Mallikamakarandanatakam

Author(s): Ramchandra Mahakavi, Punyavijay
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Mallikāmakaranda
Mallika-Makaranda answers this description. The subject-matter is, as will be evident from the detailed summary of the plot given above, not drawa from the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahabhārata or mythology. It is at once novel and invented by the poet. The hero, Makaranda who is a merchant's son and who has lost all his ancestral wealth by gambling and who in the prime of youth frequented prostitutes and who is now full of repentance belongs to the middle class of society. The heroine Mallika is 'manda-kulastri', a lady not of a great family as she happens to be the illegitimate daughter horn of her mother Candralekbā, a Vidyādhara queen and a Kirāta youth. The ruling sentiment of the play is the spontaneous love at first sight between Mallikā and Makaranda and after undergoing many hardships, calamities and almost unsurmountable obstacles the two lovers are united. Naturally, the erotic sentiment prevails throughout the play and the sentiment of fear, of heroism and the marvellous arising out of a variety of incidents serve only to strengthen the principal erotic sentiment. The play has six acts which accords perfectly with the rule of the Sastra.
It would thus seem that the play fulfils all the requirements of a prakarana,
The Poet's Personality as revealed by his Works Rāmacandra is the reputed author of a hundred works including no less than eleven dramas. When one studies thoroughly and deeply all the writings of a poet one might be able to infer his personality more or less correctly. It may even then be hazardous to infer the man from his works if the author keeps throughout a purely objective attitude. But one will not go far wrong in the case of a self-conscious poet like Bhavabhūti, Rajasekhara or our author, Rāmacandra. An attempt is made here to have a mere glimpse of Rāmacandra's personality from his play Mallika-Mokaranda and the Prologues and the Epilogues of a few other plays of his that are so far published and of his Nāțyadarpaņa (in collaboration with Guņacandra).
Rāmacandra was a devout Jain1 and a devoted pupils of the great Ācārya Hemacandra. He was proficient in the three sciences 3 : Grammar,
1 At the commencement of his works he pays homage to the Jinas or their Speech. 2 He speaks with reverence of his great Acārya :
2767-9410-Afri-F1-enfaufdal
श्रीहेमचन्द्रपादानां प्रसादाय नमो नमः ।। 3 He calls himself Vidyatrayicaņam' in his prologue to Raghuvilāsa, and 'Traividya
Vedin' in the introductory portion of the Natya-darpana-vivarana. The three Vidyās', meant by Rāmacan dra are :
276CSEH-97138-167588- 27; वाग्विलासस्त्रिमार्गो नौ प्रवाह इव जाहनुज: 11