Languages and Dialects in Śūdraka’s Mrcchakaṭika

Dr.C.Rajendran
Sanskrit drama yields a lot of interesting sociolinguistic data of the
Indian subcontinent unavailable from any other source. In fact, due to
the absence of any other records of the past speech habits, it is often
the sole witness of the multilingual practices of a vast region in the
bygone era. It is also interesting to note that classical Sanskrit drama
preserves an approximation of the colloquial language while classical
poetry and prose romance have a more stylized expression strongly
suggestive of literary culture and conventions. Of course it is true that
even in drama the language used will be literary and hence not exactly
the actual language/dialect suggested by the nomenclature.
Nevertheless the fact remains that the linguistic analysis of drama will
throw some light on societal practices or at least on sociolinguistic
perceptions of the times. Different characters are assigned different
dialects of Prakrit on the basis of their gender and social stature in
seminal texts on dramaturgy like the Nāṭyaśāstra and the prescriptions
in treatises are followed in actual practice by various playwrights. The
very selection of certain dialects/languages for certain types of
characters implies a sociological hierarchy the dynamics of which has
to be analysed to understand perception of society as reflected in
ancient Indian drama. The very fact that playwrights of ancient India
thought it necessary to use many languages and dialects in their plays
is a pointer to the underlying social realities from which the drama
owes its origin.
The present paper will explore the factors responsible for the choice of
Sanskrit and Prakrit dialects assigned to specific characters in
Mrcchakaṭika, a play called Prakaraṇa assigned to King Śūdraka. One
problem which encounters us at the outset is the fact that the play
intriguingly betrays strong resemblance with the four act play
Daridracārudatta ascribed to Bhāsa. In fact, all the four acts of the play
are almost identical with the corresponding acts of the Bhāsa play
which prompted A.K.Warder to remark that the former is ‘simply an
expansion of Bhāsa’s play, with a great deal of new matter inserted
and the old paraphrased and sometimes copied almost verbatim’ 1.
However, the fact remains that there is no other Sanskrit play which
parades a multitude of Prakrit dialects other than Mrcchakaṭika. Apart
from Sanskrit, the languages/dialects used include Śaurasenī,
Āvantikā, Prācyā, Śākārī, Dhakkī, Cānḍālī, and Māgadhī. Śūdraka
seems to have been an Ābhīra king who ruled from Vidiśā after the
second quarter of the third century AD. 2 So we will not be much far
removed from truth if we surmise that the play represents the
multilingual practices of Sanskrit drama in the 3rd century A.D.

1
Warder, Indian Kavya literature,Vol II.p.307
2
Warder, Indian Kavya literature,Vol III p.4

1
 It is the language spectrum of early post-Vedic period of India with the
archaic Vedic language, used for rituals at one end and the spoken
dialects of Prakrit at the other, with Classical Sanskrit occupying the
position midway between them which is codified in dramaturgical texts
like the Nāṭyaśāstra and represented in Sanskrit drama. It is this post-
Mauryan language scenario which is reflected in works like Nāṭyaśāstra
and the preserved Sanskrit plays, which attest to the presence of a
variety of spoken dialects of Prakrit side by side with Sanskrit. In the
words of V.Raghavan,

The higher characters speak Sanskrit, the lesser ones,

women, higher as well as lower speak the Prakrits. …..This free
use of Prakrit in Sanskrit is so prominent that a recent scholar,
who has worked out the comparative extant of the Prakrits used
asks in one of his papers , How far is a Sanskrit play Sanskrit? Be
that as it may, the use of Prakrit in Sanskrit drama is a real
pointer to its antiquity as it refers to an age during which servants
and others who spoke Prakrit, easily followed the Sanskrit of
higher characters with whom they directly conversed. The
situation is only somewhat more pronounced in a play in English,
in which , along with the standard idiom, colloquial slang may also
be used , according to the social status of the characters.3

The Nāṭyaśāstra seems to have regarded the linguistic spectrum

consisting of Sanskrit and Prakrit as a continuum, with classical
Sanskrit at one end and the literary Prakrits at the other. This is
evident from its description of Āryabhāṣā which it explains as the
language of kings as consisting of Sanskrit and Prakrit. 4 Āryabhāṣā is
distinguished from ‘Atibhāṣā,’ the language assigned to Gods,
which, according to Abhinavagupta has a profusion of Vedic words
which the former does not have.5.The other major varieties
mentioned in Nāṭyaśāstra are Jātibhāṣā, the language of 'castes'
and yonyantarabhāṣā, which appears to be the stylised language for
animals. The fact that Nāṭyaśāstra attests to the presence of
foreign words in the ordinary language is clear from the distinction it
makes between Jātibhāṣā mixed with foreign (mleccha) words and
its purer form confined to the Indian subcontinent described as
Bhāratavarṣa. 6

Social and gender status seems to be one of the criteria adopted

in the Nāṭyaśāstra in the assignment of Sanskrit and Prakrit to various

3
Sanskrit Drama in Performance in Sanskrit Drama in Performance Ed.Rachel Van Baumer and James
R.Brandon, p.25
4
XVII.32
5
XVII. 27
6
XVII.27

2
characters. Evidently, the pride of the place is given to Sanskrit, which
is assigned to four types of heroes, viz. Dhīrodātta, Dhīralalita,
Dhīroddhata and Dhīraśānta. It is significant that the usage of Sanskrit
is forbidden in respect of even noble people who did not have an
opportunity to learn Sanskrit due to poverty, lack of exposure, or other
accidental reasons. Evidently Sanskrit seems to be looked upon as a
language to be acquired through education, rather than a mother-
tongue acquired naturally. Even a king who is of a lower caste of Śūdra
by birth seems to have the freedom to speak Sanskrit as testified by
the fact that Candragupta Maurya, the lower caste (Vṛsala) king of
Mudrārākṣasa speaks only Sanskrit. Conversely, the Vidūṣaka of the
Sanskrit play, who is a Brahmin by birth, speaks only Prakrit as a rule.
Sanskrit is also the language of wandering mendicants, sages, Śākyas,
Kṣatriyas, ascetics etc. Women were not generally expected to speak
in Sanskrit. However, the fact remains that women are also sometimes
privileged to speak Sanskrit, and these include queens, courtesans,
and artisans, the exemption granted to them being connected with
their status and profession.7Again , a queen sometimes can speak
Sanskrit since she has to understand the strategies of peace and war,
as well as the planetary positions, omens, etc. which affect the king.
The list of people speaking Prakrit given in the text is extremely
ambiguous, but it definitely includes women, people of low castes,
Buddhist mendicants(Śramaṇas) beggars, etc. who occupy a low
position in the social hierarchy. However, even heroes can sometimes
speak Prakrit if occasion warrants its usage and this prescription
suggests that no stigma is attached to Prakrit as such. Nāṭyaśāstra
mentions seven dialects, viz. Māgadhī, Avantijā, Prācyā, Śaurasenī,
Ardhamāgadhī, and Bāhlīkī, (Vāhīkī ?), without specifying that they are
varieties of Prakrit. Abhinavagupta explains these as vernaculars
(Deśabhāşā).

Among the dialects of Prakrit mentioned in Nāṭyaśāstra, Māgadhī

was the standard dialect as well as the language of administration of
the empire of Magadhā, which held sway over North India as well as
some portions of South India from 500 to 200 BC. Māgadhī is the
language assigned to people frequenting the harem, which means
people like eunuchs, snātakas and chamberlains. According to
Deshpande, Māgadhī, which was once the most prestigious language
became a low class language in Sanskrit drama due to the loss of
power of the Magadhā region and the rise of other power centres in
ancient India after the fall of the Mauryan Empire8.

The Ardhamāgadhī mentioned in Nāṭyaśāstra is identical with the

7
XVII.39
8
Sanskrit and Prakrit:Some Sociolinguistic Issues,p.15

3
modified form of the Māgadhī dialect used by Jainas, which represents
a later stage of the Middle Indo-Aryan than Pali. This dialect is assigned
to menials, princes and merchants, but this is not confirmed by actual
practice in dramas which do not retain any trace of Ardhamāgadhī.
Avantijā dialect is assigned to rogues (dhūrtas) by Nāṭyaśāstra and
Mārkaṇḍeya considers it to be a mixture of Mahārāṣṭrī and Śaurasenī .9
Dākṣiṇātya is the language assigned to soldiers, Nāgaras (?) etc. But
according to Mārkaṇḍeya it is not an independent language at all,
since it does not have any distinctive characteristics 10. The Bāhlīka
dialect, assigned to northerners also poses problems of identification.
Among the Vibhāṣas mentioned by Nāṭyaśāstra, Śākāri assigned to
Śakāra (the brother-in-law of the king), announcers, black-smiths,
hunters, wood workers and mechanics, is actually traceable to
Māgadhī . The Ābhīrī and Śābarī are assigned to people who live in the
proximity of elephants, goats, etc. and Drāviḍī to foresters. It is not
possible for us to ascertain the historical sources of such prescriptions
for want of evidences.

The Nāṭyaśāstra refers also to the dialectical features of four

geographical divisions of the country, viz. the region between Ganges
and Ocean, Vindhyā and Ocean, Saurāṣṭra, Āvantī etc. and Himālaya,
Sindhu, and Sauvīra, which represent the East, South, West and North
respectively. The hallmarks of these languages are said to be the
preponderance of the e sound, na sound, ca sound, and u sound
respectively, but nothing specific can be gathered from this statement.

The Mrcchakaṭika even when more or less faithfully following the

linguistic prescriptions of Nāṭyaśāstra shows great innovativeness and
spontaneity in its linguistic resources. In fact, one remarkable feature
of the play is the self reflexiveness of the work in relation to problems
of language. This is in stark contrast with Daridracārudatta, which
seems to be the former’s source, if we go by the opinion of the
majority of scholars who have worked on their relative chronology.
While Daridracārudatta is mostly silent about linguistic questions, the
same cannot be said of Mrcchakaṭika. In fact, many socio linguistic
attitudes are implicit in casual remarks of some of the characters of the
latter .For example, the work seems to reiterate the condescending
attitude of male speakers of Sanskrit towards women handling the
same language. This can be gathered from the remark of Maitreya, the
jester who declares that he is amused by women speaking Sanskrit
and men singing in shrill voice. He maintains that men singing look
like an aged priest, encircled with dry flower garlands chanting hymns;
women speaking Sanskrit produce profuse ‘su-su ’ sounds like a cow

9
See Pischel, A grammar of the Prakrit Languages, p.32
10
Ibid,p.33

4
who has had a delivery once and whose nostrils are bound by a
string.11This remark indicates that women speaking Sanskrit were
indeed rare and objects of curiosity and amusement. In another
context, Candanaka, a royal guard admits that as a southerner, he is
of inarticulate speech , being familiar with the outlandish speeches of
a variety of foreign (Mleccha)linguistic groups like, Khasa, Khatti,
Khaḍā, Khaṭho, Viḍa, Karṇāṭa, Karṇa, Prāvaraṇa, Drāviḍa, Cola, Cīna ,
Barbara, Khera, Khāna, Mukha, and Madhukhāta, though it is very
difficult to identify some of theses linguistic groups.

Let us at the outset have a closer looks at the dialects assigned to

various characters in Mrcchakaṭika. The Sanskrit speaking characters
include Cārudatta, the hero, the Vita, the parasite, Āryaka, who is the
royal claimant and Sarvilka, the burglar who is a Brahmin. Both birth
and profession seem to have been the criteria for the assignment of
Sanskrit to these characters, though there are still some unanswered
questions. Cārudatta the hero , who is a Brahmin by birth,
understandably speaks Sanskrit though Maitreya, his jester friend is
not assigned Sanskrit despite being a Brahmin because of the fact that
he is more or less illiterate as in the case of other jester characters in
Sanskrit plays. The Parasite, (Viṭa) who is learned and who has to
resort to the ignoble profession of a helper to Śakāra, the wicked
brother in law of the king, due to his poverty speaks Sanskrit.
Śarvilaka, though a thief due to the force of circumstances is a
Brahmin by birth and hence assigned Sanskrit. It is interesting to note
that he is a ‘pious’ thief and makes the appropriate benedictory
prayers at the commencement of his job. Again, Āryaka, who is noble
by birth and destined to be the king also, understandably speaks
Sanskrit throughout. It is interesting that Mrcchakaṭika is one of the
very few plays in which a lady speaks Sanskrit , as is seen when
Vasantasenā, the heroine, who is a courtesan and who ordinarily
speaks Śaurasenī Prakrit switches over to Sanskrit on her visit to the
house of Cārudatta, the hero. It may be recalled that courtesans in
ancient India were accomplished women of high social stature who
were also educated and proficient in various arts and crafts. To find
another woman speaking Sanskrit, we have to look at Paṇḍitakauśikī,
the learned ascetic lady in Kālidāsa’s Mālavikāgnimitra.
There are large number of characters who speak Śaurasenī. Śaurasenī,
which is 'the basic Prakrit used in the drama' was originally the dialect
of Mathurā, the Eastern Kusāṇa capital. According to Nāṭyaśāstra , this
is the language of the heroines and their friends in Sanskrit drama.
According to Pṛthvīdhara, there are eleven characters in the play who
speak Śaurasenī in the play. They are, the stage manger (Sūtradhāra),
actress appearing in the prologue (Naṭī), Radanikā, Madanikā,

11
Mrcchakaṭika , p.185

5
Vasantasenā, her mother, attendant (Ceṭī), Karnapūraka,
Cārudatta’s wife, Śodhanaka, and the Śreṭhin. The Sūtradhāra, who is
usually supposed to speak Sanskrit switches over to the Śaurasenī
dialect of Prakrit in the course of his address with the preface that he is
going to speak in Prakrit due to exigency(kāryavasāt) and the
requirements of performance (prayogavaśāt ) .12 It may be recalled
that in Daridracārudatta, his counterpart speaks Prakrit throughout.
According to Pṛthvīdhara, there are two characters who speak Āvantī
in the play. They are the two constables Candanaka and Vīraka
.However, Candanaka claims that his speech is somewhat different
from that of Vīraka. As a southerner, he is of inarticulate speech, being
familiar with the ‘foreign’(Mleccha) speeches of a variety of linguistic
groups .The dialect assigned by Pṛthvīdhara to Maitreya, the jester is
Prācya. Prācya is derived from Śaurasenī by Mārkaṇḍeya and the
differences between the two are meager and mostly lexicographical.
There are numerous characters in the play who speak Māgadhī.
According to Pṛthvīdhara, those who speak Māgadhī include
Samvāhaka, and the attendants of Śakāra, Vasantasenā, and
Cārudatta, the Buddhist mendicant and Rohasena, the young child of
Cārudatta. It can be seen that all these characters except Rohasena
are inferior in stature in comparison with the characters who speak
Śaurasenī. There are historical reasons behind the relegation of
Māgadhī to an inferior position in Sanskrit drama. In fact, Māgadhī was
one of the most prestigious dialects of Prakrit in the early times. The
Pāli tradition of Buddhism makes the claim that Māgadhī dialect of
Prakrit is the original language of all beings (sabbasattānām
mūlabhāṣā). The same tradition claims that Buddha spoke Māgadhī.
Indeed, Māgadhī was the language of Pāṭalīputra, the capital of
Emperor Aśoka who elevated it to the position of the administrative
language under his rule. The language used by Aśoka in his edicts was
also Māgadhī, which, again was used by Buddhist missionaries who had
gone to Ceylon. Sanskrit was not accorded any privileged position in
early Buddhism and Buddha is supposed to have turned down the
request of his disciples of Brahmin origin that they may be granted
permission to render his words into Sanskrit to avoid corruption. But
the prestige enjoyed by Māgadhī received a serious set-back after the
fall of the Mauryan Empire. It came to represent the Prakrit language
used by minions and lower class people in Sanskrit drama while
Śaurasenī gained prestige as a language of upper strata.

A peculiar dialect used in Mrcchakaṭika is called Śākārī, spoken

by Śakāra, who is the brother in law of the king. According to
Pṛthvīdhara, this is a language falling under Apabhramśa. It may be
recalled that Nāṭyaśāstra refers to a list of languages which it calls
Vibhāṣas( sub languages). This includes languages of Śakāras,
12
Mrcchakatika, p.20

6
 Ābhīras, Caṇḍālas, Śabaras, Dramilas and Āndhras. In this connection,
it is also worth noting that Daṇḍin, in his Kāvyādarśa refers to the
tongue of Ābhīras etc. as instances of Apabhramśa in literature. Keith
remarks that the Śākārī dialect used in Mrcchakaṭika is ‘nothing more
or less than Māgadhī ’.13However, the fact remains that the dialect of
Śakāra, with preponderance of the sibilant Śa sound has a distinct
flavor of its own, which has been exploited by the playwright to the hilt
to secure humorous effects.

Pṛthvīdhara points out that the dialect spoken by two outcastes

( Caṇḍālas)who lead the hero to the execution ground is Caṇḍālī. Here
again, Keith maintains that it is just another version of Māgadhī. The
dialect spoken by Māthura and Dyūtakara, the two dice players,
according to Pṛthvīdhara is Dhakkā .Keith believes that it should
probably be called Takki or Takki. Opinions vary about its identity
According to Pischel, it is an eastern dialect while Grierson takes it to
be a western dialect. 14

An interesting problem discussed by scholars like centers round

Mrcchakaṭika is the relative scarcity of Mahārāṣṭrī Prakrit. It was Keith
who maintained that the play totally ignores Mahārāṣṭrī Prakrit. He
refers skeptically to the view of Konow who points out that it was
Śūdraka who introduced Mahārāṣṭrī to Sanskrit drama15. But as
pointed out by Woolner, not less than three songs in the play are in
Mahārāṣṭrī 16.According to Warder, the association of Śūdraka with
Aśmaka dynasty and the Sātavāhanas is probably confirmed by the
fact that he is the first dramatist known to use Mahārāṣṭrī in a play17.

As indicated at the outset, it is obvious that the dialects assigned

to various characters in the play do not represent actual state of
affairs of the world .The place names suggested by various dialects
may give some clues to their origin; but in the literary use of Prakrit
in drama, they are nothing but some identification tags serving some
stylistic effects18. Having said that, it is worth mentioning that even in
this pan regional literary representation, the various dialects did serve
some sociolinguistic function in indicating the social stature , gender
and educational accomplishments of the characters. Their
nomenclature also is of great historical interest since dialects of any
given language are related to certain places of the language region, at
least in their origin. For want of other evidences, the Sanskrit drama

13
The Sanskrit drama, p.142.
14
Ibid, p.142
15
Ibid, p141.
16
Introduction to Prakrit,pp.121-122
17
Indian Kavya literature, Vol II, p.4.
18
See Pollock, op.cit. pp.95-96

7
acquires great importance as the sole evidence of the multilingual
resources of ancient India and need not be summarily rejected in
sociolinguistic discussions.
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Bhate, Saroja ‘Language of Sanskrit Drama’ Samskrtavimarsa, World
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Deshpande, M Sanskrit and Prakrit: Some Sociolinguistic Issues, Motilal
Banarsidass Delhi, 1993
The Nāṭyaśāstra with Abhinavabhāratī Ed Acharya Madhusudan
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Pischel,R A Grammar of the Prakrit Languages (Tr.) Subhadra Jha,
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Kale, M.R Mrchhakatika of Sudraka with the commentary of
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Rachel Van Baumer and James R.Brandon,( Ed). Sanskrit Drama in
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Warder, A.K Indian Kavya Literature, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1977
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