The Little Clay Cart, like the Rubdiyát of Omar Khayyam, enjoys abroad a celebrity which it did not enjoy at home; while occidental critics almost unanimously regard the play as equalled only by the Sakuntala of Kalidasa, Sanskrit writers assign to it much more modest worth. This diversity of opinion may be explained by a cursory examination of the principal differences between The Little Clay Cart and those plays which are the touchstones of Hindu criticism.
In the long history of the Sanskrit drama two authors attained such lasting preeminence that they were deemed to have surpassed all their precursors and to have overshadowed all their successors. Kalidasa, whose exquisite Sakuntala is by far the drama best known both in India and in the Western world, so established his reputation that critics often listed dramatic writers under the rubric Kalidasa- dayah, "those who come after Kalidasa." His name was linked with that of Bhavabhoti, "master of eloquence," whose Latter Deeds of Ra -ma was sometimes thought to have surpassed even the Sakuntala. Three plays by each author are now extant, and the predilections which governed Hindu criticism may be illustrated by a brief synopsis of cardinal points of difference between these plays and The Little Clay Cart.
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