Book Review – King Śūdraka and His Drama

Summary

Satya Ranjan Banerjee reviews Biswanath Banerjee’s monograph King Śūdraka and His Drama, which examines the Sanskrit‑Prakrit play Mṛcchakaṭika (The Little Clay Cart) attributed to King Śūdraka. Banerjee notes that although Mṛcchakaṭika has fascinated scholars since the early nineteenth century, few comprehensive studies exist. Biswanath Banerjee’s book, published by CESMEO in Turin in 1994, aims to fill this gap. It is a revision, expansion and translation of his earlier publications on the drama, comprising seven chapters, three appendices and a select bibliography. The reviewer summarises the book’s structure: a prefatory note situates the text within Sanskrit and Prakrit literature; the introduction discusses authorship, date and historical context; subsequent chapters explore the drama’s narrative sources, characterisation and social themes; and appendices provide extracts, a bibliography and a glossary. Particular praise is given to the chapters on the language of the drama, where the author analyses Prakrit vocabulary and morphology. Banerjee highlights the monograph’s survey of earlier scholarship on Śūdraka: studies by Wilson, Kellner, Mahesh Nyāratna, Windisch, Sylvain Lévy, Albrecht Weber and others; modern analyses by Nishi Kanta Chattopādhyāya and Satya Ranjan Banerjee himself; and translations in English, French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Italian, Russian and other languages. He applauds Biswanath Banerjee for consulting a wide range of sources and for augmenting the text with notes from his earlier article on King Śūdraka and Śākara’s role in the Mṛcchakaṭika. The reviewer devotes much of his critique to the book’s lexicographical appendix. He discusses words like the Prakrit nāṇaka, which the author glosses as ‘a kind of coin’, suggesting that it may derive from Sanskrit jñāna; vuddhakola, which he argues means ‘an old donkey’ rather than ‘an old jackal’; koluttā‑jūṣā, which may be read kulattha‑yūṣa; and hulubhuḷūṃ, an onomatopoetic word that he traces to Sanskrit huluhuli, a women’s chant. Banerjee commends these etymological notes but laments that the list of words is incomplete and that some derivations could be expanded. He regards the book’s translation, bibliography and extract selections as valuable aids and praises the overall get‑up and printing. While the monograph does not provide an exhaustive critical edition of Mṛcchakaṭika, Banerjee concludes that it is a welcome contribution to Indology: it synthesises scattered research, offers fresh lexical insights and will appeal to Sanskrit and Prakrit scholars. He encourages readers and libraries to acquire the work, noting that it will enrich their collections and stimulate further study of King Śūdraka and his drama.