The Kathāsaritsāgara ("Ocean of the Streams of Stories") (Devanagari: कथासरित्सागर) is a famous 11th-century collection of Indian legends and folk tales as retold in Sanskrit by the Shaivite Somadeva from Kashmir.Kashmir | History, People, Conflict, Map, & Facts | Britannica
Kathāsaritsāgara contains multiple layers of story within a story and is said to have been adopted from Guṇāḍhya's Bṛhatkathā ("the Great Narrative"), which was written in a poorly understood language known as Paiśāchī. The Bṛhatkathā is no longer extant but several later adaptations still exist—the Kathāsaritsāgara, Bṛhatkathamanjari and Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha. However, none of these recensions necessarily derives directly from Gunadhya, and each may have intermediate versions. Scholars compare Guṇāḍhya with Vyasa and Valmiki even though he did not write the now long-lost Bṛhatkathā in Sanskrit. Presently available are its two Sanskrit recensions, the Bṛhatkathamanjari by Kṣemendra and the Kathāsaritsāgara by Somadeva.
Author and structure
The author of Kathasaritsagara, or rather its compiler, was Somadeva, the son of Rāma, a Śaiva Brāhman of Kashmir. He tells us that his magnum opus was written (sometime between 1063–1081 CE) for the amusement of Sūryavatī, wife of King Ananta of Kashmir, at whose court Somadeva was poet. The tragic history of Kashmir at this period—Ananta's two sons, Kalaśa and Harṣa, the worthless degenerate life of the former, the brilliant but ruthless life of the latter, the suicide of Ananta himself, the self-immolation of Sūryavatī on his funeral pyre, and the resulting chaos—forms as a dark and grim background for the setting of Somadeva's tales. The frame story is the narrative of the adventures of Naravahanadatta, son of the legendary king Udayana, his romances with damsels of great beauty and wars with enemies. As many as 350 tales are built around this central story, making it the largest existing collection of Indian tales.
Somadeva declares that his work is a faithful though abridged translation of a much larger collection of stories known as the Bṛhatkathā, or Great Tale written in the lost Paisaci dialect by Guṇāḍhya. But the Kashmirian (or "Northwestern") Bṛhatkathā that Somadeva adapted may be quite different from the Paisaci ur-text, as at least 5 apparent descendants of Guṇāḍhya's work exist—all quite different in form and content, the best-known (after the Kathāsaritsāgara itself) probably being the Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha of Budhasvamin from Nepal. Like the Panchatantra, tales from the Kathāsaritsāgara (or its related versions) travelled to many parts of the world.
Kathāsaritsāgara consists of 18 lambhakas ("books") of 124 taramgas (chapters called as "waves") and approximately 22,000 ślokas (distichs) in addition to prose sections.Penzer 1924 Vol I, p xxxi. The śloka consists of 2 half-verses of 16 syllables each. Thus, syllabically, the Kathāsaritsāgara is approximately equal to 66,000 lines of iambic pentameter; by comparison, John Milton's Paradise Lost is 10,565 lines. All this pales in comparison to the (presumably legendary) 700,000 ślokas of the lost original Brihatkatha.
Somadeva's narrative captivates both by its simple and clear, though very elegant, style and diction and by his skill in drawing with a few strokes pictures of types and characters taken from the real every-day life. Hence it is that even in the miraculous and fantastical facts and events that make up the bulk of the main story and of a great deal of the incidental tales the interest of the reader is uninterruptedly kept. His lively and pleasant art of story-telling—though now and then encumbered with inflatedness or vitiated by far-fetched false wit—is enhanced also by his native humor and the elegant and pointed sentences strewn about here and there with a good taste.J. S. Speyer, Studies about the Kathasaritsagara (Wiesbaden: M. Sandig, 1968)
Synopsis The Kathāsaritsāgara is a large work. Each book comprises a number of stories loosely strung together, by being narrated for the recreation or information of the same individuals, or arising out of their adventures. These are Udayana, king of Kosambi, and his son Naravahanadatta. The marriage of the latter with various damsels of terrestrial or celestial origin, and his elevation to the rank of king of the Vidyadharas, a class of heavenly spirits, are the leading topics of most of the books; but they merely constitute the skeleton of the composition, the substance being made up of stories growing out of these circumstances, or springing from one another with an ingenuity of intricacy which is one of the great charms of all such collections.
Kathāsaritsāgara Book Lambhaka Taramga Count of slokas 1 Kathapitha (Foundation) 1-8 818 2 Kathamukha (Introduction) 9-14 871 3 Lavanaka 15-20 1198 4 Naravahanadattajanana (Birth of Naravahanadatta) 21-23 501 5 Caturdarika (The Four Wives) 24-26 818 6 Madanamancuka 27-34 1544 7 Ratnaprabha 35-43 1421 8 Suryaprabha 44-50 115 9 Alamkaravati 51-56 4929 10 Saktiyasas 57-66 1120 11 Vela 67 220 12 Sasankavati 68-103 993 13 Madiravati 104 624 14 Panca (The Five) 105-108 1628 15 Mahabhiseka (The Imperial Coronation) 109-110 1739 16 Suratamanjari 111-113 2128 17 Padmavati 114-119 301 18 Visamasila 120-124 420
Book 1 The first book (Kathapitha) is introductory, and refers the origin of the tales contained in the collection to Shiva, who, it is said, related them in private conversation with his wife, Parvati, for her entertainment. One of the attendants of the deity, Pushpadanta, took the liberty of listening, and he repeated them, under the seal of secrecy, to his wife, Jaya, a sort of lady's maid to the goddess. Jaya takes an opportunity of intimating to her mistress that she is acquainted with the stories narrated by Shiva to the great mortification of Parvati who had flattered herself that they had been communicated to her alone. She accordingly complains to Shiva of his having deceived her and he vindicates himself by discovering the truth. Parvati thereupon pronounces an imprecation upon Pushpadanta, condemning him to be born upon the earth as a man; and she sentences his friend Malyavan, who had ventured to intercede for him, to a like destination. Parvati tells the culprits that they shall resume their celestial condition when Pushpadanta, encountering a yaksha, a follower of Kubera, the god of wealth, doomed for a certain time to walk the earth, as a pishacha or goblin, shall recollect his own former state, and shall repeat to the pishacha the stories he overheard from Shiva; and when Malyavan, falling in with the Pisacha, shall hear from him again the stories that his friend Pushpadanta had narrated. The recitation of the stories forms also the limit of the pishacha's sojourn amongst mortals.
The two demigods, Pushpadanta and Malyavan, are born as two Brahmins, named Vararuchi and Gunadhya, and their adventures as mortals constitute the subject of several tales. Some of these possess much local interest: we have in them literary anecdotes relating to celebrated works and authors, as to Panini the grammarian; notices of historical persons and events, as of the accession of Chandragupta Maurya; and traditions of the origin of celebrated places, as of that of Pataliputra. One of the best-told stories in the whole work occurs here. Upakosha the wife of Vararuchi, becomes during the absence of her husband, the object of the addresses of the king's family priest, the commander of the guards, the prince's tutor, and her husband's banker. She makes assignations with them all: each as he arrives is quickly followed by his successor, and is secreted only to be finally exposed and punished.
Malyavan, or Gunadhya, in consequence of a dispute with a rival Brahmin, forgoes the use of the Sanskrit, Prakrit and Deshya, or vernacular languages. He afterwards learns the Paisachi language, or that of the goblins, which enables him to receive the narrations as they are told him by the metamorphosed yaksha or pishacha. Gunadhya having heard the stories, extending to seven hundred thousand stanzas, wrote them with his blood, for there was no ink in the forest. He then offered the work to Satavahana, king of Pratishthana, who rejected it with abhorrence, on which the author kindled a fire in the forest, and reading it aloud, to the great edification of spirits and goblins, and birds and beasts, he burned it leaf by leaf as he finished the perusal. The news of this proceeding at last reached the king, and he repented of what he had done, and repaired to Gunadhya to solicit the gift of the work. The sage consented to present the king with the hundred thousand verses that had not yet been consigned to the flames. Satavahana took it to his capital, and having received an explanation of it from two of Gunadhya's disciples, he translated it from the language of the pishachas.
Books 2 to 5 The second book (Kathamukha) commences that part of the original narrative which was supposedly not consumed, and records the adventures of Udayana, king of Kosambi, a prince of great fame in Sanskrit plays and poems, and his marriage with Vasavadatta, princess of Ujjain. The major sub-stories include the tales of Sridatta, Devasmita and Lohajangha.
The third book (Lavanaka) describes his marriage to the second wife, Padmavati, princess of Magadha and his subsequent conquests. This book is especially rich in mythological sub-stories like Durvasa and Kunti, Urvashi and Pururavas, Indra and Ahalya, Sunda and Upasunda &c.
The fourth book (Naravahanadattajanana) narrates the birth of the son of Udayana, by Vasavadatta, Naravahanadatta; at the same time sons are born to the chief ministers of Udayana, and they become the companions and councilors of the young prince. The book contains the famous story of Jimutavahana.
The fifth book (Caturdarika) records the adventures of Saktivega who became king of the heavenly beings termed Vidyadharas, a class of spirits who reside upon the loftiest peaks of the Himalaya mountains. While a mortal, he possessed superhuman longevity and faculties including clairvoyance and extrasensory perception. Naravahanadatta, is prophecised to be a king of the Vidyadharas.
Book 6
The main focus of the sixth book (Madanamanchuka) is the marriage of the young prince Naravahanadatta with Madanamanchuka the daughter of Kalingasena, a princess whose mother is a celestial nymph. Kalingasena had been enamoured of Udayana, and desires to wed him. Udayana wants to marry her; but as he has two wives already, his chief minister argues against it. A friend of the princess, a nymph of air, is also opposed to the match, and a variety of tales are recited on either side in support of the reasoning for and against the union. In the end, a spirit of air, in love with the princess, assumes the form of Udayana, and in this identity weds her. She reconciles without remedy, and has a daughter, Madanamanchuka who is the bride of Udayana's son. The book features the famous story of Usha and Aniruddha.
Book 7 In the next book (Ratnaprabha) Naravahanadatta marries Ratnaprabhā a Vidyadhari who was prophesied to be his bride; the wedding is celebrated at the palace of her father Hemaprabha, on one of the snow-crowned summits of the Himalaya. When the married couple return to Kosambi the young bride persuades her husband to throw open the doors of the inner quarters, and allow free access to his friends and associates. "The honour of women," she affirms, "is protected by their own principles alone; and where these are corrupt, all precautions are vain." This arrangement not only emancipates the women from jealous restraint, but also triggers a subsequent series of tales, with the prince's companions as narrators. The stories that then ensue (for e.g. Somasvamin, Sringabhuja and Rupasikha) are about the conduct of women; some are tales of revenge.
Books 8 and 9