A curious vagueness besets our knowledge of Viçākhadatta or Viçākhadeva, son of the Mahārāja Bhāskaradatta or the minister Pṛthu, grandson of the feudatory Vaṭeçvaradatta. None of these persons are elsewhere known, and for his date we are reduced to conjectures. The play ends with a stanza mentioning Candragupta as would be natural in a play of which he is hero, but there are variants in the manuscripts, including Dantivarman, Rantivarman, and (A)vantivarman. The last has been utilized to fix the date, but in two different ways; Avantivarman might be the Maukhari king whose son married Harṣa’s daughter, or the king of Kashmir (A.D. 855–83); Jacobi [422] identifies the eclipse referred to in the play as that of December 2, 860, when, he holds, Çūra, the king’s minister, had the play performed. There is no conclusive argument for or against this clever combination. Konow [423] sees in Candragupta the ruler of the Gupta line, and would make the poet a younger contemporary of Kālidāsa, but this is fantasy. We have some evidence of imitation of Ratnākara by Viçākhadatta, but it is possibly not conclusive as to date. Still less weight attaches to the fact that in one manuscript the Nāndī is supposed to be over before the play begins, for that is merely a habit of South Indian manuscripts, true to the Bhāsa tradition. There is nothing that prevents a date in the ninth century, though the work may be earlier. [424] 2. THE MUDRĀRĀKṢASA Whatever its date, the Mudrārākṣasa [425] is one of the great Sanskrit dramas, although in India itself its merits have long been underrated, because it does not conform to the normal model. It is a drama of political intrigue, centred in the person of Rākṣasa, formerly minister of the Nandas, who is now sworn to revenge their destruction on Cāṇakya, the Brahmin who vowed to ruin them, and who, in pursuance of this end, secured an alliance between Candragupta, their rival, and Parvateça [426] and attacked Pāṭaliputra. Rākṣasa seeing resistance vain surrendered the city; the last of the royal house, Sarvārthasiddhi, retired to an ascetic life, and Rākṣasa left to weave plots elsewhere. His effort by a poison maiden to slay Candragupta miscarried; instead, Parvateça fell a victim through Cāṇakya’s cunning. This so far aided Rākṣasa that his son Malayaketu left Candragupta and is now his ally, preparing with the aid of a host of motley origin, including princes of Kulūta, Malaya, Kashmir, Scind, and Persia to attack the capital. Act I shows Cāṇakya’s schemes; in a monologue he expresses his detestation of the Nandas and his determination to secure Rākṣasa as minister for his lord, for he is convinced of Rākṣasa’s worth and has no desire himself to rule. Nipuṇaka, his spy, enters; he has found a Jain Jīvasiddhi hostile to the king—he is in reality Cāṇakya’s agent; the scribe Çakaṭadāsa is a real enemy, as is the jeweller Candanadāsa, in whose house are Rākṣasa’s wife and child; by