While Kalidasa stands highest in poetical refinement, in tenderness, and depth of feeling, the author of the Mricchakatika, or "Clay Cart," is pre-eminent among Indian playwrights for the distinctively dramatic qualities of vigour, life, and action, no less than sharpness of characterisation, being thus allied in genius to Shakespeare. This play is also marked by originality and good sense. Attributed to a king named Çudraka, who is panegyrised in the prologue, it is probably the work of a poet patronised by him, perhaps Dandin, as Professor Pischel thinks. In any case, it not improbably belongs to the sixth century. It is divided into ten acts, and belongs to the dramatic class called prakarana. The name has little to do with the play, being derived from an unimportant episode of the sixth act. The scene is laid in Ujjayini and its neighbourhood. The number of characters appearing on the stage is very considerable. The chief among them are Charudatta, a Brahman merchant who has lost all his property by excessive liberality, and Vasantasena, a rich courtesan who loves the poor but noble Charudatta, and ultimately becomes his wife. The third act contains a humorous account of a burglary, in which stealing is treated as a fine art. In the fourth act there is a detailed description of the splendours of Vasantasena's palace. Though containing much exaggeration, it furnishes an interesting picture of the kind of luxury that prevailed in those days. Altogether this play abounds in comic situations, besides containing many serious scenes, some of which even border on the tragic. To the first half of the seventh century belong the two dramas attributed to the famous King Çriharsha or Harshadeva, a patron of poets, whom we already know as Harshavardhana of Thaneçar and Kanauj. Ratnavali, or "The Pearl Necklace," reflecting the court and harem life of the age, has many points of similarity with Kalidasa's Malavikagnimitra, by which, indeed, its plot was probably suggested. It is the story of the loves of Udayana, king of Vatsa, and of Sagarika, an attendant of his queen Vasavadatta. The heroine ultimately turns out to be Ratnavali, princess of Ceylon, who had found her way to Udayana's court after suffering shipwreck. The plot is unconnected with mythology, but is based on an historical or epic tradition, which recurs in a somewhat different form in Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara. As concerned with the second marriage of the king, it forms a sequel to the popular love-story of Vasavadatta. It is impossible to say whether the poet modified the main outlines of the traditional story, but the character of the magician who conjures up a vision of the gods and a conflagration, is his invention, as well as the incidents, which are of an entirely domestic nature. The real author was doubtless some poet resident at Çriharsha's court, possibly Bana, who also wrote a play entitled Parvatiparinaya.