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Mudrarakshasa

Sanskrit play by Vishakhadatta

Summary

Sanskrit play by Vishakhadatta

Field	Value
name	Mudrārākṣasa
writer	Vishakhadatta
characters	{{plainlist
mute
setting	Pataliputra, 3rd century BCE
orig_lang	Sanskrit
genre	Indian classical drama

Chandragupta Maurya
Chanakya
Rakshasa
Malayketu, son of Parvataka
Parvata

The Mudrārākshasa (मुद्राराक्षस, IAST: Mudrārākṣasa, ) is a Sanskrit-language play by Vishakhadatta that narrates the ascent of the Emperor Chandragupta Maurya ( BCE) to power in India. The play is an example of creative writing, but not entirely fictional. It is dated variously from the late 4th century to the 8th century CE.

Characters

Chandragupta Maurya, one of the protagonists
Chanakya, one of the protagonists
Rakshasa, the main antagonist
Malayketu, the son of Parvataka and one of the henchmen
Parvataka, a greedy king who firstly supported Chandragupta but later changed his preference to Dhana Nanda
Vairodhak
Durdhara, wife of Chandragupta Maurya
Bhadraketu
Chandandasa
Jeevsidhhi

Adaptations

There is a Tamil version based on the Sanskrit play and Keshavlal Dhruv translated the original into Gujarati as Mel ni Mudrika (1889). There is a Kannada version of the play Mudramanjusha written by Kempunarayana.

The later episodes of the TV series Chanakya were based mostly on the Mudrarakshasa.

; Feature film

A film in Sanskrit was made in 2006 by Dr Manish Mokshagundam, using the same plot as the play but in a modern setting.

Editions

. Second edition 1893, Fifth edition 1915. Sixth edition 1918, reprinted 1976 and by Motilal Banarsidass, 2000.
. Reprint 2004, First edition 1900
Review
(In Telugu script, with Telugu introduction and commentary) Another version
. Originally published as part of Three Sanskrit plays (1981, Penguin Classics).

References

Citations

Sources

References

Romila Thapar. (2013). "The Past Before Us". Harvard University Press.
Manohar Laxman Varadpande. (1 September 2005). "History Of Indian Theatre". Abhinav Publications.
Upinder Singh. (1 September 2008). "A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century". Pearson Education India.
(1885). "Mudrarakshasam: A tale in Tamil founded on the Sanskrit drama". Madras School Book and Vernacular Literature Society.
(24 April 2009). "mudrarakshasa promo - sanskrit film".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

sanskrit-plays ancient-indian-culture works-about-chandragupta-maurya plays-set-in-the-4th-century-bc plays-set-in-india cultural-depictions-of-kings cultural-depictions-of-indian-people indian-plays-adapted-into-films buddhist-plays ancient-indian-dramas works-about-chanakya

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