The Little Clay Cart (Mrcchakatika): The Construction of Gender and Emotion in Act V, “The Storm”

The Little Clay Cart (Mrcchakatika): The Construction of Gender and Emotion in Act V, “The Storm”

Mohan R. Limaye, Emeritus Professor, Boise State University

With the Assistance of Ms. Kim Price, Honors College, Boise State University

Abstract

In Act V of The Little Clay Cart, a Sanskrit play written in India about 1600 years ago, the playwright Shudraka constructs a poetic duet between Vasantasena, the heroine, and a Vita, her male companion, as they walk to the house of her lover Charudatta in a raging storm.  It has been recognized that this verse exchange provides the audience with “a feast for the ear” through a cascade of lyrical and descriptive exuberance. What has not, however, been appreciated is that it also creates an enriched gender-specific persona for Vasantasena and develops more fully the dominant emotion of the play, erotic love. The poetic images and figures of speech employed by Vasantasena and the Vita as they describe the storm portray their differences in gender and mood.  Generally speaking, while Vasantasena expresses her nuanced feelings for Charudatta and the pangs of love in separation, the Vita describes the storm in manly images of power and harsh-sounding syllables.  Shudraka, a skillful dramatist, reveals in Act V more facets of Vasantasena’s personality with all her charm, anxieties, vulnerabilities, and sensuousness than anywhere else in the play, and all of this through her poetic description of the storm.  As a result we, the receptive and appreciative ( rasik and sahrudaya) audience, know her, love her, empathize with her and cherish her all the more.  This is the dramatic and aesthetic significance of the poetic duet between Vasantasena and her Vita.  In the Storm scene, Shudraka thus connects the form with the content and the style with the character.  This is how lyrical poetry in a play can serve a dramatic purpose.