the similar meditations of spies in the ‘Artha·shastra’ and the self-persuasions and justifications for seizing power (1.16.29 and 6.2.38). Indeed, the list of reasons that justify adultery in the ‘Kama Sutra’ include many that are far more political than erotic (1.5.8–21). And surely the obsessively detailed timetable for the man-about-town’s day in the ‘Kama Sutra’ (“He gets up in the morning, relieves himself, cleans his teeth, applies fragrant oils in small quantities, as well as incense, garlands, bees’ wax and red lac, looks at his face in a mirror, takes some mouth-wash and betel,” etc., 1.4.5) is a satire on the equally detailed plans for the king’s day in the ‘Artha·shastra’ (judge cases, receive embassies, relax in the women’s quarters, etc., 1.19.33).
The ‘Kama Sutra’ shares with the ‘Artha·shastra’ (1.6, 1.17.35–8) its emphasis on the need for the control of the senses: both Vatsyayana and Kautilya would have loved Nixon, hated Clinton. The two texts tell the same myths about the same sinners in this regard: Dandakya, Ravana, Indra (‘Artha·shastra’ 1.15.55; ‘Kama Sutra’ 1.2.35–36). It is surely significant that the author of the best extant English translation of the ‘Artha·shastra,’ R. P. Kangle, also translated ‘The Lady who Shows her Love.’
Bearing this in mind as we return to the question of Harsha’s identity, we can see the coterminous influence of these two great textbooks that justify Henry Kissinger’s notorious insistence that power is the greatest aphrodisiac. Take, for instance, the mysterious prediction that is mentioned at the start of ‘The Lady of the Jewel Necklace’ but not explained until the end, the prediction that anyone who married Ratnavali would conquer the earth. Now consider ________
the map of India. A king in Kanauj who gets, first, nearby Avanti (from Vasava·datta) and then Simhala (from Ratnavali) doesn’t need a magic prediction to tell him what he will have: these two dowries are the whole world, the whole of India. (Consider, too, the political alliances formed by Harsha’s parents and siblings.) A marriage alliance with the ruler of Sri Lanka (Simhala) might not matter so much for, say, the king of Madras/Chennai, but for a north Indian king, Simhala is the end of the world.
Udayana’s conquest of another woman (Sagarika or Aranyika) is actually the conquest of another country, though he doesn’t know it at the time; he wants everything, of course, and he gets it. The jester, as usual saying more than he knows, explicitly compares an erotic conquest with a political one, when he says that the news of a forthcoming rendezvous with Ratnavali will give the king even more pleasure than “his acquisition of the kingdom of Kaushambi gave.” Appeasement is the key to both sex and politics; the same word is used for talking around an offended woman and conciliating a nervous potential enemy. The extreme instance of this comes in Act Four of ‘The Lady who Shows her Love,’ when the king is trying to find a way to get his girlfriend out of the prison that his wife has put her in, and the jester suggests that he simply attack the harem with his elephants and horses and footsoldiers. The king scorns this plan, preferring to do something that will appease the queen rather than, perhaps, kill her, but the jester is simply urging the king to use all the means at his disposal; all’s fair in love and total war. At the start of Act Three of ‘The Lady of the Jewel Necklace,’ Kanchana·mala remarks of the jester, with ________
bitter sarcasm: “Bravo, Prime Minister Vasantaka, bravo! You have surpassed even Prime Minister Yaugandharayana with this plot for war and peace.” The jester’s playful erotic machinations are a direct parallel to the serious political schemes of the real Prime Minister. The jester is the shadow not of the king but of the Machiavellian minister.
A final clue, I think, to the royal nature of the poet lies in the amazing final stanza of both plays, in which Harsha speaks so bitterly about slanderers, a rasa-sentiment of ressentiment coming out of nowhere. What could the slander be? Is it, perhaps, the rumor that the king did not write the plays himself?
History of the Plot
A complex cycle of classical Sanskrit texts surrounds the mythical figures of king Udayana, his queen, Vasava·datta, and a series of co-wives (Doniger 1999: 74–84). A version of the story was also told in Pali in the Dhamma/pad’/attha/ katha, in the fifth century ce. Three episodes are told in the ‘Ocean of the Rivers of Story’ (Katha/sarit/sagara), a text probably composed in the eleventh or twelfth century in Kashmir but based on a much earlier collection of stories, the no longer extant ‘Great Story’ (Brhat/katha), which was almost certainly known to all of the Sanskrit playwrights. One of these three episodes tells of a celestial magician who disguised himself as Udayana and seduced a woman whom Udayana had intended to take as his co-wife [text 1, ‘Ocean of the Rivers of Story’ (31), in which the co-wife is Kalinga·sena]; another tells us that Queen Vasava·datta magically disguised herself and served the woman whom the king ______
intended to make his co-wife, until the king saw through the disguise by means of her skill in the art of garland-making [text 2, ‘Ocean of the Rivers of Story’ (15–16), the co-wife Padmavati]; and, in a third, Udayana became unfaithful and inadvertently called Vasava·datta by the name of her rival, and, later, secretly seduced—while the queen watched in hiding—yet another rival that she had tried in vain to conceal from him [text 3, ‘Ocean of the Rivers of Story’ (14), Virachita]. This cycle of stories was taken up in three Sanskrit dramas, one by Bhasa, who replaced the magic transformations and disguises with a dream sequence [text 4, ‘Vasava·datta in a Dream,’ Padmavati again], and two by Harsha, who replaced them with a portrait of a co-wife, a magic plant fertilizer and a magic show [text 5, ‘The Lady of the Jewel Necklace’], and with a play within a play [text 6, ‘The Lady who Shows her Love’]. We may represent the basic plots of these six texts on a chart:________
Text
Genre
What
conceals
Who is
disguised
What
reveals
1. Ocean of the
Rivers of Story
narrative
magic
magician
sleep
2. Ocean of the
Rivers of Story
narrative
magic
queen
garland/
portrait
3. Ocean of the
Rivers of Story
narrative
disguise
co-wife
slip of the
tongue
4. Vasava·datta
in a Dream
play
disguise
queen
dream/
portrait
5. The Lady of the
Jewel Necklace
play
disguise
co-wife
necklace/
portrait/magic
6. The Lady who
Shows her Love
play
disguise
co-wife
play/magic
The Story in the ‘Ocean of the Rivers
of Stories’ (Katha/sarit/sagara)