There can be no doubt of the demerits of Rājaçekhara’s works; he is devoid of the power to create a character: Vidyādharamalla is stiff and uninteresting beside his model, the gay and gallant Vatsa; the queen is without the love or the majesty of Vāsavadattā; Bhāgurāyaṇa is a feeble Yaugandharāyaṇa, whose magician is borrowed in the Karpūramañjarī and spoiled in the borrowing. The heroines are without merit; the Vidūṣaka in the Karpūramañjarī is tedious, but Cārāyaṇa in the Viddhaçālabhañjikā has merits; he has plenty of sound common sense, though he is simple and capable of being taken in by others. The intrigue in both Nāṭikās is poorly managed; the confusion of exits and entrances in the Karpūramañjarī is difficult to follow and probably more difficult to act, while in the Viddhaçālabhañjikā the queen is induced to arrange a marriage out of a puerile incident affecting the Vidūṣaka only. The taste of giving two brides to the king at once is deplorable, as is the failure to explain why the king accepts the suggested marriage when ignorant of its true import. In all his dramas, however, Rājaçekhara is merely concerned with exercises in style. The themes he frankly tells us in the prologue to the Karpūramañjarī are the same; the question is the expression, and the language is indifferent; therefore Prākrit being smooth, while Sanskrit is harsh, the language of women as opposed to men, can be used as a medium of style by one who boasts himself an expert in every kind of language. We have, therefore, elaborate descriptions in equally elaborate verses, of the dawn, midday, sunset, the pleasures of the harem, the game of ball, the swing, a favourite enjoyment of the Indian maidens, and in the Nāṭakas pictures ad nauseam of battles with magic weapons, and appalling mythical geography and topography. His allusions to local practices and customs may be interesting to the antiquarian, but are not poetical. More praiseworthy is his real accomplishment in metres, especially the Çārdūlavikrīḍita, his facility in which Kṣemendra justly praises, the Vasantatilaka, Çloka, and Sragdharā. His ability to handle elaborate Prākrit metres is undeniable; in 144 stanzas in the Karpūramañjarī he has 17 varieties. If poetry consisted merely of harmonious sound, he must be ranked high as a poet. He is fond of proverbs: varaṁ takkālovaṇadā tittirī ṇa uṇa diahantaridā morī, which gives our ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush’; he introduces freely words from vernaculars, including Marāthī. But, despite his parade of learning, he cannot distinguish accurately Çaurasenī and Māhārāṣṭrī in his drama; in the former we find such forms as laṭṭhi for yaṣṭi, ammi in the locative and hiṁto in the ablative singular of a-stems, and esa for the pronoun. Important as he is lexicographically for both Sanskrit and Prākrit, it is undeniable that both were utterly dead languages for him, which he had laboriously learned. Forms like ḍhilla equivalent to çithila in the Karpūramañjarī