Glimpsing a Revolution through the Chinks of the Text: Deconstructing Mrichchhakatika

by Ankur Betageri (February 2016)

A still from the movie Utsav (1984)

Charudatta’s meditation on poverty, his stoic acceptance of it, and the way he is rewarded for it eventually (though not in the other world) may appear, at least to us schooled in Occidental classics, very “Christian” but this pre-Christian Prakrit play – yes, how can you call it a Sanskrit play when it has more Prakrit, or “Prakrits,” than Sanskrit? – written sometime between 3^rd and 1^st century BCE, explores the tension between the material and the spirit world through the lives of its different characters —the dialectic that lies at the origin, not just of Christianity, but of all religions.

The narrative of radical love begins with Vasantasena, a courtesan who has fallen in love with Charudatta after seeing him in the Garden of Lord Kama, slipping into his decrepit old house by extinguishing the lamp “with the hem of her garment.” On meeting Charudatta, whose poverty does not allow her to stay with him as a courtesan, she asks for the favour of leaving her ornaments “as a deposit” in his house. When he protests that his house is not fit for keeping deposits she reminds him that deposits are entrusted not to houses but to persons, an interesting point since it is the metaphor of dilapidated house, and not his person, which is seen as the source of his degradation. Vasantasena later tells her maidservant Madanika that she deposited the ornaments so as to have a reason to visit Charudatta again, and so, in a sense, what she deposits with Charudatta are not her ornaments but her love. And it is Charudatta’s poverty which makes her relate to him in a way that would have been impossible had he been rich: with the rich Charudatta she would have had the conventional unproblematic relationship of a courtesan, but the poor Charudatta opens before her an impossible chasm, a chasm that can only be leapt over by the radical and excessive emotion of love.

If poverty kindles the flame of love in the courtesan Vasantasena and turns the masseur/gambler Samvahaka into a greater gambler as an ascetic, it transforms Sharvilaka, the lover/thief, into a revolutionary. It is Sharvilaka indeed who from being an ordinary thief becomes the “greatest of all criminals” by acting in the untimely manner of an Übermensch – and his untimely act is harnessing the power of discontent to change the life-condition of all through revolutionary politics.

Sharvilaka is presented to us as an ambiguous character who is in two minds about his profession of thieving. On the one hand, he sees himself as a supremely skilful master-thief, the follower of Kumara Karttikeya, the patron-saint of thieves, and as someone who has read and mastered the treatises on the black arts written by Bhaskaranandin and Yogacharya. On the other hand, he is shown as someone who thinks of stealing as “cheating people when they are asleep… by no means a brave deed” and considers himself a victim who has been forced by poverty into this “degrading” profession. The act of stealing from Charudatta’s house fills him with self-loathing: “Fie upon poverty on account of which one’s manly nature ceases to feel disgust!” he says holding the stolen casket of ornaments, “here I am censuring this ignoble deed, but am doing it all the same!” The self-loathing also makes him revile, on a rather flimsy provocation to jealousy, his lover Madanika who is a slave at Vasantasena’s mansion and to free whom he has actually stolen.

The casket of ornaments that Sharvilka steals from Charudatta’s house, he learns later from Madanika, is actually Vasantasena’s and Madanika convinces him to pretend as Charudatta’s messenger who has come to return it. But when Sharvilaka returns the casket, Vasantasena, who has overheard the conversation between him and Madanika, decides to free Madanika by offering her as a gift to “Charudatta’s messenger.” But Sharvilaka, who has chosen the profession of thieving because “even a condemnable position of independence is preferable to serving others with folded hands,” is not really happy with the unheroic way in which he has secured the release of Madanika. So stepping out of Vasantasena’s mansion when he learns that his friend Aryaka, the cowherd’s son who has been prophesized to overthrow the king, has been imprisoned by king Palaka, he doesn’t think twice about coming to his rescue by sending his newly secured bride to his friend Rebhila’s house. “Now I will incite to rebellion my kinsmen, the city rakes and men that have won fame through the valour of their own arms,” he says as he leaves, and joins the revolutionary underground that finally manages to overthrow the oppressive regime of Palaka.

Charudatta who, on losing Vasantasena’s ornaments deposited with him, can give away his wife’s expensive pearl necklace does not know how to give his heart. He seems as shackled in his desire for Vasantasena as Vasantasena is liberated in her desire for him.

And it is only when he is convinced of the death of Vasantasena (after Viraka, the police officer, reports seeing a woman’s corpse being eaten away by jackals in Puspakarandaka garden) and after being repeatedly asked to confess to her murder by Samsthanaka that he is dispirited enough to make this strange comment: “I know neither of the two worlds,” he says, “a woman, and especially a jewel among women.”

But Vasantasena, not being dead, and rescued by the masseur-turned-Buddhist-monk Samvahaka, prevents the execution of Charudatta by presenting herself before the executioners who have been ordered to execute “the murderer of Vasantasena.” And it is Vasantasena’s arrival which saves Charudatta’s life and reverses his fortunes: the red garment of the death row convict now “becomes a bridegroom’s attire,” the sacrificial garland decks him “as though he were a bridegroom” and “the sounds of the drums of execution… resemble those of nuptial drums.”

The rather stupid character of the play is Samsthanaka, the king’s brother-in-law, the one who is completely consumed by power and wealth. Since he is a composite of two stock characters, the Fool and the Villain, the critic M.R. Kale calls him a unique character in Sanskrit drama but this also means he is more of a caricature than a real person. And everything he does in the play borders on the farcical: he loves Vasantasena, is not loved by her, he pursues her unrelentingly and unsuccessfully and when he realises that she wouldn’t yield to him he tries to murder her. And assuming he has murdered her, he frames Charudatta, Vasantasena’s lover, as her murderer and tries to manipulate the law court to have him executed. And when he is about to succeed Vasantasena appears on the execution ground and tells the executioners who the real culprit is.

Ankur Betageri is a poet, short fiction writer and visual artist based in New Delhi. His published works include The Bliss and Madness of Being Human (poetry, 2013) and Bhog and Other Stories (short fiction, 2010). He is currently a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

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