The Sanskrit play Mrichchhakatika, known in English as The Little Clay Cart, was written by
- A.Kalidasa
- B.Shudraka
- C.Bhasa
- D.Bhavabhuti
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Shudraka. Mrichchhakatika is a ten-act play about the love of a poor Brahmin merchant for a courtesan, set against a palace revolution, and its English title The Little Clay Cart comes from a toy cart that appears in the story. A is wrong because Kalidasa's three plays are Abhijnanashakuntalam, Vikramorvashiyam and Malavikagnimitram; his name is offered first in almost every Sanskrit drama question and must be kept to those three titles. C is wrong because Bhasa, an earlier dramatist, is remembered for Swapnavasavadattam, along with Urubhanga and Pratima Nataka. D is wrong because Bhavabhuti of the eighth century wrote Uttararamacharita and Malatimadhava. The play worth learning alongside this one is Mudrarakshasa by Vishakhadatta, since the two are regularly offered as alternatives to each other.
Read the full article: Famous Plays and Dramatists: Exam Notes and Lists
Practice Questions
View allMudrarakshasa, the play dealing with Chanakya and the rise of Chandragupta Maurya, was written by
- A.Kautilya
- B.Vishakhadatta
- C.Banabhatta
- D.Kalhana
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Mudrarakshasa is a political drama whose plot turns on the statecraft of Chanakya as he brings down the Nandas and places Chandragupta Maurya on the throne, and historians use it as a literary source for that change of dynasty.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is a play written by Kalidasa?
- A.Meghaduta
- B.Vikramorvashiyam
- C.Ratnavali
- D.Uttararamacharita
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It tells the story of King Pururavas and the celestial nymph Urvashi.
Read the full explanation →The Sanskrit play Swapnavasavadattam was composed by
- A.Bhasa
- B.Shudraka
- C.Vishakhadatta
- D.Rajashekhara
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Swapnavasavadattam, the dream of Vasavadatta, turns on King Udayana and his queen and is regarded as his finest work; Urubhanga and Pratima Nataka are also his.
Read the full explanation →The Natyashastra, the oldest Indian treatise on dramaturgy, is ascribed to
- A.Panini
- B.Bharata
- C.Patanjali
- D.Abhinavagupta
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The Natyashastra lays down the rules of the stage, of acting, gesture, music and stagecraft, and gives the theory of rasa, the set of aesthetic moods a performance is meant to create in its audience; it is the foundation of all later Indian dramatic and dance theory.
Read the full explanation →The play Waiting for Godot was written by
- A.Samuel Beckett
- B.Bertolt Brecht
- C.Arthur Miller
- D.Tennessee Williams
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In Waiting for Godot two tramps pass the time by a bare tree waiting for a man who never arrives, and the play became the defining work of the Theatre of the Absurd, the movement that refused ordinary plot and meaning in order to show life as it felt after…
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