In the realm of ancient India’s classical Sanskrit drama, Shudraka’s The Little Clay Cart (Mruchchakatikam, a Sanskrit play first performed in India around two thousand years ago) occupies a special place. Its author has received much praise for “his variety, his skill in the drawing of character, [and] his humor” (Ryder, Kale, Sharma, and Basham). But his treatment of love has not received enough attention.  This is where The Little Clay Cart excels.  In it, the theme of renewal or “Resurrection” -- literal as well as figurative -- is all pervasive.  This transformation occurs as a result of the enlivening and rejuvenating power of love in its various manifestations in this play. Particularly, the last act/Act X abounds in the images of “being saved.”  Love works its magic in the form of conjugal love, erotic love, love between friends, filial love, magnanimity -- good deeds done without any expectation of return -- and as a bond between even master and servant.  A wealthy courtesan – Vasantasena -- falling passionately in love with a poor man – Charudatta, a “secular Bodhisattva”, -- is in itself an instance of the transformative and ennobling power of love.  In fact, all the principal characters have a “rebirth”, an epiphany, of one sort or another and undergo extraordinary renewals because of love.  Other Sanskrit dramatists also treat love as a principal theme and a pervasive sentiment (rasa) in their works, for instance, erotic love (shrungaar) in Kalidasa’s Shakuntala, love or loyalty for family and kingship in Bhasa’s The Breaking of the Thigh (Urubhunga) and maturing conjugal love in Bhavabhuti’s The Later Life of Rama (Uttar-Rama-Charit).  However, no other Sanskrit play, to my knowledge, revels in so many facets of love as does The Little Clay Cart.  In Shudraka’s play, The Little Clay Cart, love is indeed a many-splendored thing.