Mrichchhakatika:
Theme of poverty and its effects
Mrichchhakatika, which in the canons of Sanskrit dramaturgy is
known as ‘Prakarana’, ‘a play of invention,’ having drawn the plot from ‘real
life,’ depicts classical Indian culture in its varied richness. Mrichchhakatika
offers deeper insights into the sociocultural fabric of the contemporary society
as defined by its politico-economic conditions. Unlike other playwrights; Sudraka preferred to
describe poverty in his play. The hero Charudatta, the gambler Samvahaka, Sarvilaka
the Brahmin who commits burglary, the police officer who lets Aryaka escape are
all poor people. Since the royal patronage nourished the poets of antiquity,
they were unaware of poverty and so they ignored it and extolled the life of the
elite and their luxurious life. Sudraka draws his major characters in the Mrichchhakatika from the lower strata of
society.
Poverty and the effect it has on the psyche of man is
a central theme in Shudraka’s play Mrichchhakatika.
Poverty forces the characters to explore three main life-paths: of being
oriented towards this world, where everything is mediated through power and
money; towards the other world, where the spirit reigns supreme; and towards
another world that can emerge out of this world, through love and politics. Maitreya mentions the days when Charudatta
was wealthy, and then he compares it with the days when he is not. Poverty is
not simply a social state in which Charudatta finds himself, rather it becomes
the very force that derives Charudatta's thought and ideas because in the
entire play he is seen coming back to the fact that he is poor; for everything
that happens to him, he blames his poor condition.Charudatta rues the effect of
poverty because of which everyone, including those that had received his
benevolence and patronage in the past, avoid him like plague. After
experiencing utmost poverty, Charudatta describes it as the sixth sin, after
the ‘panchamahapatakas’. Because of poverty even the
crime of ‘killing’ Vasantasena, was thrust on him saying that he did it for her
ornaments.
However, poverty is the bane of the best of
individuals and though their innate goodness wants to triumph over the
conspiracy of circumstances it puts them through an ordeal.As for Charudatta, the
impoverished situation did not do anything to reduce his wisdom and kindness. Charudatta’s
meditation on poverty, his stoic acceptance of it, and the way he is rewarded
for it eventually is the point of
importance that the play makes.
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