Description

A rare one act monologue play in Sanskrit language was published by the Sanskrit College of Calcutta. Vasantatilaka (वसन्ततिलक) or Vasanta Tilaka, literary meaning “ornament of the spring” is a name and also a Sanskrit compound consisting of the terms vasanta and tilaka.
Such one act monologue Sanskrit plays are called Bhana (Sanskrit: भाण ). They were initially  performed by professional entertainers and included singing, dancing and music. A single actor creates a moral story hrough a number of characters and episodes, often connected with erotic elements.

Not much is known about the author, Varadacharya of Kanchi. Some authors place him in the 14th century, while the others believe he lived in the 17th or early 18th century. The editor of the book was Pandit Jibananda Vidyasagara Bhattacharya, an educator at the Government Sanskrit College in Colcutta, who wrote or edited circa 200 works in an on Sanskrit language.

We could find five institutional examples (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt / Zentrale, Bibliothek der Freien Universität Berlin, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Akademiebibliothek, Cotton University, Harvard College Library).

References: OCLC 249029502; M.L. Varadpande, Love in Ancient India, 2007, p. 27; Biswajit Sinha, Sanskrit Theatre, 2005 p. 802ff; Allen W. Johnson, Douglass Richard Price-Williams, Oedipus Ubiquitous: The Family Complex in World Folk Literature, 1996, p. 190.