a mountain out of a mustard seed) is a 1914 Gujarati play by Ramanbhai Neelkanth (1868–1928), written with an eye on social reform attempts to bring about a synthesis of the Sanskrit and English styles of drama.
[1] Ramanbhai Neelkanth fused the tradition of Sanskrit drama with Shakespearean technique in Raino Parvat, the only play he wrote.
The plot was inspired from the following couplet appearing in the Lalji Maniar Vesha of Bhavai, a traditional Gujarati folk play:
[4] Principal characters are:[5] Parvatrai, the king of Kanakpur, is concerned about the age difference with his young queen, Lilavati.
Durgesh, chief of a distant region of the state, tries to revolt but Kalyankam shrewdly promotes him as a deputy minister under his close supervision.
Durgesh, Kamala and Rai travel in disguise to learn how people view the king's rejuvenation experiment.
Someone makes a disparaging remark about a woman, which enrages Kamala, dressed as a man, but Durgesh intervenes to stop her attack.
When Rai is crowned as king Parvatrai, he discloses to the court his real identity and asks the people and courtiers to decide the succession within a fortnight, during which time he will withdraw from the city.
Ramanlal Joshi noted that the handling of dramatic situations, characterization, dialogues, and depiction of lofty sentiments make this play a classical work.
Several critics noted that: "Ramanbhai Nilkanth, a follower of Prarthana Samaj, asserts his social reformer's signature by arranging Rai's marriage with Vinavati, a widow, in the last two acts which ultimately weakens its plot.
[8] Possibly on 14 March 1915, the play was first performed by Gujarati Amateurs Group of Grant Medical College under the leadership of Manubhai, son of Nanalal Dalpatram.
In 1948, under the guidance of Jaishankar Sundari and Jashvant Thakkar, the students of Gujarat Vidhya Sabha performed Raino Parvat for the centenary of the institution.