Part V. Conclusions and New Vistas
C. Dramatis Personae
78 I do not know if anyone has made a systematic study of the recycling of character names in Sanskrit drama, but the thought would certainly be worth following. The practice may vary between different authors, but does not appear unique to Viśākhadatta. The Viddhaśālabhañjikā of Rājaśekhara (10th century) has a minister called Bhāgurāyaṇa (the name of one of Cāṇakya’s key agents in the Mudrārākṣasa, not quite a minister but certainly becoming a very high-ranking councillor of Malayaketu), The same play also has two maidservants named Bakulāvalī and Parabhṛtikā, both also maidservants in the Mālavikāgnimitra of Kālidāsa. This latter play in turn has another maidservant by the name of Madhukarikā, and so does the Svapnavāsavadatta of (possibly) Bhāsa.
The Mudrārākṣasa testifies beyond doubt that Viśākhadatta was thoroughly versed in arthaśāstra theories and was familiar with nāṭyaśāstras. While the opinion that
“in Logic he belonged to the school of Gotama whose Nyāyasūtra was his favourite study”79 seems to lack a strong foundation, his use of a detailed simile likening a logical debate to the workings of politics80 demonstrates that he had at least a passing familiarity with Nyāya, and probably other branches of śāstric literature,81 as could be expected of the scion of a noble family. His familiarity with the language and at least some of the teachings of jyotiḥśāstra (astronomy) has already been discussed above (page 75ff.). He also employs the technical terminology of the Nāṭyaśāstra as metaphors for the management of the po-litical stage, once briefly82 and once in elaborate detail,83 and when Candragupta attains his goal, he uses the jargon for “attainment of the goal” in a verse,84 obviously as a verbal wink to the cognoscenti in the audience.
Arthaśāstra Literature
The term arthaśāstra occurs twice in the play. The first instance85 clearly means
“textbook of polity,” but as a genre rather than the title of a particular work, since it talks about “arthaśāstra authors.” The second86 is more likely to mean “science of polity,” but could also be taken to mean a textbook. On the other hand, Viśākhadatta uses the com-pound cāṇakyanīti, “the polity of Cāṇakya” so many times87 that he may have thought of this compound as the title of a particular arthaśāstra.88 He also refers by name to one author
79 DHRUVA 1930:xix, on the basis of MR 5.10(118), which employs nyāya terminology in a double entendre.
80 MR 5.10(118), sādhye niścitam anvayena ghaṭitaṃ bibhrat sapakṣe sthitiṃ vyāvṛttaṃ ca vipakṣato bhavati yat tat sādhanaṃ siddhaye| yat sādhyaṃ svayam eva tulyam ubhayoḥ pakṣe viruddhaṃ ca yat tasyāṅgīkaraṇena vādina iva syāt svāmino nigrahaḥ||
81 See also page 75ff. for Viśākhadatta’s awareness of astronomical literature.
82 MR 6.2(134), tā kiṃṇimittaṃ kukaviṇāḍaassa via aṇṇaṃ muhe aṇṇaṃ ṇivvahaṇe tti. The words mukha, “mouth”
and nirvahaṇa, “accomplishment” are the technical names of the first and the last of the “spans” or
“junctures” (saṃdhi) that make up a play. See e.g. NŚ 19.37, mukhaṃ pratimukhaṃ caiva garbho vimarśa eva ca|
tathā nirvahaṇaṃ ceti nāṭake pañca sandhayaḥ|| and e.g. LIENHARD 1974:136 for a gentle summary, and BYRSKI 1979:61–78 for an in-depth discussion of saṃdhis. See also page 181 herein, and note 70 there.
83 MR 4.3(89), kāryopakṣepam ādau tanum api racayaṃs tasya vistāram icchan bījānāṃ garbhitānāṃ phalam atigahanaṃ gūḍham udbhedayaṃś ca| kurvan buddhyā vimarśaṃ prasṛtam api punaḥ saṃharan kāryajātaṃ kartā vā nāṭakānām imam anubhavati kleśam asmadvidho vā|| All words highlighted in bold face are (or are closely related to) technical terms of the NŚ.
84 MR 7.11(164), phalayogam avāpya sāyakānām aniyogena vilakṣatāṃ gatānām| svaśuceva bhavaty adhomukhānāṃ nijatūṇīśayanavratasya niṣṭhā|| See NŚ 19.13, abhipretaṃ samagraṃ ca pratirūpaṃ kriyāphalam| itivṛtte
bhavedyasmin phalayogaḥ prakīrtitaḥ|| and LIENHARD 1974:135 for an overview.
85 MR after 3.19(72), iha khalv arthaśāstrakārās trividhāṃ siddhim upavarṇayanti.
86 MR after 5.7(115), iha khalv arthaśāstravyavahāriṇām arthavaśād arimitrodāsīnavyavasthā. See note 291 on page 86 for further details and translation.
87 Seven occurrences altogether in Sanskrit and Prakrit, as opposed to merely two occurrences of nīti in conjunction with the genitive of a word standing for Cāṇakya.
88 This suggestion was raised, on the basis of one particular instance of the compound cāṇakyanīti in the MR, by CHARPENTIER 1923:590n1. OLIVELLE (2013:8) speculates that the title of Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra before its
in particular: Cāṇakya describes his friend Viṣṇuśarman89 as proficient in the judicial lore of Uśanas.90 Uśanas seems to have been an ancient authority on justice. According to the Mahābhārata, the god Brahmā had written a massive treatise on polity, which was abridged several times, resulting ultimately in two epitomes by Bṛhaspati and Uśanas.91 Bṛhaspati is also the name of the planet Jupiter and the guru of the gods; similarly, Uśanas is often identified with Śukra, the planet Venus and the guru of the asuras. The Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa92 also mentions Śukra and Bṛhaspati as authors of treatises on statecraft. The latter name appears in the Mudrārākṣasa too, where Cāṇakya once applauds Rākṣasa, com-paring him to Bṛhaspati.93 The Arthaśāstra as we know it begins with an invocation to Śukra and Bṛhaspati, and the body of the treatise repeatedly quotes the opinion of the schools of both Uśanas and Bṛhaspati.
Aside from such reported opinions, the works of these authors do not survive; the extant treatise called Śukranīti is beyond doubt a late text, probably as late as the 19th cen-tury.94 The teachings of Bṛhaspati are quoted so often that much of the content of the lost book ascribed to him has been reconstructed (AIYANGAR 1941). The original treatise of Śukra/Uśanas seems to have dealt mostly with criminal justice (daṇḍanīti),95 while Bṛhas-pati’s main topic appears to have been the procedure of law (vyavahāra), or at least this is the topic on which he is most often quoted by later authors (AIYANGAR 1941:71).
Terminological agreements with arthaśāstra literature are far too numerous in Viśākhadatta’s text to discuss here.96 Indeed, he uses the jargon so instinctively—even in contexts that do not require it—that this seems to have been his own parlance,97 used in everyday matters as well as in penmanship. This lends credit to the assumption based on the titles of his forebears98 that he was a member of the political elite of his times. There are also a number of textual correspondences beyond the level of terminology between
śāstric redaction (see note 39 on page 99) may have been simply Daṇḍanīti.
89 Or Induśarman; see note 221 on page 133.
90 After MR 1.14, sa cauśanasyāṃ daṇḍanītau … paraṃ prāvīṇyam upagataḥ.
91 MBh 12 (Śāntiparvan) 59.28–29 and 90–91. See also KANE 1930:110 for further references to Uśanas as an authority.
92 Buddhacarita 1.46, reported by KANE 1930:124.
93 After MR 1.12, sādhu amātyarākṣasa sādhu. sādhu mantribṛhaspate sādhu.
94 See GOPAL 1962 for a detailed argument. KANE (1930:111) also notices two partial manuscripts called Auśanasa-dharmaśāstra.
95 As shown for instance by the MR reference cited in note 90 above; see also AŚ 1.2.6-7, daṇḍanītir ekā vidyety auśanasāḥ. tasyāṃ hi sarvavidyārambhāḥ pratibaddhā iti.
96 CHARPENTIER (1923:590n1) was probably the first to point out specific loci in the Mudrārākṣasa where such technical terms occur. DEVASTHALI (1948:105, 145n35) lists many more.
97 For instance, verbal and nominal derivatives of the prefixed verbal root abhi-√yuj occur no less than 25 times in the play (13 of these instances are the noun abhiyoga; the rest are participles, agentives and finite verbs). In the AŚ (as well as in the MR) the term is used in a narrow sense for the launching of a campaign against someone, and also in a more general sense for the concentration of attention on something or someone. For comparison, no words derived from this prefix + root combination occur at all in the corpus of the Trivandrum plays, including the politically themed Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa
(http://www.bhasa.indologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/s/abh.html).
98 See page 16ff.
Viśākhadatta’s play and two particular works: the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya and the Nītisāra of Kāmandaka.
The Arthaśāstra
Several of the correspondences with the text of the Arthaśāstra are marked out with iti, suggesting that the characters uttering these sentences are quoting established opinion rather than phrasing their own thoughts. Thus when Malayaketu asks Bhāgurāyaṇa why the courtiers who have (apparently) deserted Candragupta emphasise that they seek to enter Malayaketu’s service with the support of the latter’s general, Bhāgurāyaṇa explains: “Given that an aspirant99 possessed of good personal qualities should be approached through a dear friend of his, this is indeed reasonable.”100 The state-ment echoes the Arthaśāstra, which stipulates that “an expert in worldly matters should seek service with a king through people who are dear to and intimate with him, a king who possesses the exemplary qualities both of the self and of material constituents.”101 The Mudrārākṣasa does not quote the extant Arthaśāstra verbatim, but the congruency—down to the level of individual words—is far too striking to be ascribable to chance. In contrast, a maxim of the Kāmandakīya on the same topic uses quite different words and also omits the crucial point that the approach should be made through a friend of the king’s.102
Another apparent quotation in the Mudrārākṣasa is about three categories of kings. When Candragupta asks Cāṇakya to explain his actions, he answers: “In such mat-ters arthaśāstra authors describe success (siddhi) to be of three kinds, namely: that depend-ing on the kdepend-ing, that dependdepend-ing on the counsellor, and that dependdepend-ing on both.”103 He then bluntly adds that since Candragupta’s success depends on his minister, he had better mind his own business and leave the minister to mind his. Similar terms do appear in the Arthaśāstra, but their meaning appears to be quite different: “Subduing the principal de-pends on the lord, while subduing the dependents dede-pends on the counselors, and subdu-ing the principal and the dependents depends on both.”104 Here the context is not a king’s own success in general, but the success of attempts to neutralise threats coming from an enemy king or the enemy king’s officials. The text of the extant Arthaśāstra is definitely quite opaque (in addition to seeming tautological), so perhaps the passage may be corrupt
99 I use “aspirant” to translate vijigīṣu, literally “one who desires to conquer,” but in the Arthaśāstra basically meaning ruler, as one who aspires to dominate.
100 MR after 4.6(92), vijigīṣur ātmaguṇasaṃpannaḥ priyahitadvāreṇāśrayaṇīya iti nanu nyāyyam evedam.
101 AŚ 5.4.1, lokayātrāvid rājānam ātmadravyaprakṛtisaṃpannaṃ priyahitadvāreṇāśrayeta. Translation from OLIVELLE 2013:264.
102 Nītisāra 5.1, vṛttasthaṃ vṛttasampannāḥ kalpavṛkṣopamaṃ nṛpam| abhigamyaguṇair yuktaṃ severann anujīvinaḥ||
103 MR after 3.19(72), iha khalv arthaśāstrakārās trividhāṃ siddhim upavarṇayanti. tad yathā rājāyattāṃ sacivāyattām ubhayāyattāṃ ceti.
104 AŚ 9.6.7, svāminy āyattā pradhānasiddhiḥ, mantriṣv āyattāyattasiddhiḥ, ubhayāyattā pradhānāyattasiddhiḥ.
Translation from OLIVELLE 2013:363. The terminology also differs: while the MR uses the expression sacivāyattasiddhi and frequently employs saciva as a synonym of mantrin, the AŚ has mantriṣv āyattasiddhi, and the word saciva only occurs once in the entire text (AŚ 7.1.9).
or, if it is genuine, it may have been interpreted differently by Viśākhadatta or whatever intermediate authority he relied on.
That the Mudrārākṣasa uses the expression X-āyattasiddhi in the sense of “[a king]
whose success depends on X” is corroborated beyond doubt by another occurrence of all three of the above categories in the drama.105 When Cāṇakya is (ostensibly) alienated from Candragupta and Rākṣasa suggests that Malayaketu should attack now, the prince asks what is to prevent Candragupta from taking matters in hand personally or appointing an-other minister in Cāṇakya’s place. Rākṣasa replies that a king whose success depends on himself or on both (himself and the minister) might be able to do so, but Candragupta’s success depends on his minister and is entirely ignorant of practicalities.106
Yet another statement in the play with the attributes of a śāstric quote has a not-quite-exact parallel in the Arthaśāstra. The scene is still that of Candragupta calling Cāṇakya to task. When the king asks why his minister allowed Bhadrabhaṭa and his fellows to desert, the latter propounds: “in such cases officials whose loyalty has dwindled can be dealt with in two ways, namely by favour or chastisement.”107 He then goes on to explain why neither would have been beneficial in this particular case. The Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya primarily recommends that such men should be cajoled back into loyalty, and suggests several alternative ways to deal with them if this should fail: “He should regale those who are satisfied with additional money and honors and placate those who are dissatisfied with gifts and conciliatory words so as to make them satisfied. Alternatively, he should divide the latter from each other … If they are still dissatisfied, he should make them the object of hatred … subdue them through silent punishment or a revolt in the countryside.”108 The terms anugraha, “favour” and nigraha, “chastisement” do not appear here, though both are used elsewhere in the Arthaśāstra.
It is also worth noting that while Viśākhadatta above talks about aparakta officials, literally ones who have “fallen out of love” with the king, Kauṭilya’s use of the word atuṣṭa,
“dissatisfied,” is emotionally neutral. Both anurāga, literally “love” used in the sense of
“loyalty” and aparāga, used for loss of loyalty, are important concepts in the Mudrārākṣasa, as reflected by the frequent use of these words and verbal forms derived from the same prefix + root combinations. The Arthaśāstra hardly ever uses the former, but Kauṭilya does recognise the supremacy of the quality of anurāga, using derivatives of anu-√raj frequently
105 Interestingly, the expression also occurs in this sense in the Pariśiṣṭaparvan (8.445, applied to Bindusāra, the son of Candragupta): cāṇakyo ’tha nyadhād rājye bindusāraṃ susāradhīḥ| sacivāyattasiddhiś ca tadājñākṛd babhūva saḥ||
106 MR after 4.12(98), svāyattasiddhiṣūbhayāyattasiddhiṣu vā bhūmipāleṣv etat saṃbhavati. candraguptas tu durātmā nityaṃ sacivāyattasiddhāv evāvasthitaś cakṣurvikala ivāpratyakṣasarvalokavyavahāraḥ katham iva svayaṃ pratividhātuṃ samarthaḥ syāt?
107 MR after 3.24(77), nanv ihāparaktānāṃ prakṛtīnāṃ dvividhaṃ pratividhānaṃ tad yathānugraho nigrahaś ceti.
108 AŚ 1.13.17–20, atuṣṭāṃs tuṣṭihetos tyāgena sāmnā ca prasādayet. parasparād vā bhedayed enān … tathāpy atuṣyato
… janapadavidveṣaṃ grāhayet. … upāṃśudaṇḍena janapadakopena vā sādhayet. Translation from OLIVELLE 2013:81.
and stating on two separate occasions that “every strategy is encompassed in loyalty.”109 This maxim—apparently quoted as a proverb in the Arthaśāstra too—is at the very core of the Mudrārākṣasa, expressed in verse 1.14 at the beginning of the play.110
While the Arthaśāstra has little room for popular maxims of this sort, the Mudrā-rākṣasa has much more, and perhaps Viśākhadatta has created some aphorisms out of statements of the Arthaśāstra. Where the Arthaśāstra enjoins kings to be neither too strict, nor too lenient with punishment with the words, “one who punishes severely terrifies the people, and one who punishes softly is treated with contempt,”111 Viśākhadatta goes a step further. Using very similar terminology, he talks about the attitude of Śrī, royal fortune personified as a goddess, to the monarch rather than the attitude of the subjects, saying
“she is terrified of the severe but will not stay with the soft for fear of contempt.”112
The Nītisāra
The above verse of the Mudrārākṣasa continues with a comparison of Śrī to a cour-tesan whose favours are hard to win. Such personifications of Royal Fortune are quite com-mon in the Nītisāra of Kāmandaka, a much “softer” text than Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra. For instance, it suggests that Śrī should be dragged by her hair and forced to submit, like a faithless woman.113 In another version of the metaphor, it adds that the hand by which Lady Fortune’s hair must be grasped is policy.114 A very similar image is also found in the Mudrārākṣasa, a verse of which talks about the goddess’s body (or statue) bound in one place by the ropes of Kauṭilya’s intellect, but dragged toward another by hands that are Rākṣasa’s stratagems.115 Another adage that occurs in notably similar form in the Kāmanda-kīya and the Mudrārākṣasa is the statement that a minister is responsible for his king’s mis-demeanour just as an elephant’s rampage is the fault of its trainer.116 The Nītisāra also de-clares that a king must control his heirs warily, for as soon as they see an opportunity, they will exploit it to kill the king as lion cubs kill their guard.117 Correspondingly, Rākṣasa in the Mudrārākṣasa once remarks that Candragupta, like a tiger cub, destroyed Nanda who had nourished him.118
109 AŚ 7.5.14 and 8.2.24, anurāge sārvaguṇyam. See OLIVELLE 2013:661n7.5.14 for the interpretation of sārvaguṇyam as “all strategies.”
110 See page 193 for the text of this verse and page 166 for a similar notion in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa.
111 AŚ 1.4.8–9, tīkṣṇadaṇḍo hi bhūtānām udvejanīyo bhavati. mṛdudaṇḍaḥ paribhūyate. Translation based on OLIVELLE 2013:69.
112 MR 3.5(58), tīkṣṇād udvijate mṛdau paribhavatrāsān na saṃtiṣṭhate.
113 Nītisāra 14.11, vaśe śriyaṃ sadotthāyī saiṃhīṃ vṛttiṃ samāśritaḥ| kacagraheṇa kurvīta durvṛttām iva yoṣitam||
114 Nītisāra 10.40, nayāgrahastena hi kālam āsthitaḥ prasahya kurvīta kacagrahaṃ śriyaḥ.
115 MR 2.3(31) kauṭilyadhīrajjunibaddhamūrtiṃ manye sthirāṃ mauryakulasya lakṣmīm| upāyahastair api rākṣasena vyākṛṣyamāṇām iva lakṣayāmi||
116 Nītisāra 4.47, madodvṛttasya nṛpateḥ saṅkīrṇasyeva dantinaḥ| gacchanty anyāyavṛttasya netāraḥ khalu vācyatām||
Compare MR 3.32(85), sa doṣaḥ sacivasyaiva yad asat kurute nṛpaḥ| yāti yantuḥ pramādena gajo vyālatvavācyatām|| See also page 200.
117 Nītisāra 7.4, 7.4, rakṣyamāṇā yadi cchidraṃ kathañcit prāpnuvanti te| siṃhaśābā iva ghnanti rakṣitāram asaṃśayam||
118 MR 2.9(37), iṣṭātmajaḥ sapadi sānvaya eva devaḥ śārdūlapotam iva yaṃ paripuṣya naṣṭaḥ.
All these correspondences with the Nītisāra seem to be proverbial statements in both and may have been used by the authors of both texts independently. Yet the more likely explanation in my opinion is that Viśākhadatta was familiar with Kāmandaka’s trea-tise and used some of his maxims in his play, possibly without even thinking of where he is borrowing from. The stock metaphors of arthaśāstra literature, just like its terminology, were probably Viśākhadatta’s daily bread. The converse possibility, namely that it was Kāmandaka who had known the Mudrārākṣasa before composing his Nītisāra, is in my opin-ion not likely. Viśākhadatta is obviously the greater poet of the two, and if Kāmandaka had borrowed from him, he would probably have retained more of Viśākhadatta’s word choices and more details of the latter’s more elaborate images.
The verse about Śrī flinching from a harsh king but despising a soft one shows that our playwright treated Kauṭilya’s text in the same way, picking up images and altering them slightly, usually by adding further detail. As for the non-metaphorical arthaśāstra content that he appears to quote, but presents in a form not quite identical to Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra, I see two possible explanations. One is that Viśākhadatta is citing a text that is now lost (or at least not known to me), but is very close in content to the Arthaśāstra. Such a text may have been a different recension of Kauṭilya’s text than the one we know, a com-mentary, or an epitome. The alternative explanation for Viśākhadatta’s not-quite-accu-rate “quotes” is the same notion that I have proposed earlier in this section: that the poet had internalised arthaśāstra tenets to the extent that he used them as his own.
Nonetheless, the similarities extending down to the level of words make it rea-sonably certain that Viśākhadatta did actually know both the Nītisāra of Kāmandaka and the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya (if perhaps in a form slightly different from the extant one).
This is another piece of circumstantial evidence for the date of the dramatist, though it does not narrow down the available age bracket to any significant extent. If Kāmandaka indeed flourished in the reign of Candragupta II, then Viśākhadatta must have been his contemporary or later than him.119 As for the Arthaśāstra, OLIVELLE (2013:51) points out that while the text was held in very high regard during the Gupta age, its prominence seems to have dwindled and the text appears to have been forgotten altogether by the late eighth century.120 This is yet another indication that whenever Viśākhadatta lived, he was prob-ably earlier than Avantivarman of Kashmir.
119 My subjective thought on this is that if Kāmandaka and Viśākhadatta had been colleagues in Candragupta’s court, then correspondences between their texts would be more numerous and conspicuous.
120 The latest dateable author who seems to have known it was Daṇḍin, working around 700 CE in south India;
Medhātithi, who probably wrote his commentary on the Manusmṛti in ninth-century Kashmir (KANE 1930:269–270, 275), did not have access to it (OLIVELLE 2013:52).