Rakshasa´s Ring

The final, benedictory stanza of this political drama may refer to Emperor Chandra Gupta II (r. c.376-415 CE). Other than this clue to the date of the author, all we know about him is that he came of a princely family, and would have had political experience. The play is set just after Alexander’s invasion of India (c.325 BCE) when the first Emperor Chandra Gupta seized the throne and founded the Maurya dynasty. The exemplary Rákshasa is the loyal exiled chief minister of the deposed dynasty. But his opponent, far from being the villain of the piece, is a kind of super-hero—the inhumanly competent ascetic Kautílya, to whom is ascribed India’s famous handbook for rulers, a precursor to Machiavelli. Kautílya struggles not to destroy Rákshasa but to win him over to be his successor as Chandra Gupta’s chief minister, so that he himself can retire from politics.