- HARIJĪVANA MISRA AND HIS
SHORT SANSKRIT PLAYS Dr. George T.Artola, University of Hawaii On several occasions' Professor Raghavan has spoken on the comic element in Sanskrit literature and in the course of his discussions he has not failed to mention the short comedy-farces, called prahasanas, which appear sporadically in different parts of India from the time of Mahendravikramavarman of Kancipura to the time of Aurangzib in the seventeenth century. Most of the authors of prahasanas have contented themselves with the composition of one or two prahasanas or the case Venkatesvara, of three prahasanas (Bhanuprabandha, Lambodara and Unmattakavikalasa). It is unusual to find a dramatist whose reputation relies on as many as six prahasanas, a dramatist who has, so to speak, devoted himself to the composition of prahasanas. Such a dramatist is Harijivana Misra. A manuscript of each of the six prahasanas he has written is found in the library of the Maharaja of Bikaner (formerly called the Anup Sanskrit Library) in Rajasthan. The titles of his prahasanas are : L Adbhutataranga Prāsangika Ghṛtakulyavali Palandumandana Vibudhamohana Sahrdayananda Our first knowledge of the comedy-farces of Harijivana Misra we owe to two scholars who were commissioned catalogue the manuscripts of the Anup Sanskrit Library, Dr. Kunhan Raja and A paper read at the Sixth Annual Meeting of the SamskritaRanga, on 27th May 1965. Subsequently published in the Samskrita Ranga Annual IV. 1966, pp.35-45. Particularly at Oxford (1953) and Chicago (1964) Dr.Raghavan spoke on the theory and practice of the comic element in Sanskrit literature in comparison with that in the West. These lectures were published as a monograph posthumously by the Samskrita Ranga in 1989.
