Today's excerpt is from the critical edition (published in 1923) of Latakamelaka (लटकमेलक), "An Assemblage of Scoundrels", a famous farce (Sanskrit: prahasana (प्रहसन)) that satirizes people of standing and their cohorts. It was penned by Shankhadhara (शङ्खधर) of Kannauj "for the entertainment of his king and patron Gavindachandra[sic]1 in a spring festival, probably in between 1113 and 1143 A.D."2
One of the most amusing characters in this comedic masterpiece is Jantuketu (जन्तुकेतु), a boastful quack, who is aptly titled Mahaavaidya (महावैद्य) "the great physician". The play is set in a brothel run by an aging madam named Danturaa (दन्तुरा) who, in one scene, requests Jantuketu to treat her partial blindness. It is at this point that the resourceful charlatan prescribes the following panacea for all ophthalmic disorders.
Devanagari text:
चक्षूरोगे समुत्पन्ने तप्तफालं गुदे न्यसेत्|
तदा नेत्रोद्भवां पीडां मनसापि न संस्मरेत्||
तदा नेत्रोद्भवां पीडां मनसापि न संस्मरेत्||
– शङ्खधर
Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:
cakSUroge samutpanne taptaphAlaM gude nyaset|
tadA netrodbhavA pIDA manasApi na saMsmaret||
tadA netrodbhavA pIDA manasApi na saMsmaret||
– Shankhadhara
Loose translation: In the event of a complaint of the eyes, a heated plowshare should be inserted into the rectum – this will cause even the thought of any discomfort in the eye area to vanish from the mind (of the patient).
Notes on the source: The editors of the publication note that the above verse is not present in two of the three manuscripts they consulted for the preparation of their critical edition. My guess is that it was expunged from some later versions since someone deemed it too vulgar to be part of a dramatic composition. Indeed, many European Orientalists refrained from publishing Sanskrit comedies that they had collected "on account of their being too obscene".
1 It should be Govindachandra (गोविन्दचन्द्र), a king of the Gahadvala dynasty.↩
2 History of Indian Literature, p. 297, by Moriz Winternitz, a renowned Indologist from Austria.↩
