The play is wholly of a political character, and represents a series of Machiavellian stratagems, influencing public events of considerable importance.
The Mudrarakshasa is, in sundry respects, a very unique work in Sanskrit literature. Its plot is not a pure invention, but on the other hand, it is not derived from the usual storehouse of legends on which Sanskrit authors have generally drawn for their materials. It has no female among its prominent _dramatis personæ_, and the business of the play, accordingly, is diplomacy and politics, to the entire exclusion of love. There is, in truth, but one female character, with one little child, introduced into the play, and these are Chandanadasa's wife and son, who come in at the beginning of the last act. But even their appearance introduces no passages suggestive of tenderness or the purely domestic virtues, but only of sacrifice--a stern sense of duty.
In the minor characters we see the principle of faithfulness to one's lord, adhered to through good report and evil report. In the more prominent ones, the same principle still prevails, and the course of conduct to which it leads is certainly quite Machiavellian. And all this is brought out in a plot put together with singular skill.
In the seventh act we have a remarkable stanza, in which the conduct of Chandanadasa, in sacrificing his life for his friend Rakshasa, is stated to have transcended the nobility even of the Buddhas. It seems that this allusion to Buddhism belongs to a period long prior to the decay and ultimate disappearance of Buddhism from India. In the time of Hionen-Tsang--_i.e._ between 629-645 A.D.--it was, however, still far from being decayed, though it appears to have fallen very far below the point at which it stood in Fa-Hian's time, to have been equal in power with Brahminism only where it was supported by powerful kings, and to have been generally accepted as the prevailing religion of the country only in Kashmir and the Upper Punjab, in Magadha and in Guzerat. In this condition of things, it was still quite possible, that one not himself a Buddhist--and Visakhadatta plainly was not one--should refer to Buddhism in the complimentary terms we find in the passage under discussion.
