The Sanskrit play Swapnavasavadattam was composed by
- A.Bhasa
- B.Shudraka
- C.Vishakhadatta
- D.Rajashekhara
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, Bhasa, one of the earliest Sanskrit dramatists, whose plays were rediscovered as a group in the twentieth century. 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. B is wrong because Shudraka wrote Mrichchhakatika, the other famous play of courtly life, which is why the two names are set against each other so often. C is wrong because Vishakhadatta wrote the political drama Mudrarakshasa on Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya. D is wrong because Rajashekhara is remembered for Karpuramanjari, written not in Sanskrit but in Prakrit, which makes him a useful distractor in any Sanskrit drama list. Learning the four pairs Bhasa, Shudraka, Vishakhadatta and Kalidasa together covers most questions from classical drama.
Read the full article: Famous Plays and Dramatists: Exam Notes and Lists
Practice Questions
View allThe Sanskrit play Mrichchhakatika, known in English as The Little Clay Cart, was written by
- A.Kalidasa
- B.Shudraka
- C.Bhasa
- D.Bhavabhuti
Show answer
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.
Read the full explanation →Mudrarakshasa, the play dealing with Chanakya and the rise of Chandragupta Maurya, was written by
- A.Kautilya
- B.Vishakhadatta
- C.Banabhatta
- D.Kalhana
Show answer
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
Show answer
It tells the story of King Pururavas and the celestial nymph Urvashi.
Read the full explanation →The Natyashastra, the oldest Indian treatise on dramaturgy, is ascribed to
- A.Panini
- B.Bharata
- C.Patanjali
- D.Abhinavagupta
Show answer
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
Show answer
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…
Read the full explanation →