The The Vinavasavadatta, which is ascribed by some scholars to the royal dramatist sudraka, is an old Sanskrit drama whose theme has been taken from the popular legends of the Udayana saga, story centres round the capture of Udayana, king of the Vatsa country, by the ruse of an elephant and his being made to instruct his future queen Vasavadatta on the vina (lute). As against other dramas based on the Udayana story like the Pratijna-yaugandhar ayana and Svapnavasavadatta of Bhasa, the Tapasavatsaraja of Mattraja Anangaharsa, Priyadarsika and Ratnavali of Harsa, Abhisarika-vancitaka of Sudraka, Manoramavatsaraja of Bhimata and Lalitaratna-mala of Ksemendra, the vina plays an important role in the present drama, which, on that account has been given the name Vinavasavadatta. Only eight Acts of the drama have yet been recovered and these have been presented before scholars in a critical edition by the present editor.
Natakakatha literature
Unlike poetical and prose composition such as the kavya, katha and akhyayika, the drama, by its very nature, defies direct sequential narration of its theme and has to open at some context in the middle of the plot, presupposing considerable earlier developments which have either to be learnt from external sources or inferred from suggestive references occurring at odd contexts in the course of the drama. Then again, the plots of dramas are, often, complicated, requiring proper linking up of incidents and sequential narration of events for their proper appreciation, Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, presenting the intricate plots of Shakespeare's dramas in the form of cogent narratives, is, obviously, the result of a need for this type of literature. A similar need, has given rise, even during mediaeval times, to the production of nataka-kathas in Sanskrit. Among the popular Sanskrit dramas, the Mudraraksasa of Visakhadatta which has a political theme with a very intricate polt, claims as many as eight such resumes in Sanskrit, viz., (1) Mudraraksasa-purvasankathanaka or M. Purvapithika by Anantapandita (bhatta, sarma), (2) Mudraraksasanalakakatha by Mahadeva, (3) Mudraraksasa-nataka-kathasara, Kautilyakathasara or Canakyakatha by Ravinartaka, (Kuttaniceri Iravi Cakyar), (4) Mudraraksasa-kavya by Vidyaraja, (5-6) two anonymous resumes available in the Anup Sanskrit Library, Bikaner, (7) the metrical resume of the Parvakatha included in the beginning of Dhundiraja's commentary on the Mudraraksasa and (8) another similar resume found prefixed to a ms. of the commentary of the drama by Svamı Sastri. Among resumes of other dramas might be mentioned the Rjulaghvi of Purnasarasvati on the Malatimadhava of Bhavabhiti and the anonymous Ramakatha on the Ascaryacudamani of Saktibhadra, 10 Resumes of Vinavasavadatta
The Vinavasavadatta (Vina.) has, at least, two resumes, one in prose, being the Vinavasavadatta-katha, being edited here, and the other in verse, the Vatsarajacarita (-prabandha) available in the form of independent manuscripts¹¹ or included in collections of similar resumes entitled Slokavali. The latter resume is couched in different metres and begins with the verse:
अस्ति स्वस्तिकरी समस्तजगतामस्तारिविस्तारिता सालास्तम्भिततारकासरमणिप्रासादलम्बाम्बुदा ।
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