Sakara

Abstract

More than thirty years ago Professor Sylvain Lévi, in his excellent book Le Théatre Indien (1890), p. 361, suggested that the Śakāra, the ridiculous, brawling scoundrel of a king's brother-in-law (śyāla) in the Hindu drama, is in reality a Śaka, a type of the Scythian princes ruling during nearly four centuries in Western India, as seen from the Indian point of view. This very judicious suggestion was repeated by Professor Lévi some ten years later in a very interesting article in the Journal Asiatique, ix, 19 (1902), p. 123, and might be looked upon as being fairly well established though its author has not given any detailed proofs to support his hypothesis. No reasons whatsoever have been adduced by Professor Konow in his book Das indische Drama, p. 15, for rejecting this theory, and so we need scarcely regard his rejection more seriously than several other less well-founded assertions in his work.