thing has been
hard enough to weary him, nothing small enough to escape him.
And more than all else, I am grateful to him for the opportunity
of publishing in the Harvard Oriental Series; for this series is that
enterprise which, since the death of Professor Whitney, most
honorably upholds in this country the standards of accurate scholarship
set by the greatest of American Sanskritists.

ARTHUR W. RYDER

_Harvard University_

_May 23, 1905_

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The Mrichchhakatika of Sudraka with the commentary of
Prthvidhara. Edited by Kashinath Pandurang Parab. Bombay: Nirnaya-Sagar
Press. 1900. Price 1 Rupee. It may be had of O. Harrassowitz in Leipzig
for 2-1/2 Marks.]

INTRODUCTION

I. THE AUTHOR AND THE PLAY

Concerning the life, the date, and the very identity[2] of
King Shudraka, the reputed author of The Little Clay Cart,
we are curiously ignorant. No other work is ascribed to him, and
we have no direct information about him, beyond the somewhat
fanciful statements of the Prologue to this play. There are, to be
sure, many tales which cluster about the name of King Shudraka,
but none of them represents him as an author. Yet our very lack of
information may prove, to some extent at least, a disguised blessing.
For our ignorance of external fact compels a closer study of
the text, if we would find out what manner of man it was who
wrote the play. And the case of King Shudraka is by no means
unique in India; in regard to every great Sanskrit writer,--so bare
is Sanskrit literature of biography,--we are forced to concentrate
attention on the man as he reveals himself in his works. First, however,
it may be worth while to compare Shudraka with two other
great dramatists of India, and thus to discover, if we may, in what
ways he excels them or is excelled by them.

Kalidasa, Shudraka, Bhavabhuti--assuredly, these are the greatest
names in the history of the Indian drama. So different are these
men, and so great, that it is not possible to assert for any one of
them such supremacy as Shakspere holds in the English drama.
It is true that Kalidasa's dramatic masterpiece, the Shakuntala,
is the most widely known of the Indian plays. It is true that the
tender and elegant Kalidasa has been called, with a not wholly fortunate
enthusiasm, the "Shakspere of India." But this rather exclusive
admiration of the Shakuntala results from lack of information
about the other great Indian dramas. Indeed, i