The play is certainly not without merits; in the main it is written in simple Sanskrit, free from the artifices which disfigure more pretentious plays, and it has also the merit of bringing vividly before us the activities of Jainism in its regulation of Kumārapāla’s kingdom, casting an interesting light on what is known from inscriptions and other sources of the history of Gujarāt. The marriage of the king with Kṛpāsundarī is recorded by Jinamaṇḍana in his Kumārapālaprabandha as taking place in A.D. 1159. Interesting details are given of the forms of gambling, including chess, and of the sects which approve slaughter. The Prākrits are, of course, deeply influenced by Hemacandra’s grammar, and include Māgadhī and Jain Māhārāṣṭrī. 4. THE NĀṬIKĀ AND THE SAṬṬAKA The Nāṭikā differs in no real essential from a Nāṭaka save in the number of Acts, but its type continues to be rigidly restricted to that set by Harṣa. The Karṇasundarī [531] of Bilhaṇa belongs to the period about A.D. 1080–90. It seems to have been written out of compliment to Karṇadeva Trailokyamalla of Aṇhilvāḍ (1064–94), and to celebrate his wedding in advanced age with Miyāṇalladevī, daughter of the Karṇāṭa king, Jayakeçin. The story runs that the Cālukya king is to marry Karṇasundarī, daughter of the Vidyādhara king. The minister introduces her into the harem, and the king first sees her in a dream, then in a picture. He falls in love, and the queen is jealous; she breaks in on their meeting, and once assumes Karṇasundarī’s guise to present herself to the king. Next she tries to marry the king to a boy in Karṇasundarī’s clothes, but the minister adroitly substitutes the real for the feigned damsel, and the usual tidings of triumph abroad ends the play, which is a patent jumble of reminiscences of Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Rājaçekhara. Madana Bālasarasvatī, preceptor of the Paramāra Arjunavarman of Dhārā, wrote the Vijayaçrī or Pārijātamañjarī, [532] a Nāṭikā in four Acts, of which two are preserved on stone at Dhārā. A garland falls on the breast of Arjunavarman after his victory over the Cālukya king, Bhīmadeva II, and becomes a maiden, who is handed over to the charge of the Chamberlain. She is the daughter of the Cālukya, and the usual sequence of events leads to her wedlock with the king. There is doubtless a historical reference; the date of the play is early in the thirteenth century. Rather less commonplace is Mathurādāsa’s effort in the Vṛṣabhānujā [533] to make a Nāṭikā of the love of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. He was a Kāyastha of Suvarṇaçekhara on the Ganges and Yamunā, and he uses the motive of the jealousy of Rādhā for a portrait of a lady which Kṛṣṇa has, but which turns out to be one of herself. A philosophic play is Narasiṅha’s Çivanārāyaṇabhañjamahodaya, in honour of a prince of Keonjhor.