This short play is a prahasana about a lusty ascetic who seeks the favors of a courtesan.

I have seen various dates for this work, from 1300 to 1550. The text is taken from Cappeller's Anthologia Sanskritica (Bonn: 1838).

Jan Brzezinski (2003-12-01)

Added by: Jagat
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Text version: 1.00 (legend)
Keywords: Dhurtasamagama, Jyotirisa, Kavi, Sekhara, prahasana, Jyotirisvara, prahasanam

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Additional notes from the editors' research and selected discussion forum contributions.

Winternitz (297): The contents of this piece may be summarized as follows--The student Duracara makes a confession before his teacher, the mendicant Visvanagara, that he loves the harlot Anangasena, at which the teacher creates in him the impression that he too is in love with the beautiful Suratapriya. The teacher and the disciple both go in for common begging. This brings them to the house of Anangasena. The teacher is so much charmed at her sight that he wishes to take her into his own possession and thus incurs the displeasure of his disciple. They fall in violent quarrel.

With the intention of getting rid of both of them, the harlot goes to a court of arbitration. They approach the Brahmin Asajjatimisra, who tries to arrive at a decision in respect of this difficult case of arbitration. The Act II takes us into the house of this gallant Brahmin, who even enters into a philosophical discourse with the vidushaka, in which the former asserts that the essence of life consists in the enjoyment of love, while the latter maintains the view that the theft of money belonging to another person is not less heinous than the enjoyment of another's wife.

In the meantime, there comes the mendicant with his disciple. They place before the arbitrator their points of difference. Then Asajjatimisra is moved at the beauty of the harlot and he orders that she must stay with him until he arrives at a decision. While she is staying in his house, the vidushaka tries to obtain her.

At this stage, the barber Mulanasaka arrives and asks Vasantasena to clear the debt that she owes to him. She refers him to Asajjatimisra, who pays him out of his pupil's purse. Then the Brahmin requests the barber to shave his hairs and pare his nails. But the barber chains his hands and feet and runs away. The Brahmin cries for help and the vidushak sets him free.

The Dhurtasamagama, or "Rogues' Congress," is the name of an amusing if coarsely written farce of about the year 1500 A.D., the author of which was one Jyotirisa. In the second act, two Shaiva mendicants come before an unjust judge and demand a decision on a quarrel which they have about a nymph of the bazaar. The judge demands payment of a deposit before he will give any opinion. One of the litigants says: "Here is my ganja bag; let it be accepted as a deposit."

The Judge. taking it pompously and then smelling it greedily, says: "Let me try it first." He takes a pinch and says: "Ah! I have just now got by the merest chance some ganja which is soporific and corrects derangements of the humours, which produces a healthy appetite, sharpens the wits, and acts as an aphrodisiac."

The word used for ganja in the above is Indräçana ("Indra's food"). [Taken from a note by Mr. G. A. Grierson, C.I.E., Magistrate and Collector, Howrah, on references to the hemp plant occurring in Sanskrit and Hindi literature, Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report.]

Keith: "...of much later date is the well-known Dhurta-samagama of Jyotirisvara Kavisekhara, son of Dhanesvara, grandson of Ramesvara of the family of Dhiresvara, who wrote under the Vijaya-nagara king Narasimha (1487-1507), though a Nepalese manuscript makes his father Dhirasimha and his patron Harasimha, who has been identified implausibly with Harasimha of Simraon (A.D. 1324)." (History of Sanskrit Literature, 261).

S.K.De: "The Meeting of Knaves" of the Maithila Jyotirisvara Kavisekhara, son of Ramesvara, grandson of Dhiresvara, was composed under King Harasimha or Harisimha of the Karnata family who ruled in Mithila during the first quarter of the 14th century..."