ome a powerful factor in the
social as well as in the moral and intellectual life of the land. It is
the classical period of the Hindu drama, and includes the works of its
two indisputably greatest masters. The earliest extant Sanskrit play is
the pathetic _Mrichchhakat[=i]k[=a]_ (_The Toy Cart_), which has been
dated back as far as the close of the 2nd century A.D. It is attributed
(as is not uncommon with Indian plays) to a royal author, named
S[=u]draka; but it was more probably written by his court poet, whose
name has been concluded to have been Dandin. It may be described as a
comedy of middle-class life, treating of the courtship and marriage of a
ruined Brahman and a wealthy and large-hearted courtesan.

K[=a]lid[=a]sa, the brightest of the "nine gems" of genius in whom the
Indian drama gloried, lived at the court of Ujjain, though whether in
the earlier half of the 6th century A.D., or in the 3rd century, or at a
yet earlier date, remains an unsettled question. He is the author of
_S[=a]kuntal[=a]_--the work which, in the translation by Sir William
Jones (1789), first revealed to the Western world of letters the
existence of an Indian drama, since reproduced in innumerable versions
in many tongues. This heroic comedy, in seven acts, takes its plot from
the first book of the _Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata_. It is a dramatic love-idyll
of surpassing beauty, and one of the masterpieces of the poetic
literature of the world. Another drama by K[=a]lid[=a]sa, _Vikrama and
Urv[=a]s[=i]_ (_The Hero and the Nymph_), though unequal as a whole to
_S[=a]kuntal[=a]_, contains one act of incomparable loveliness; and its
enduring effect upon Indian dramatic literature is shown by the
imitations of it in later plays. (It was translated into English in 1827
by H. H. Wilson.) To K[=a]lid[=a]sa has likewise been attributed a third
play, _M[=a]lavika and Agnimitra_; but it is possible that this
conventional comedy, though held to be of ancient date, was composed by
a different poet of the same name.

To Harsadeva, king of northern India, are ascribed three extant plays,
which were more probably composed by some poet in his pay. One of these,
_Nagananda_ (_Joy of the Serpents_), which begins as an erotic play, but
passes into a most impressive exemplification of the supreme virtue of
self-sacrifice, is notable as the only Buddhist drama which has been
preserved, though others are known to have existed and to have been
represented.

The palm