka was one of the best Sanskrit dramatists who was probably born in South India (Andhra Pradesh). The drama itself tells of him as a Brahmana, who versed in many sciences and as one who dies be self-immolation at the age of over a hundred years. He was known to be the author of at least half a dozen Sanskrit works, but nothing can be said either about his authorship.