The professional and amateur stage rights of this play are strictly reserved by the author, to whose dramatic representative, Frank Shay, in care Stewart & Kidd Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, applications for permission to produce it should be made. THE JUDGMENT OF INDRA A PLAY BY DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI [TIME: _The Fifteenth Century._] [PLACE: _A Monastery on one of the foothills of Himalaya._] [SCENE: _In the foreground is the outer court of a Monastery. In the center of the court is a sacred plant, growing out of a small altar of earth about two feet square. On the left of the court is a sheer precipice, adown which a flight of stone steps--only a few of which are visible--connects the Monastery with the village in the valley below._ _To the right are the temple and the adobe walls and the roof of the monastery cells. There is a little space between the temple and the adobe walls, which is the passage leading to the inner recesses of the monastery. Several steps lead to the doors of the temple, which give on the court. In the distance, rear, are the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, glowing under the emerald sky of an Indian afternoon. To the left, the distances stretch into vast spaces of wooded hills. Long bars of light glimmer and die as the vast clouds, with edges of crimson, golden and silver, spread portentously over the hills and forest._ _A roll of thunder in the distance, accompanies the rise of the curtain._] SHANTA. [_He is reading a palm-leaf manuscript near the Sacred Plant. He looks up at the sky._] It forbodes a calamity. [_Suddenly the Temple doors open. Shukra stands framed in the doorway. Seeing that Shanta is alone, Shukra walks down the steps toward him._] SHUKRA. Are you able to make out the words? SHANTA. Aye, Master. SHUKRA. Where is Kanada? SHANTA. He will be here presently. Listen, master: it sayeth: "Only a hair's breadth divides the true from the false. Upon him who by thought, word or deed confuses the two, will descend the Judgment of Indra." SHUKRA. The thunder of Indra is just. It will strike the erring and the unrighteous no matter where they hide themselves; in the heart of the forest or in the silence of the cloisters, Indra's Judgment will descend on them. Even the erring heart that knows not that it is erring will be smitten and chastised by Indra. [_Thunder rumbles in the distance._] SHANTA. Master, when you speak, you not only fill the heart with ecstasy, but also the soul with the beauty of truth. SHUKRA. To praise is good. But why praise me, who have yet to find God and,--[_Shakes his head sadly._] SHANTA. You will find Him soon; your time is nigh. SHUKRA. I wish it were true. SHANTA. Master, if there be anything that I can do for you. If I could only lighten your burden a little,--