Mahābhārata Nāṭaka

This Ms. is incomplete. It is partially damaged from the side and also the folios have worn out. It appears to be in a regional dialect written based on the epic mahābhārata. In the text of the manuscript has characters like Bhīṣma, Śāntanu and Satyāvatī are present. Intermediate colophons are present in the manuscript of first, second and seventh Aṅka (chapter) stating it to be a part of the Mahābhārata Nāṭaka. There are more than one nāṭaka with the same name written in the same time period during the rule of Malla dynasty in Nepal. It was customory during that period in Kathmandu valley to write nāṭakas and other rūpakas in Newari, Sanskrit and Maithili languages. Bhupatindramalla and his son Ranajitmalla were known for their poetry works and playwrights in that period. There is an edition of Bhupatindramalla's Mahābhārata Nāṭaka edited by Nanigopala Bandopadhyaya, reference present in NCC but the text of the manuscript does not match up. It is possible that this is the work of Jaya Jitamitra Malla who is Bhupatindramalla's father.