Mattavilasa Prahasana

Mattavilasa Prahasana (Devanagari:मत्तविलासप्रहसन), (English: A Farce of Drunken Sport) is a short one-act Sanskrit play.

It is one of the two great one act plays written by Pallava King Mahendravarman I (571– 630CE) in the beginning of the seventh century in southern India.

[1] Mattavilasa Prahasana is a satire that pokes fun at the peculiar aspects of the heretic Kapalika and Pasupata Saivite sects, Buddhists and Jainism.

The play revolves around the drunken antics of a Kapalika mendicant, Satyasoma, his woman, Devasoma, and the loss and recovery of their skull-bowl.

The inebriated Kapali suspects the Buddhist monk of stealing his begging bowl made from a skull, but after a drawn-out argument it is found to have been taken away by a dog.

The Kapalikas are told to be followers of a heretic Saivite sect whose rites included drinking, wild dancing and singing, and ritual intercourse with their partners.

Satyasoma criticizes the Buddhist monk by saying that he steals, lies, and desires liquor, meat and women even though his religion prohibits it.

There was a strong revivalist movement of Hinduism in southern India during the seventh century and King Mahendra supported this revivalism.