The minor characters among the twenty-seven in all who appear have each an individuality rare in Indian drama. Çarvilaka, once a Brahmin, now a professional thief, performs his new functions with all the precision appropriate to the performance of religious rites according to the text-books. The shampooer, turned Buddhist monk, has far too much worldly knowledge to seek any temporal preferment from the favour of Āryaka. Māthura, the master gambler, is a hardened sinner without bowels of compassion, but the two headsmen are sympathetic souls who perform reluctantly their painful duty. The wife of Cārudatta is a noble and gentle lady worthy of her husband, and one who in the best Indian fashion does not grudge him a new love if worthy, while the lively maid Madanikā deserves fully her freedom and marriage with Çarvilaka. Even characters which play so small an actual part as Āryaka are effectively indicated. The good taste of the author is strikingly revealed by the alteration made in the last scene by a certain Nīlakaṇṭha, [275] who holds that the omission to bring upon the stage Cārudatta’s wife, his son, and the Vidūṣaka was due to the risk of making the time occupied by the representation of the play too great. He supplies the lacuna by representing all three as determined to commit suicide when Cārudatta rescues them; the author himself would never have consented to introduce the first wife at the moment when a second is about to be taken. The author is not merely admirable in characterization; he is master of pathos, as in the parting of Cārudatta from his son who asks the headsman to kill him and let his father go, and above all he abounds in humour and wit; even in the last act Goha, the headman, relieves the tension by the tale of his father who advised him on his death-bed not to slay too quickly the criminal on the off-chance that there might be a revolution or something to save the wretch’s life, and, when after deliverance comes the noble Cārudatta forbids the slaying with steel of the grovelling Saṁsthānaka, Çarvilaka cheerfully remarks that is all right: he will be eaten alive by the dogs instead. These merits and the wealth of incident of the drama more than compensate for the overluxuriance of the double intrigue, and the lack of unity, which is unquestionable. A demerit in the eyes of the writers on poetics is the absence of elaborate descriptions, but the simple and clear diction of the play adds greatly to its liveliness and dramatic effect, and the poet has perfect command of the power of pithy and forcible expression. The Viṭa effectually rebukes the arrogance and pride of family of Saṁsthānaka: kiṁ kulenopadiṣṭena çīlam evātra kāraṇam bhavanti sutarāṁ sphītāḥ sukṣetre kaṇṭakidrumāḥ. ‘Why talk of birth? Character alone counts. In rich soil the thorn trees grow fastest.’ Cārudatta on the point of death asserts his fearlessness: