It takes a determined sceptic to doubt the attributionof the Svapnavoāsavadatta (SV) toBhāsa, a playwright Kālidāsa himself named as sofavoured in his time that the younger generation ofnāṭyakāras had a difficult timegetting a hearing. After sifting through theevidence, the most likely conclusion is that theplay we have of that name (or a variant), firstdiscovered for Indology by T. Ganapati Sastri in1909, is a somewhat shorter version of the playknown to Śāradātanaya, Rāmacandra and Guṇacandra,Sāgaranandin, Abhinavagupta, Bhoja, and others. Andone can scarcely admit the genuineness of SV withoutaccepting thePratijñayaugandharāyaṇa (PY): thetwo are perfectly complementary in plot, theme,treatment, and style. But even if we could notlocate these two plays among the earliest extant ofthe whole Sanskrit corpus, we would be justified onaesthetic and thematic grounds in including them inany study of the key works of Sanskrit poetry. Theplays are simple, yet charming and sophisticated,and more genuinely dramatic – giving us a morecomplicated sense of conflicting human interests(especially SV) – than any play except theMudrārākṣasa (MR) ofViśākhadatta, who, however, completely lacks Bhāsa'slightness of touch. The two plays provide a thematicbridge between Kālidāsa and Viśākhadatta, combiningthe latter's resolute focus on sentiment-negatingpolitical demands (artha, utsāha)with the former's luxuriating treatment of the innerworld of erotic emotion (kāma,śrṅgāra).