Bhagavadajjukam

The Bhagavadajjukam (Sanskrit; translated as The Ascetic and the Courtesan or The Hermit and the Harlot) is a Sanskrit farce composed in the 7th century CE, usually attributed to Bodhayana. However, inscriptional and scholarly evidence indicate that the play was written by the Pallava king Mahendravarman I, who also wrote a prominent farce known as the Mattavilasa Prahasana. It is one of the two earliest surviving examples of a satirical play (or prahasana, one of the ten types of plays described in the treatise Natya Shastra) in Sanskrit literature. Featuring witty exchanges, an episode about the transmigration of souls and a discussion on sannyasa in Hindu dharma, the comical play was intended to satire heretical doctrines