ABSTRACT
Hāsyārṇava, The Ocean of Mirth, is essentially a medieval Sanskrit political satire. At the centre of this complex and uncompromising text is a King. The King in Hāsyārṇava embodies chaos, the very opposite of what an ideal King must represent, namely, order. In a unique move, the text acknowledges and embraces the absence of order; there are moments in it that make the reader believe that behind the vast layers of satirical pronouncement, there is a fond, finely concealed, wish to leave things in their messy and untended state. Unlike almost all known political satires in India, this text offers no apologies for the chaos that lies at its heart. In its unabashed celebration of disorder, Hāsyārṇava seeks no return to a Golden Age or to the rule of an iconic King. Neither does it announce the arrival of a wise sage or a learned brahmin to reinstate an ideal order. There is no promise of a saviour or an incarnation either. It is a political farce that ends without any denouement in sight. Consider this: all chaos, disorder, incompetence, weakness, decadence, sin, impropriety, indifference and, above all, the distortion of a sense of reality emanate from the King.
