The Lady of the Jewel Necklace & The Lady who Shows Her Love

Here is a new Clay Sanskrit Library translation of two plays by Harsha, The Lady of the Jewel Necklace and The Lady who Shows her Love. King Harsha reigned over Kanauj (near modern Kanpur) from 606 to 647 CE. He composed two plays about the mythical figures of King Udayana, his queen, Vasava dalta, and two of his co-wives. The plays abound in mistaken identities, both political and erotic. Characters masquerade as one another and as themselves, and each play refers simultaneously to itself and to the other. Here language is not merely to look through to get to the story but to look at. Mistaken identities are mirrored in the rich use of puns and extended double entendre, and these verbal tricks are part of what happened, theatrical events like putting on a mask or telling a lie. Mirroring the doubling of the characters, the plays too are doubled. Many stanzas and elements of plot appear in both, but key differences skew the mirror images.