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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
The little farce entitled Matta-vilāsa derives a peculiar interest from the personality of its author. For Mahendravikrama-varman (or Mahendra-varman, as he is sometimes called for brevity's sake) was a king of the glorious Pallava dynasty, and one of the most brilliant of his great race.
The founders of the Pallava dynasty seem to have been adventurers of Northern origin, who settled in the Dekkan about the beginning of the Christian era. The dissolution of the Sātavāhana or Āndhra empire about the third century gave the family an opportunity to establish themselves as an independent little power, and they rapidly extended their dominions until they ranked among the greatest states of the South, rivalling the mighty neighbouring kingdoms of the Colas, the Ceras, and the Pāṇḍyas. Their chief capital was Kāñcī or Kāñcī-puram, the modern Conjevaram, in which the scene of the present play is laid. To art, literature, and science they extended a generous and cultured patronage, and many of the noblest monuments of architecture and sculpture in Southern India perpetuate the memory of their splendid era.
page 697 note 1 The name Pallava appears to be a sanskritised form of the Middle Persian Pahlava, i.e. Parthian; hence we may infer that the family sprang from one or more of the Parthian adventurers who entered India during the troubled period of the Scythian invasions, which began about 150 B.C. and continued for several generations. Such immigrants usually became in a short time thoroughly hinduised, and this seems to have been notably the case with the Pallavas.
page 698 note 1 See Epigraphia Indica 4. p. 152, 6. p. 30, 7. p. 149 and App. 623 f., 634 f., 10. p. 2, 4, 9, 12. p. 225, 13. p. 136, 17. p. 14;Google ScholarSouth Indian Inscriptions, 1. p. 29 f.Google Scholar; Archœlogical Survey of India, Ann. Report 1903–4, p. 270 f., 1909, p. 74Google Scholar; Jouveau-Dubreuil, , Pallava Antiquities, 1. p. 24 f., 2. p. 28 f., 38 f.Google Scholar; id., The Pallavas, p. 27 f.Google Scholar; id., Conjeevaram Inscription of Mahêndravarman, 1Google Scholar; Reay, , Pallava Architecture, p. 27Google Scholar; Smith, , Early History of India, p. 472Google Scholar, etc.
page 698 note 2 Possibly it is more than a coincidence that this is also the name of a celebrated Father of the Buddhist Church, the learned protagonist of the Milinda-pañhā.
page 700 note 1 The “Skull-bearer” is the god Śiva, who is represented as wearing a necklace of skulls, and thus is the heavenly prototype of the Kapālin or Skull-bearer named Satyasoma who is the protagonist of this play. Śiva's dance, to which this verse refers, represents the rhythmic course of the universe in all its phases. The words which I have translated “Filling the vessel of the universe” (compare Shakespeare, Henry V, prol. to Act iv, 1. 3) are vyāptāvani-bhājanam; they contain an allusion to the author's title Avani-bhājana (see Introduction, p. 697).
page 700 note 2 This phrase contains two of the author's titles, Matta-vilāsa (“Sport of the Intoxicated One” or “Intoxicated Sporter”) and Guṇa-bhara (“Fullness of Virtues”). See Introduction.
page 701 note 1 Horripilation is often mentioned as a sign of strong emotion, especially pleasure.
page 701 note 2 These are lust, anger, greed, infatuation, wantonness, and envy.
page 701 note 3 The elements are ether, air, fire, water, and earth.
page 701 note 4 The god Indra.
page 701 note 5 Kubera, the god of Wealth.
page 702 note 1 The word tapas, here translated “mortification of the flesh”, means properly “heat”, and especially the magic fervour which ancient magicians, Yogins, Munis, and the like were believed to generate in themselves by Shamanistic exercises and self-torture, in order thereby to obtain control over nature and the gods. But with the school of Śaiva monks represented here by the Kapālin and his wench the “mortification” is something very different, to wit, indulgence in wine, spirits, and sexual pleasures, culminating in a “Supreme Rite” (parama-vrata) of orgiastic revelry.
page 703 note 1 In his drunken confusion the Kapālin addresses Devasomā as Somadevā, whereupon Devasomā (really or in pretence) detects in the latter the name of a rival in her lord's affections, and rails at him accordingly.
page 703 note 2 This word is an ejaculation or sort of blessing supposed to be used by friars of the Kapālin order.
page 703 note 3 The god Śiva.
page 703 note 4 The Jains, or followers of the Arhats or Jinas. The Jains, whose doctrines are travestied in the following verse, hold that the soul is a real eternal entity, distinct from matter, and both pleasure and pain are material (more exactly, effects of matter upon soul); hence soul must be released from the influences of matter by means of the mortifications described below.
page 703 note 5 A common exclamation on hearing mention of some sinful act or speech.
page 704 note 1 The god Kāma (Cupid). He is represented as having a bow of sugar-cane; its string is a line of bees and its five arrows are tipped with flowers.
page 704 note 2 This verse reads like a parody (by anticipation) of Goethe's
Das Unzulängliche,
Hier wird's Ereignis;
Das Unbeschreibliche,
Hier ist es gethan;
Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan.
page 704 note 3 Vāruṇī (literally, daughter of Varuṇa, the god of the ocean) is used to denote among other things any spirituous drink.
page 704 note 4 The post to which the victim was tied.
page 704 note 5 The intoxicating drink, brewed from an unknown plant, which was drunk or offered in the Vedic rituals.
page 704 note 6 The directions for Vedic sacrifices, collectively forming the Yajur-veda.
page 704 note 7 The tunes to which the Vedic hymns were chanted, collectively forming the Sāma-veda.
page 705 note 1 The yajamāna, or person who causes the sacrifice to be performed at his own expense and for his own spiritual benefit.
page 705 note 2 In certain Vedic sacrifices a portion is offered to the god Rudra, one of the phases of Śiva.
page 705 note 3 Brandy; see above.
page 705 note 4 A reference to the well-known myth of the burning of the Love-god Kāma by Śiva when he inflamed the latter with love for Umā. The word for oil, sneha, also means love, and is here used with punning effect.
page 705 note 5 These words are addressed to a supposed woman behind the scenes. Religious mendicants regularly come begging for food, etc., of housewives, and the charity of India is boundless.
page 706 note 1 The Kapālin ought to follow the rule of his fraternity by taking the offered food in his skull-bowl; but as he has lost it, he proposes to use the next best thing, a cow's horn, obeying the “law of times of distress”, āpad-dharma, which permits the relaxation of strict rules under abnormal conditions.
page 706 note 2 Māheśvara means a worshipper of Maheśvara, one of the phases of Śiva. The Māheśvaras formed bodies or corporations who protected the interests of the (Śaiva church and its endowments, dispensed religious charities, etc.; the inscriptions often refer to them.
page 706 note 3 Lakṣaṇa-mātram. But I suspect that we ought to read laksaṇā-mātram, “merely metonymy”: i.e. though the Kapālin or “Skull-bearer” has lost his kapāla or “skull”, he does not cease to be a Kapālin, for the term as applied to him is used not in a literal sense but metonymically (as e.g. when one says “the cot is crying”, meaning that the baby is crying in the cot, or “keep the curds from the crows”, meaning crows and other birds). Our author loves jokes on logic.
page 707 note 1 A title of the Buddha; literally, “he who has gone (or come) accordingly.”
page 707 note 2 A sanctuary of the god Śiva (worshipped there as Ekāmbara-nātha), in or near Conjevaram.
page 708 note 1 Some important schools of Buddhist philosophy distinguished between samvrti-satya, lit. “truth in concealment”, i.e. relative or phenomenal verity, and paramārtha-satya, “absolute” or “transcendental” or “noümenal reality”. The Kapālin jokes on this distinction.
page 708 note 2 The name of a legendary hero and typical arch-rogue, otherwise unknown. It has been suggested that he is identical with Mūladeva or Karṇī-suta, a famous character of this kind in old Indian literature.
page 708 note 3 Vedānta denotes properly the Upanisads, and secondarily the philosophical systems based on the latter. Some important elements of Buddhism have close affinities with certain ideas of the Upanisads. From the Mahābhāratam, the great epic of the Bhārata War, Buddhism borrowed nothing directly, but the Mahābhāratam among its very miscellaneous teachings contains some ideas which partly resemble it.
page 708 note 4 See above, 703.
page 709 note 1 Vīta-rāga, a common epithet for the perfect ascetic
page 709 note 2 The title “son of the Buddha” or “son of the Jina” was often applied to pious Buddhists. Generally speaking, Buddhism denied not the existence of things, but their permanent reality and self-existence; but some schools (Mādhyamikas, etc.) define the highest reality as void.
page 709 note 3 Buddhist monks shave their heads: hence the irate lady finds nothing to seize upon.
page 710 note 1 See above, p. 706.
page 710 note 2 The “taking of the hand”,pāṇi-grahaṇam, forms one of the main acts of the Hindu marriage-ritual, and the term is often used to denote marriage itself; on the latter sense the Kapālin here plays.
page 710 note 3 Sarvajña, a title of the Buddha.
page 710 note 4 Apparently a play on the formula anichcham dukkhaṃ anattaṃ (“all is transient, misery, and unreal”) which is mechanically repeated by Buddhist monks.
page 710 note 5 See above, p. 706.
page 710 note 6 A somewhat cryptic sentence which in the original forms an anuṣṭubh verse, and seems to be a proverbial phrase meaning something like “our bride is no virgin”. The Gandharvas are usually in classical literature amorous godlings especially devoted to music. Originally, however, they were spirits of generation and fertility, Erotes, and as such were supposed to be peculiarly fond of women; hence in Vedic times it was believed that in the first days of every marriage a Gandharva was the rival of the bridegroom and had a droit de seigneur over the bride. So the Pāśupata probably means that Devasomā, is “at her old games”: after various affairs of the heart, she is now flirting with the Buddhist friar. He is himself smitten with her, as he tells us in the following verse, and he is revolving a scheme to win her; he intends to discomfit the Kapālin by supporting the Buddhist, and then no doubt to cut out the latter, whom he describes as a pratihasti (“Hurenwirth” according to the St. Petersburg Lex.).
page 711 note 1 The Buddhist in order to clear himself of the imputations cast upon him repeats five out of the ten “articles of discipline” (śikṣā-padâni, in Pali sikkhā-padâni) from his breviary. The remaining five are abstention from strong drink, worldly amusements, use of ornaments and unguents, use of large or decorated couches, and receiving money.
page 711 note 2 A variation on a frequent Buddhist formula: “I betake myself for refuge to the Buddha … to the Faith … to the Church.”
page 711 note 3 The dialogue in this and the following speeches plays on the terms of logic. The Indian syllogism contains a ‘reason’, hetu, or what we should call a middle term, and an ‘assertion’, pratijñā, which anticipates the conclusion.
page 711 note 4 Another reference to logic. Knowledge is obtained either by direct senseexperience, pratyakṣa, lit. “what is patent to the eye”, or by reasoning by hetus; given the former, the latter is needless.
page 712 note 1 This speech in the printed edition (and MSS.?) is assigned to the Kapālin, obviously by error.
page 712 note 2 See above, p. 706.
page 712 note 3 Malayānila, lit. “wind from Mount Malaya” (Tamil malai, “mountain”). In literature Malaya commonly denotes the Southern Ghats.
page 712 note 4 The meaning is that the friar's robes, originally white, have been stained a red or yellow colour (kaṣāya), in accordance with the rules of the Buddhist Church. The robes in the South are yellow, in the North red.
page 712 note 5 A play on the word kaṣāya, which denotes both red or yellow colour and sinful passions.
page 713 note 1 Brahman, the Demiurge. There is a legend that he offended Śiva by his pride, and so Śiva appeared in the terrible form of Bhairava and cut off Brahman's head with his thumb-nail. The following verse refers to this story.
page 713 note 2 The “Grandsire” is Brahman: see the last note.
page 713 note 3 The god Indra slew Tvaṣṭar's son Vṛtra (or Viśvarūpa, according to the Ṛgveda). Usually the Vedic poets praise Indra for this exploit; but a certain guilt attached to it, as it was regarded as the slaughter of a Brahman.
page 713 note 4 A pun on the double meaning of Māyā. Buddha's mother was named Māyā, hence “offspring of Māyā's progeny” means “son of Buddha”, a title of Buddhist monks (see above, p. 709). But Māyā also is the principle of cosmic Illusion, which, according to some leading schools, of philosophy, makes the absolute unqualified single Brahma appear as a phenomenal universe of plurality. The Kapālin, in short, means that Buddhīsts are jugglers.
page 713 note 5 The Buddhist in weariness having handed over his bowl to the Kapālin, the latter compliments him by comparing his act to the dāna-pāramitā or Perfection of Bounty, the first of the perfections (pāramitās) ascribed to the Buddha.
page 713 note 6 See above, p. 711.
page 714 note 1 Literally, “reverence to the skull!”.
page 714 note 2 Śaiva ascetics smear themselves all over with ashes consisting of burnt cow-dung.
page 714 note 3 The lunaticȗs ravings are of course quite wild in their references to mythical persons. Rāvana was the demon-king who carried off Sītā, Rāma's wife; Śakra is the god Indra. The printed text, however, is very corrupt here.
page 714 note 4 Ghaṭotkaca was the son, not the nephew, of Bhīmasena or Bhīma, one of the heroes of the Mahābhāratam.
page 715 note 1 Grāmaka-sāra. In this sense grāma-sāra is still used in Mysore.
page 715 note 2 A man of most degraded caste.
page 715 note 3 Circumambulation {pradakṣiṇā) is a form of adoration in which the worshipper walks thrīce around the person or thing worshipped, keeping the latter on his right hand.
page 715 note 4 Yama is the god who rules in the nether world and dispatches thence his messengers {yama-puruṣas) to fetch away the souls of those who are doomed to die.
page 716 note 1 I follow the commentary in reading śuvaṇṇaāreṇ a; the printed text has śuvaṇṇakārāvuttaeṇa.
page 716 note 2 The Kapālin, with his dark body smeared over with grey ashes, is compared to the grey evening air, and the white skull to the moon.
page 716 note 3 See above, p. 710.
page 716 note 4 Dhūma-velā: compare Pali dhūma-kāla. Cremation-grounds (śmaśānas) sometimes lay in the immediate neighbourhood of Śaiva temples, as in this case (cf. Mālatī-mādhavam, act v); and to haunt these was one of the spiritual disciplines enjoined upon Pāśupatas (cf. Gaṇa-kārikā vi, with Ratna-ŭīkā thereupon, and Sarvadarśana-saṃgraha, transl. Cowell and Gough, p. 104).
page 716 note 5 A reference to some temple of Śiva on the east of Conjevaram, which cannot be now identified.
page 717 note 1 This refers to the legend (told in Mahābhāratam and Bhāravi's Kirātāṛjunīyam) that when the hero Arjuna was worshipping Śiva, the god in order to prove him appeared in the guise of a Kirāta or barbarian and engaged him in battle, after which he revealed himself to Arjuna and bestowed on him his favour together with magic missiles and a miraculous bow.