A HISTORY OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE CLASSICAL PERIOD -8

A HISTORY OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE

CLASSICAL PERIOD

VOL. I

General Editor and

Contributors to this Volume:

S. N. DASGUPTA

and

S. K. DE,

AsVAGHOSA AND HIS SCHOOL 73

t he work pays respect to the Sarvastivadins, from whom the

Sautrantikas originated, or that some of its stories can be traced

in the works of the school. In two stories (nos. 14 and 31),

Kaniska appears as a king who has already passed away ; the

work, apparently written some time after Kaniska's death,

cannot, therefore, be dated earlier than the 2nd century A.D. 1

The three works, which are known for certain to be Asvaghosa's,

are : the Bnddha-carita, the Saundarananda and the

Sariputra-prakarana ; and his fame as a great Sanskrit poet rests

entirely on these. The first, in its original form of twenty-eight

cantos, known to Yi-tsing and to the Chinese and Tibetan versions,

is a complete Mahakavya on the life of the Buddha, which begins

with his birth and closes with an account of the war over the

relics, the first Council, and the reign of A^oka. In Sanskrit 2

only cantos two to thirteen exist in their entirety, together with

about three quarters of the first and the first quarter ot the fourteenth

(up to st. 31), carrying the narrative down to the Buddha's

temptation, defeat of Mara and his enlightenment. It is the

work of a real poet who, actuated by intense devotion to the

Buddha and the truth ol! his doctrine, has studied the scripture

and is careful to use the authoritative sources open to him, but

who has no special inclination to the marvellous and the miraculous,

and reduces the earlier extravagant and chaotic legends to

the measure and form of the Kfivya. Asvaghosa does not depart in

1

If, however, Harivarman, a pupil of Kumaralata, was a contemporary of Vasubandhu,

then Kumaralata could not have been a younger contemporary of Asvaghosa, but should be

dated not earlier than the 3rd century A D.

2 Ed. E. B. Cowell, Oxford 1893, containing four alditional cantos by Arartananda, a

Nepaleae Pandit of the 19th century, win records at the end that he wrote the supplement in

1830 A. D., because he could not find a complete manuscript of the te*t. Also trs. into

English by Cowell in SBE, vol. 49; into German by C. Cappeller, .lena 1922; into Italian by

C Fonnichi, Bari 1912. Re-edited more critically, and translated into English, by E. H

Johnston in 2 vols., Calcutt t 1936 (Panjab Ooiv. Orient. Publ. Nos. 31-32), which may be

consulted for bibliography of other Indian editions and for critical and exegetical contributions

to the subject by various scholars. Johnston remarks : "The textual tradition of the extant

portion is bad, and a sound edition is only made possible by comparison with the Tibetan and

Chinese translations." The Tibetan text, with German translation, under the title Da* Ltben

des Buddha von Ahagliosa, is given by F. Weller, in two parts, Leipzig 1926, 1928,

10-1343B

essentials from the received tradition, but he succeeds in infusing

into his well conceived and vivid narrative the depth of his religious

feeling and the spontaneity of his poetic emotion. Not unworthily

praised is the skilful picture he draws of the young prince

Sarvarthasiddhi's journey through the city, of the throng of fair

women who hasten to watch him pass by, of the hateful spectacle

of disease, old age and death which he encounters on the way, of

the womanly blandishments and the political arguments of

wisdom set forth by the family priest, which seek to divert the

prince's mind from brooding thoughts of resignation, as well as

of the famous night-scene of sleeping women, who in their

moment of unconsciousness present all the loathsome signs of

human misery and thereby hasten the flight of the prince from

the palace. The requirement of a battle-scene in the Kavya is

fulfilled by the pleasing variation of the spirited description of the

Buddha's fight with Mara and his hosts. 1 The work is, therefore,

not a bare recital of incident, nor is it a dry and dogmatic

exposition of Buddhist doctrine, but the Buddha-legend is conceived

in the spirit of the Kavya in respect of narrative, diction

and imagery, and the poet's flame of faith makes the best lines of

the poem quiver with the needed glow.

The Saundarananda2

, all the eighteen cantos of which are

preserved in Sanskrit, is connected also with the story of the

Buddha; but its actual theme is the conversion of his reluctant

half-brother, Nanda, nicknamed Sundara for his handsome

appearance. Nothing more than a mention of the fact of

1 Parallelisms between As*vaghosa and Kalid&sa in some of these passages, not only in

ideas but also in diction and imagery, have been set forth in detail in Nandargikar's introduction

to bis edition of Raghu-varnsa (3rd ed,, Bombay 1897, pp. 163-96) ; but the argument based

thereon that Kalidasa was earlier and As*vaghosa imitated him has not found general support

and is very unlikely.

2 Discovered and edited by Haraprasad Shastri, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1910; critically

re-edited and translated into English by E. H Johnston, Oxford Univ. Press, 1928, 1932

which gives full bibliography. In spite of the richer content and wider interest of the

Buddha-carita, Johnston is of opinion that

"

the handling of the Saundarananda is altogether

more mature and assured than that of the Buddha-carita

"

; Contra Winternitz, ffIL, IJ,

p. 262 note,

AHVAGHOSA AND HIS SCHOOL 75

conversion is found in the Maharayga and the Nidana-katha ;

and the subject is perhaps too slender to support an extensive

poem. But the opportunity is taken, in the earlier part of the

poem, to expand the legend with the proper Kavya-embellishments,

and in the latter part, to give expression at length to the

poet's religious ideas and convictions. The first six cantos,

therefore, describe the mythical foundation of Kapilavastu, its

king, the birth of the Buddha and Nanda, the lutter's love for

his wife Sundarl, the forcible conversion of Nanda to the life of

a monk, which he intensely dislikes, his conflict of feelings, and

Sundari's lament for her lost husband. All this is pictured

skilfully in the manner and diction of the Kavya, and possesses

considerable narrative interest ; but in the rest of the poem

there is not much of description or narration except the account

of Nanda's ascent to heaven and yearning for Apsarases. Entire

space is, therefore, devoted to an impassioned exposition of the

evils of pride and lust, the vanities of the world and the joys of

enlightenment. Here, more than in the imaginative presentation

of the Buddha-legend, Asvaghosa the preacher, no doubt,

gets the upper hand of Asvaghosa the poet ; but in this very

conflict between his poetic temperament and religious passion,

which finds delight in all that is delightful and yet discards it

as empty and unsatisfying, lies the secret of the spontaneity and

forcefulness which forms the real appeal of his. poetry. It

is not merely the zeal of the convert but the conviction of the

importance of what he has to say that often makes him scorn

mere verbal polish and learned ostentation and speak with an

overmastering directness, the very truth and enthusiasm of which

sharpen his gift of pointed phrasing, balance his sentences and

add a new zest to his emotional earnestness.

In this respect Asvaghosa's poetry lacks the technical finish

and subtlety of the later Kavya ; but it possesses freshness of

feeling in the simplicity and nobility born of passionate faith.

Asvaghosa is fully conversant with the Brahman ical atid Buddhistic

learning of his day, while his metrical skill and use of

76 HISTORY OF SANS KBIT LltERATt) ftfi

rhetorical ornaments betoken his familiarity with the poetic art1

;

but the inherent contrast between the poet and the artist, on the

one handj and the scholar and the preacher, on the other, often

results in strange inequalities of matter and manner. At the

conclusion of his poems, Agvaghosa declares that he is writing

for a larger public, and not merely for a learned audience, for

the attainment of peace and not for the display of skill in the

Kavya. The question, therefore, whether he belongs to this

or that school of thought, or whether he employs this or that

metre or ornament in his poems is immaterial ; what is material

to recognise is that religion is not his theme, but religious

emotion, which supplies the necessary impetus and evolves its

own form of expression without making a fetish of mere rhetoric

or mere dogma. ASvagbosa is a poet by nature, a highly

cultivated man by training, and a deeply religious devotee by

conviction. This unique combination is often real and vital

enough to lift his poetry from the dead level of the commonplace

and the conventional, and impart to it a genuine emotional tone

which is rare in later poetry. What is most pleasing in his

work to modern taste is his power of combining a sense of reality

and poetry with the skill of art and scholarship. His narrative,

therefore^ is never dull, his choice of incident and arrangement

never incoherent, his diction seldom laboured and his

expression rarely devoid of elegant simplicity. If he is not a

finished artist in the sense in which his successors are, nor even

a great poet capable of great things, his poetic inspiration is

genuine, and he never speaks in a tiresome falsetto. If his poetry

has not the stress and discipline of chiselled beauty, it has the

pliability and promise of unrefined form ; it has the sincerity and

the throb; if not the perfectly ordered harmony, of full-grown music.

Agvaghosa's versatility is indicated by his third work,

2 a

Prakaraija or nine-act drama, entitled 8ariputra-prakarana (or

1 On Asvagboa as scholar and artist, see Johnston, op. eft., pt. II, pp- xliv-lxxix.

* H. Liiders, D<ia Sftriputraprakaran>, ein Drama .des A6vagho^, in Sitzungsberichtc

d Berliner Akad., 1911, p. 388 f.

ASVAGHOSA AND HIS SCHOOL 77

3aradvatiputra), of which only fragments on palm leaf were

discovered in Central Asia and a few passages restored by

Liiders. Fortunately the colophon exists, and the question of

authorship and name of the work is beyond doubt. Its theme

is, again, an act of conversion connected with the Buddha,

namely, that of Sariputra and Maudgalyayana, but the fragments

give us little idea of the way in which the story, well-known

from such older sources as the Mahavagya, was handled, in

having a Prakrit-speaking Vidusaka as one of the characters and

in conforming to the requirements regarding division into acts,

use of literary Prakrits,

1 ornamental metrical excursions 2 and other

details, the fragments, however, afford clear testimony that

the method and technique of a fairly developed Sanskrit

drama 3 were already established in the 1st or 2nd century A.D.

This presumption is confirmed a-lso by the fragments of two

other , plays,

4 which were discovered with the remains of

tSariputra-prakarana, but which bear no testimony of authorship and

may or may not have been written by ^Tsvaghosa. The first has

for its theme a Buddhist allegory, of which the details are not

clear, although a whole leaf of the manuscript has been recovered.

It has Kirti 'Fame/ Dhrti ' Firmness' and Buddhi ' Wisdom '

as characters, and apparently foreshadows such allegorical plays

as Krsnamisra's Prabodha-candrodaya of a much later time.

The Buddha himself appears, as in the drama described above,

and all the characters, so far as the fragments go, speak

Sanskrit. In having real, as well as allegorical, figures, it

1 On the Prakrits employed in this and the following plays, see Liiders in the works

cited, and Keith, HSL, pp. 85-89. The Prakrit ia literary and shows the influence of

Sanskrit.

3 The metres employed (besides Sloka) are the usual classical ones ; Arya, Upajati, Salim,

VamSastbavila, Vaaantatilaka, Malinl, Sikharinl, Harinf, Suvadanft, Sardulavikrujita and

Sragdhara.

8 Contra Sten Konow, Indische Drama, Berlin and Leipzig 1920, p. 50, but the

grounds are weak.

4 H. Liiders, Bruchstticke buddhisHscher Dramen, Kongl. Preuss. Turfan-Expentionen,

Kleinere Sanskrit-Texte I, Berlin 1911, The questiot of authorship is undecided ;

see Johnston, op. cit., pp. xx-xxii.

8 HlSlmV Ol? SANSKRIT

resembles more the Caitanya-candrodaya of Kavikarnapura in

its manner of treatment, but no definite conclusion is possible.

The other play appears to have been al&o intended for religious

edification, but from what remains of it we may infer that it

was a social drama of middle class life of the type of the

MTCchakatika. It concerns a young voluptuary, called simply

the Nayaka and probably named Somadatta, and his mistress

Magadhavati, apparently a courtesan converted to Buddhism.

There are also a Prince (Bhattidalaka), an ever-hungry Vidusaka,

named Kaumudagandha, a maid-servant, and a Dusta or Rogue.

The fragments are few in number and not consecutive, and it

is difficult to make out the story. But in view of the uncertainty

of the origin and antiquity of the Sanskrit Drama, these

specimens, which belong probably to the same age, are highly

interesting ; for they reveal the drama in its first appearance in a

relatively perfected form, and clearly indicate that its origin

should antedate the Christian era.

From the literary point of view, A^vaghosa's achievement,

we have seen, is marked not so much by crudity and primitiveness

as by simplicity and moderation in language and style;

it is artistic but not in the extravagant manner of the later

Kavya. Its matter and poetic quality, therefore, are more

appealing than its manner and artistic effect. This is certainly

different from the later taste and standard of verse-making ; and

it is not surprising that with the exception of Kalidasa, who is

nearer his time, Agvaghosa exercised little influence on later

Sanskrit poets,

1

although the exception itself is a sure indication

of the essential quality of his literary effort. Despite their

religious zeal, the literary works of Asvaghosa could not have

been approved whole-heartedly also by the learned monks for his

freedom of views and leaning towards Brahmanical learning.

1 The only quotation from ASveghosa in Alarpkara literature occur? in

nw5i td. Qaekwad's 0. 8., p. 18 (**Buddha>c. viii. 25), For other

see Johnston, op. cit., pp. Ixxix-lxxx, abd F. W. Thomas* Kts, intrpd., p. 29.

AVAGHOA AND HIS SCHOOL 79

With the Buddhist writers of the Kavya, on the other hand,

A^vaghosa was deservedly popular ; and some of their works were

modelled so closely on those of A^vaghosa that they were

indiscriminately assigned to him in later times, with the result

that the authors themselves came to be identified with him. 1

Of the successors of Asvaghosa, who are to be taken into

account, not because they were Buddhists but because their

works possess a wider literary appeal, we have already spoken of

Kumaralata, one of whose works is ascribed by the Chinese tradition

to Asvaghosa himself. Some of the poems

2 of Matrceta

have likewise .been attributed to Avaghosa by the Tibetan

tradition, one of whose famous chroniclers, Taranatba being of

opinion that Matrceta is another name for Asvaghosa ! Of the

twelve works ascribed to Matrceta in Tibetan and one in Chinese,

most of which are in the nature of Stotras and some belonging

distinctly to Mahayana, only fragments of $atapancaatka-stotra*

and Catuhhtaka-stotraf or panegyric of one hundred and fifty

and four hundred stanzas respectively, are recovered in Sanskrit.

Botlr these works are simple devotional poems in Slokas. T hey are

praised by Yi-tsing, to whom Matrceta is already a famous poet,

and who himself is said to have translated the first work into

Chinese ; but they do not appear to possess much literary merit.

That Matrceta, in spite of his name occurring distinctly in

Yi-tsing and in the inscriptions, was confused with Asvaghosa,

may have been due to the fact that he belonged to the same school

and was probably a contemporary. A Tibetan version of another

1 Concerning the identifications, see P. W. Thomas in Album Kern, Leiden 1903,

pp. 405-08 and IA t 1903, pp 345-60; also see ERE, VIII (1915), p. 495f.

2 For a list of the works see F. W, Thomas, Kvs, introd., pp. 26-28.

3 Fragments published by S. Le*vi in JA, XVI, 1910, pp. 438-56 and L. de la Valtee

Pousain in JRAS, 1911, pp. 769-77. Siegiing is reported to have reconstructed about two-thirds

of the Sanskrit text; see Winternitz, H/L, II, p. 271 note. Both these works exist in Tibetan

and Chinese.

4 The work is called Varnan&rha-varnana in the Tibetan version and Central Asian

fragments, For a translation of this text from Tibetan, see F, W. Thomas in IA f XXVIV,

1905 f pp. 145463.

work, called Maharaja-kanika-lekha, in eighty-five stanzas,

ascribed to Matrcitra, has been translated into English by P. W.

Thomas, 1 who is probably right in thinking that Matrcitra is

identical with Matrceta, and that king Kanika 'of the Kusa

dynasty addressed in this epistle of religious admonition is no

other than the Kusana king Kaniska. 2

Of greater interest than the rather meagre works of

Matrceta is the Jataka-mala* of Arya Sura, which consists of

a free but elegant Sanskrit rendering, in prose and verse, of

thirty-four

4 selected legends from the Pali Jdtakas and the

^Gariyii-pitaka, illustrating the Paramitas or perfections of a

Bodhisattva. Although sometimes marked by exaggeration, the

tales are edifying. They were apparently composed for supplying

ready illustrations to religious discourses, but the interest is

more than religious. The work reveals a close study of

A^vaghosi's manner, and is inspired by the same idea of conveying

in polished, but not too highly artificial, diction the noble

doctrine of universal compassion ; and it is not surprising, therefore,

that the author should be identified sometimes with Asvaghosa.

The attractive form in which the old stories are retold in

the Kavya-style slows that it was meant for a wider but cultivated

audience, and we have Yi-tsing's testimony, confirmed by the

existence of Chinese and Tibetan translations, that the work was

at one time popular in India and outside. Arya Sura's date is

unknown, but as another work of his 5 was translated into

1

7/1, XXII, 1903, p. 345 f. The epistle ia supposed to be Matrcitra's reply declining

king Kamka's invitation to bis court. The vogue of such epistolary exhortation ia borne out

by Nagarjuna's Suhfllekha and Candragomin's Sisya-lehha.

2 But contra 8. C. Vidyabhugan iu JASB, 1910, p. 477 f.

3 Ed. H. Kern in Harvard 0. S., 1801; trs. J S. Speyer in Sacred Books of the

Buddhists, Oxford University Press, 1895. The title is a generic term, for various poets have

written

'

garlands

*

of Jatakas.

4 The Chinese version contains only 14 stories.

For a list of other works ascribed to Xrya Sura by Chinese and Tibetan traditions,

see F. W. Thomas, Kvs, introd., p. 26 f.

AVADINA LITERATURE 81*

Chinese in 434 AD., he cannot be dated later than the 4th

century A.D. 1

2. THE AVADINA LITERATURE

Closely connected with the Jataka-mala, which is also

entitled Bodhisattvavadana-mala, are the works belonging to

what is called the Avadana literature ; for the Jataka is nothing

more than an Avadana (Pali Apadana) or tale of great deed, the

hero of which is the Bodhisattva himself. Their matter sometimes

coincides, and actual Jataka stories are contained in the

Avadana works. 2 The absorbing theme of the Avadanas being

the illustration of the fruit of man's action, they have a moral

end in view, but the rigour of the Karman doctrine is palliated

by a frank belief in the efficacy of personal devotion to the

Buddha or his followers. The tales are sometimes put, as in the

Jataka, in the form of narration by the Buddha himself, of a past,

present or future incident ; and moral exhortations, miracles and

exaggerations come in as a matter of course. As literary productions

they are hardly commendable, but their historical interest

is considerable as affording illustration of a peculiar type of

story-telling in Sanskrit.

The oldest of these collections is perhaps the Avadanatataka,*

which is well known from some of its interesting

narratives, but its literary merit is not high. The tales are

arranged schematically, but not on a well conceived plan,

1 into

1 We do not take here into account the works of other and later Buddhist writeis,

such as the Catuh-tatalta of Sryadeya, the Suhrllekha of Nagarjuna, the Sisya-lekha and

Lokananda-nataka of Candragoroin, or the Bodhicaryavat&ra of Santideva, for they contribute

more to doctrine or philosophy than to literature.

2 See Serge d'Oldenberg in JRAS, 1898, p. 304; and for Avadaoa literature in

general, see L. Feer's series of articles in JA between 1578 and 1884, and introd. to his

translation of the Avadana-tataka.

3 Ed. J. 8. Speyer, BibJ. Buddh., St. Petersburg 1902-09; trs. into French by

L. Peer in Annale9 du Must* Guimet, Paris 1891. An earlier but lost Asok&vadana was

composed, according to Przyluski, by a Mathurft monk about two centuries before Ktniska.

U-1348B

,82 HISTORY OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE

ten decades, each dealing with a certain, subject, and are told

with set formulas, phrases and situations. The first four decades

deal with stories of pious deeds by which one can become a

Buddha, and include prophecies of the advent of the Buddhas ;

while the fifth, speaking of the world of souls in torments,

narrates the causes of their suffering with a tale and a lesson in

morality. The next decade relates stories of men and animals

V

reborn as gods, while the last four decades are concerned with

deeds which qualify persons to become Arhats. The legends

are often prolix, and there is more of didactic than literary

motive in the narration. The date of the work is uncertain, but

while the mention of the Dlnara as a current coin (Roman

Denarius) is supposed to indicate 100 A.D. as the upper limit,

the lower limit is supplied more convincingly by its translation

into Chinese in the first half of the 3rd century.

Hardly more interesting from the literary point of view is

the Divyavadana,

1 the date of which is also uncertain, but

which, making extensive use of Kumaralata's work, cannot be

earlier than the 1st century A.D. It is substantially a Hinayfma

text, but Mahayana material has been traced in it. Being

probably a compilation of polygenotis origin, extending over

different periods of time, its matter and manner are unequal.

The prose is frequently interrupted by Gathas and pieces of

ornate stanzas, but this is a feature which is shown by other

works of this type. The language is reasonably correct and

simple ; but debased Sanskrit, marked by Prakritisms, is not

absent, and the diction is sometimes laboured and ornamental.

We have here some really interesting and valuable narratives,

specially the cycle of A^oka legends, but they are scarcely well

told ; the arrangement is haphazard and chaotic ; and the work

as a whole possesses little literary distinction. 2

1 Ed. B. B. Cowell and R. A. NeifiT Cambridge 1886. Almost all the stories Lave

been traced to other works.

1 For other collections of unpublished Avadftnts, see- Speyer and Peer, in the work*

aitcd, tnd Winternitz, H/L, II, pp. 290-92,

tAJ.K AND FABtK 83

To the first century of the Christian era probably nlso

belongs some parts of the Mahavastu, 1 the ' Book of Great

Events,' even if its substantial nucleus probably took shape in

an earlier period. Although its subject is Vinaya, it contains,

besides the life-story of the Buddha, some narratives of the

Jataka and Avadana type ; but in its jumbling of confused and

disconnected matter and for its hardly attractive style, it has small

literary, compared with its historical, interest. The same remark

applies more or less to the Lalita-vistara,

2 the detailed account

of the '

sport

'

of the Buddha, the date of which is unknown

and origin diverse. Whatever may be its value as a biography

of the Buddha, its style is not unlike that of the Puranas. The

narrative in 'simple but undistinguished Sanskrit prose is often

interrupted by long metrical passages in mixed Sanskrit, and

its literary pretensions are not of a high order.

3. THE LITERATURE OF TALE AND FABLE

The Buddhist anecdotal literature perhaps reflects an aspect

of the literary, us well as popular, taste of the time, which liked

the telling of tales in a simple and unadorned, but distinctly

elegant, manner ; for the origin of the Sanskrit Pancatanlra and

the Prakrit Brhatkatha, which represent story-telling from

another point of view, is perhaps synchronous, although

the various extant versions of the two works belong to a much

later period. The Avadana, the didactic beast-fable and the

popular tale are indeed not synonymous. While the Avadana,

closely related to the Jataka, is clearly distinguishable as a

Buddhist gest, which has a definite religious significance, the

other two species are purely secular in object and character.

The method of story-telling is also different ; for in the Jataka

or Avadana, we have ..generally the application of a past legend

1 Ed. E. Smart, 8 vols, Paris 1882-97, \vitb detailed summary of contents and Dotes.

2 Ed. Rajendralal Mitra, Bibl. lad,, Calcutta

1877 ; English Irs. by same (up to cb,

xv), Bibl. Ind. 1881-86; re-edited by 8. Lefmunn, Halle 1902, 1S08; complete French trs

by P. B. Fouoa-u i \ Annales da Muste Guimef, Paris 1884, 1892.

8i HISTORY OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE

to a tale of to-day. In the Jataka the Bodhisattva tells a tale

of his past experience, but it is not narrated in the first person ;

the device of first-hand narrative, as well as of enclosing a tale^

is a feature which characterises the classical method. The

Sanskrit poetic theory ignores the Jataka and Avadana, presumably

because they have a religious objective and seldom rises

to the level of art, but it does not also clearly define and discriminate

between the fable and the tale. The elaborate attempt

to distinguish between the Katha and the Akhyayika,

1 as the

invented story and the traditional legend respectively, is more

or less academic, and has hardly any application to the present

case. Some of the stories of the Pancatantra are indeed called

Kathas, but one of the versions of the entire work is styled

Tantrakhyayika, while Guijadhya's work is designated as the

Great Katha. Possibly no fine distinction is meant, and the

terms Katha aud Akhyayika are employed here in the general

sense of a story. A rigid differentiation, however, cannot

perhaps be made in practice between the fable aftd the tale ;

for the different elements in each are not entirely excluded in

the other, nor isolated. The beast-fable, as typified by the

PaHcatantra^ is riot seldom enriched by folk-tale and spicy stories

of human adventure, while the tale, as represented by the

Brhatkathd^ sometimes becomes complex by absorbing some of

the elements of the fable and its didactic motive. Both these

types^ again^ should be distinguished from the prose romance, the

so-called Katha and Akhyayika^ such as the Harsa-carita and the

Kadambarl, in which all the graces ard refinements of the Kavya

are transferred from verse to prose, either to create an exuberantly

fanciful story or to vivify and transform a legend or folk-tale.

The currency of tales and fables of all kinds may be presumed

from remote antiquity, but they were perhaps not used

for a definite purpose^ nor reduced to a literary form, until

1 See S. K. De, The Katba and the Akhyayika in Classical Sanskrit in BSOS, III,

p. 307f.- Dandin tf-28> speaks of Xkhyana as a general species, in which collectious of tales

like the Paiicatantra were probably included,

TALE AND FABLK 85

at a comparatively late period. The ancestor of the popular tale

may have been sach Vedic Akhyanas as are preserved, for instance,

in the Rgvedic dialogue-hymn of Pururavas and UrvasI, or in

such Brahmanic legends as that of Sunah^epa ; but it is futile

to seek the origin of the beast-fable in the Rgvedic hymn of frogs

(vii. 103), which panegyrises the frogs more from a magical

than didactic motive, or in the Upanisadic parable of dogs (Gh.

Up. i. 12), which represents the dogs as searching out a leader

to howl food for them, but which may have been either a satire

or an allegory. Nor is there any clear recognition of the fable

in the Epics as a distinct literary genre, although the motifs of

the clever jackal, the naughty cat and the greedy vulture are

employed for the purpose of moral instruction. But all these,

as well as the Jataka device of illustrating the virtues of

Buddhism by means of beast-stories,

1 may have suggested the

material out of which the full-fledged beast-fable developed in

the Pancatantra. In its perfected form, it differed from the

simple parable or the mere tale about beasts, in having the

latent didactic motive clearly and deliberately brought out and

artistically conveyed in a definite framework and a connected

grouping of clever stories, in which the thoughts and deeds of

men are ascribed to animals. There is nothing simple or

popular in such a form ; and the beast-fable as an independent

literary creation diverged considerably in this respect

from the popular tale, which is free from didactic presentation

and in which the more or less simple ideas of the

people and their belief in myth and magic, as well as racy

stories of human life, find a direct expression. In the case

of beast-fable, again, the connexion with the courts of princes is

clearer. The popular tale, no doubt, speaks of romantic prince

and princess of a fairy land ; but the framework of collection of

beast-fables like the Paftcatantra, which is delivered in the form of

1 The Barhut Stupa reliefs, depicting some of the stories, establish the currency of the

beast-fable at least in the 2nd Century B.C.

SO lUSlOKY OK SANSKIUT M'i'BKATUHK

instruction to tender- minded young princes in statecraft and

practical morality, leaves no doubt about one form of its employment.

It is thus closely related to the Niti-^astra and Arthafiastra,

1 but it is not directly opposed to the Dharma-^astra. The

fact is important ; for even if the beast-fable inculcates political

wisdom or expediency in the practical affairs of life, rather than

a strict code of uprightness, it seldom teaches cleverness at the

expense of morality.

2

a. The Pancatantra

The only collection of beast-fable and the solitary surviving

work of this kind in Sanskrit is the Pancatantra, which has come

down to us in various forms ; but it is a work which has perhaps

a more interesting history than any in world-literature.3 There

can be little doubt that

4 from the very beginning it had a

deliberate literary form. Each of its five parts, dealing respectively

with the themes of separation of friends (Mitra-bheda),

winning of friends (Mitra-prapti), war and peace (Samdhivigraha),

loss of one's gains (Labdha-nasa) and hasty action

(Apariksita-karitva), is a narrative unit in itself ; but all together

they form a perfect whole fitted into the frame of the introduction.

1 No direct influence of Kaulilya's Artha-xastra can be traced in the PaHcata.nl ra.

2 F. Edgerton in JAOS, XL, p. '271 f.

3 J. Hertel (Das Paftcatantra, seine Geschichie und seine Verbreitung, Leipzig

and Berlin, 1914, Index, p. 451 T.) records over 200 different versions of the work

known to exist in more than 50 languages (three-fourths of the languages befn?

extra-Indian) and spreading over a region extending from Java to Iceland. For a

brief re"sum6 of this history, as well as for a brief summary of the work, see Winternitz,

GIL, III, pp. 294-311 ; Keith, HSL, pp. 248 f, 357 f. The question whether the individual

tales or the Indian fable itself as a species, were borrowed, in their origin, from Greece

is much complicated. Chronology is in favour of the priority of Greece, but the suggestion

that India consciously borrowed from Greece is not proved. Some points of similarity may

be admitted, but they may occur without borrowing on either side At any rate, if reciprocal

influences and exchanges occurred, India seems to have given more than it took. Benfey's

position thnt. the tale is entirely Indian, while the fable came from Greece, need not be discussed,

for i'olklorists to-day no longer seek to find the bhthplaceof all tales and fublrn in

any one country.

THIS PANVATAOTRA H7

The stories are told, as in the case of the popular tale, in

simple but elegant prose, and there is no attempt at descriptive

or sentimental excursions or elaborate stylistic effects. The combining

of a number of fables is also a characteristic which it

shares with the popular tale, but they arc not merely emboxed ;

there is, in the weaving of disjointed stories, considerable skill in

achieving unity and completeness of effect. The insertion of a

number of general gnomic stanzas in the prose narrative is a

feature which is dictated by its didactic motive ; but the tradition

is current from the time of the Brahmanas and the Jatakas.

More interesting and novel, if not altogether original, is the device

of conveniently summing up the moral of the various stories in

pointed memorial stanzas, which are not general maxims butspecial

labels to distinguish the points of individual fables. The

suggestion

1 of a hypothetical prose-poetic Vedic Akhyana, in

which the verse remained fixed but the prose mysteriously dropped

out, is not applicable to the case of the blend of prose and verse

in the fable literature ; for the prose here can never drop out, and

the essential nature of the stanzas is gnomic or recapitulatory,

and not dramatic or interlocutory. There must have existed a

great deal of floating gnomic literature in Sanskrit since the time

of the Brahmanas, which might have been utilised for these

passages of didactic wisdom.

The Paflcatantra, however, is not a single text, but a

sequence of texts ; it exists in more versions than one, worked

out at different times and places, but all diverging from a single

original text. The original,

2 which must have existed long before

570 A.D. when the Pahlavi version was made, is now lost ; but

neither its date nor its title nor provenance, is known with

1 H. OJdeuberg in ZDMG, XXXVII, p. 54 f ; XXXIX, p. 52 f ; also- in his Zur Geschichte

d. altindischen Prosa, Berlin 1917, p. 53 f and Lit. d. alien Indien, cited above, pp 44 f

125 f, ]53f.

'

2 The idea of a Prakrit original is discredited both by Hertel and Edgerton. The

literature on the Paflcatantra is vast and scattered, but the results of the various studies will

be found summarised in the works, cited below, of these two scholars.

88 HISTORY OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE

certainty. The character and extent of the transformation, to

which the work was subjected in course of time, make the

problem of reconstruction one of great intricacy, but the

labours of Hertel1 and Edgerton

2 have succeeded in a great

measure in going back to the primary Paficatantra by a close and

detailed examination of the various existing versions. That it

originally contained five books with a brief introduction and was

called Paftcatantra, is now made fairly certain, but there is a considerable

discussion of the meaning of the word Tantra. It may

denote nothing more than a book or its subject-matter, but since

it occurs in the title Tantrahhyayika of one of the versions,

3

it

may indicate a text of polity as an art. There is no evidence

at all of authorship ; for the name Visnusarman, applied in the

introduction to the wise Brahman who instructs, with these

stories, the ignorant sons of king Amarasakti of Mahilaropya in

Deccan, is obviously as fictitious as the names of the king and

the place. Hertel thinks that the work was composed in

Kashmir, but his arguments are inadequate ; while nothing can

be confidently inferred from the mention of Gauda or Bsyamuka

or of well known places of pilgrimage like Puskara, Varanasi,

Prayaga and Garigadvara.

The various important recensions of the Pancatantra have

been classified into four main groups,

4 which represent diversity

of tradition, but all of which emanate from the lost original.

The first is the lost Pahlavi version,

6 from which were derived

1 Das Paftcatantra, cited above, as well as works and editions cited below.

* The Pancatantra Reconstructed t Text, Critical Apparatus, Introduction and Translation,

2 vols., American Orient. Soc., New Haven, Conn., 1924,

3 Jacobi, however, would translate it apparently as a collection of akhyayika in tantras,

'die in bucher eingeteilte Erzahlungssammlung.' See F. W. Thomas in JRAS, 1910, p. 1347.

4 Hertel, however, believes ia two versions of one Kashrnirian recension only as the

archetype of the other three recensions, namely, the Tantr&khyayika and what be calls

'E*. For a abort genealogical table, setting forth the relationship of tfce- four main recensions

or groups, see Edgerton, op. cit. t II, p. 48, and for a full and detailed table cf all known

versions see Penzer's Ocean of Story', Vol. V, p. 242 (also by Edgerton).

6 Made by he physician Burzoe under the patronage of Chosroes Anu0hTrwan

(581-79 A.D.) under* he title Karataka and Darnanaka.

THR PASfcATANTRA 89

the old Syriac

1 and Arabic 2 versions ; and it was through this

source that the Paficatantra, in a somewhat modified form, was

introduced into the fable literature of Europe. The second

is a lost North-western recension, from which the text was

incorporated into the two North-western (Kashmirian) Sanskrit

versions of Gunadhya's Brhatkatha, made respectively by

Ksemendra and Somadeva (llth century A.D.). 8 The third is

the common lost source of the Kashmirian version, entitled

Tantrakhyayika,

4 and of the two Jaina versions, namely, the

Simplicior Text, well known from Biihler and Kielhorn's not

very critical edition,

6 and the much amplified Ornatior Text,

called Paficakhyana, of Purnabhadra (1199 A.D.).6 The fourth

is similarly the common lost source of the Southern Paficatantra,

7

1 Made by Bud, a Persian Christian, about 570 A.D. under the title Kalilag wa

Damnag. Ed Schulthess, Berlin 1911.

1 Made by 'Abdullah Ibnu'l-Muquffa about 750 A.D. under the style Kallla wa

Dimna. Ed. L Cheikbo, 2nd Ed., Beyrouth 1923.

* Brhatkatha-maftjari xvi. '255 f ; Hatha-sarii-sagaTa lx-!xiv. Leo von Mankowski baa

edited, with trans etc., (from only one imperfect MS), Kseu.endra'a version separately in Der

Auszug aus dem Paftcatanlra m Kfemendras Brhatkathamafljari, Leipzig 1892. Lacote,

Hertel and Edgerton make it probable that the original Bfhatkatha of Gunadbya did not

contain the Paflcatanlra. S^madeva's \ersion of the Paficatantra (accordii g to Eruenau'e

computation in JAOS, LIII, 1^33, p. 125) contains 539 Slokas, while Ksemendra's in

Mankowtki's edition , haa 806 ; but deducting the stories not found in Somadeva, Ksemendra's

total would be about 270 only.

4 Ed. J. Hertel, Berlin 1910, containing two sub-versions ; also ed. J. Hertel in

Harvard 0. 8., Cambridge Mass. 1915; tra J. Hertel, 2 vols., Leipzig and Berlin 1909.

5 Bombay Skt. Ser., 1868-69 ; also ed. L. Kosengarten Bonn 3848 ; ed. K. P. Parab,

NSP, Bombay 1896 (revised Parab and V. L. Panshikar 1912). J. Hertel, Uber die Jaina

Recensionen des Paficatantra in BSGW, LIV, 1902, pp. 23-134, gives selections of text and

translation-

6 Ed J. Hertel, Harvard Orient Ser,, Cambridge Mass., 1908-12; trs into German by

Schmidt, Leipzig 1901; into English by A.W.Ryder, Chicago 1925. Purnabhadra uses

both the Tantrakhyayika and the Simplicior text.

7 Ed. J. Hertel (Text of recension 0, with variants from recension a\ Leipzig 1906;

Text of recension o, ed. Heinrich Blatt, Leipgig 1930. See also J. Hertel, Ober einen

siidlicl.en textus amplior des Paficatantra in ZDMG, 1906-07 (containing translation of

text). Of the Nepalese version. Bk. i-iii are included in Hertel's ed. mentioned above, while

Bk. iy-v in his. ed. of Tantrakhyayikd, introd., p. xxvii. Selections from the Nepalese version

published with trs. by Bendali in JRAS, 1888, pp. 466-501. See Herte.1 in ZDM0, LXIV,

1910, p. 58 f and Dos Paftcatantra, pp. 37 f , 818 f,

J2 1848B

(

the Nepalese version and the Bengali Hitopadega.

1 A detailed

study of the character and interrelation of the various recensions

and versions is not possible here, but some of their general

characteristics may be briefly noted. The Tantrakhyayika is

perhaps the oldest Sanskrit version, and preserves the original

text better and more extensively than any other version. But

none of the recensionsnot even the Tantrakhyayika, the claims

of which have been much exaggerated by Hertel represents in

its entirety the primitive text. The North-western original of

Ksemendra and Somadeva must have been a version made much

later in Kashmir. Ksemendra's fairly faithful, but dry, abstract

suffers from its brevity, but Somadeva's narrative, inspite of a

few omissions and some interruption of sequence by the introduction

of extraneous tales, is normally clear and attractive. There

is a great deal of reshuffling of stories, as well as intrusion of

additional matter, in both the Simplicior and Ornatior Texts, the

former adding seven and the latter twenty-one new stories. The

Southern recension exists in several sub-versions ; it is much

abbreviated, but nothing essential appears to have been omitted,

and only one complete story (The Shepherdess and her Lovers) is

added. The Hitopadeta* which has currency mostly in Bengal,

is practically an independent work, containing only four and not

five books, by one Narayana, whose patron was Dhavalacandra

and who must have lived before 1373 A.D., which is the date

of one of the manuscripts of the work. The compiler amplifies

the stories derived in the main from the Paficatantra, by drawing

upon an unknown source, considerably omits, alters, remodels

1 Repeatedly printed in India, but not yet critically edited. The better known ed.

is by P. Peterson, Bomb. Skt. Ser., 1887; also Hitopadetia nach NepaUschen Handfchrift. ed.

H. Blatt, Berlin 1980 (Roman characters). The earliest ed. is that of A. Hamilton, London

1810, and the earliest trs. by C. Wilkins, London, 1787.

2 See J. Hertel, fiber Text und Verfasser des Hitcpade&a (Bias.) Leipzig 1897,

p. 37, and Das Paficatantra, p. 38 f. In spite of omissions and alteration, the Hitopadeta

preserve! over half the entire sub-stories of the Paficatantra, and follows closely the archetype

which it shares with the Southern recension,

1'HK PA&CATANTIU 91

the sequence of books and stories, and inserts large selections of

didactic matter from Kamandaklya NUi-sara.

Although Hertel is right in believing that the Pancatantra

was originally conceived as a work for teaching political wisdom^

yet the fact should not make us forget that it is also essentially

a story-book, in which the story-teller and the political teacher

are unified, most often successfully, in one personality. There

are instances where the professed practical object intrudes itself,

and tedious exposition of polity prevails over simple and vivid

narration ; but these instances are happily not too numerous,

and the character of the work as a political text-book is never

glaring. Inequalities doubtless appear in the stories existing in

the different versions, but most of them being secondary, it can

be said without exaggeration that the stories, free from descriptive

and ornamental digressions, are generally very well and

amusingly told. They show the author as a master of narrative,

as well us a perfect man of the world, never departing from an

attitude of detached observation and often possessed of a considerable

fund of wit and humour veiled under his pedagogic

seriousness. If he makes his animals talk, he makes them talk

well and the frankly fictitious disguise of the fabliau eminently

suits his wise and amusing manner. With a few exceptions, the

individual stories are cleverly fitted together into a complex but

well planned form. The language is elegantly simple, and

the author shows taste and judgment in never saying a word

too much, except for a touch of the mock-heroic, and

in realising that over-elaboration is out of place. The gnomic

stanzas, if not the title-verses, are not always demanded by the

narrative, but they are meant to give sententious summary of

wo:ldly wisdom and impressive utterance to very ordinary, but

essential, facts of life and conduct. We do not know how

far these stanzas are original, for some of them occur in the

Epics and elsewhere ; but they are generally phrased with

epigrammatic terseness, and form an interesting feature,

in spite of the tendency to over-accumulate them. It is not

without reason, therefore, that the work enjoyed, and still enjoys,

such unrivalled popularity as a great story-book in so many

different times and lands.

b. The Brhatkathd of Gunadhya

The popular tale is represented by a number of works in

Sanskrit, but the earliest appears to have been the Brhatkatha, or

' the Great Story/ of Gunadhya, the Prakrit original of which is

lost, but which is now known from three comparatively late

Sanskrit adaptations. Its exact date ] cannot be determined, but

that it already received recognition before GOO A.D. is clear from

the references to its importance by Bana 2 and Subandhu3

; and

there is nothing to show that it cannot be placed much earlier.

If it belongs to a period after the Christian era, it is not

improbable that the work took shape at about the same time as

the lost original of the Pancatantra ; and to assign it to the fourth

century A.D. would not be an unjust conjecture.

4 The recorded

tradition informs us that the original Brhatkathd was composed

in Paisaci Prakrit; and it is noteworthy that the literary form

which the popular tale first assumed was one in Prakrit. Like

the Pancatantra, the work of Gunadhya was undoubtedly a new

literary creation, but the medium of expression perhaps indicates

a difference in method and outlook.

J On the question of date and author, see J. S. Speyer, Studies about KaihSsariisdgarfi

Amsterdam 1908, p. 44 f. Biihler in his Kashmir Report summarily places the work in tin

first centnry A.D., with ttluch F. Lac6te (Melanges Ltvi, p. 270) appears to agree; bu

S. Levi (ThMtre indien, 1801, p. 817) cautiously adjusts it to the 3rd century. See Keith in

JRAS, 3909, p. 145f. Both Dandin's Dasa-kumdra-carita and Subandhu's Vasavadattd refer

to the story of Naravahaoadatta.

3 Hara-carita t Introductory gt. 17.

3 Ed. F. . Hall, p. 110.

4 The alleged Sanskrit version of Durvinlta of the 6th century (R. Narasimhacbar in

L4,LXII, 1913, p. 204 and JRAS, 1913, p. 889 f; Fleet in JRAS, 1911, pp. 186 f) and the

upposed Tamil version of the 2nd cf-ntury A. I). (S. K. Aiyungar in JRAS, 1906, p. 689 f ; a> d

Ancient India, London 1911, pp. 328, 337} are too doubtful to be of any use ror chronological

purposes. See Lacote, Euai sur Gunafyya et la Brhatkatha, Parin 1908, p. 198 f.

THE BJyiHATKATHA 93

An obviously legendary account of the origin of the work

and the personality of the author is given, with some variations,

in the introductory account of the two Kashmirian Sanskrit

versions and in the apocryphal Nepala-mahatmya

1 of a pseudo-

Puranic character. It makes Gunadhya an incarnation of

a Gana of Siva, who under a curse is born at Pratisthana on the

Godavarl and becomes a favourite of king Satavahana ; but the

king has another learned favourite in Sarvavarman, the reputed

author of the Katantra grammar. Having lost a rash wager with

Sarvavarman, with regard to the teaching of Sanskrit to the

king, who had been put to shame by the queen for his ignorance

of the language, Gunadhya abjures the use of Sanskrit

and society, and retires to the wild regions of the Vindhya hilts.

There, having learnt from another incarnated Gana of Siva

the story of the Brhatkatha, originally narrated by Siva to

ParvatI, he records it in the newly picked up local PaisacT

dialect, in 700,000 Slokas, of which only one-seventh was

saved from destruction and preserved in the work as we have it !

The Nepalese version of the legend, however, places Ciunadhya's

birth at Mathura and makes king Madana of Ujjayini his

patron; it knows nothing of the wager but makes Gunadhya, on

being vanquished by Sarvavarman, write the story in PaisacI for

no other explicit reason than the advice of a sage named

Pulastya. The legend is obviously a pious Saiva invention

modified in different ways in Kashmir and Nepal;

2 from the

reference in the Har$a-carita, one may inter that it was known

in some form to Banabhatta ; but the value of biographical and

other details te not beyond question, if Sarvavarman is

introduced, Panini, Vyadi and Vararuci-Katyayana also figure in

the legend as contemporaries, although the Nepalese compiler

does not appreciate the grammatical interest, nor' the use of

1 Given in Lacdte, op. ctt., Appendix, p. 29] f.

2 It is as a saint of Saivism that Gunu<Jbya figured in the Nepalese work, as well as

in a Cambodian inscription of about 876 A.D., which is of Saitite inspiration (S. Le"vi in JA,

94 lilbTOHY Ot SANSKRIT LIT UKAt UHE

Prakrit. The association with Satavahana recalls one of the

brilliant periods of Prakrit literature, and probably suggests that

the employment of Sanskrit by the Ksatrapa rulers probably

found a counter-movement in favour of the patronage of Prakrit

literature; but Satavahana being a dynastic name, which may

denote any of several kings, it does not help to solve the

chronological problem.

3

But much controversy has naturally centred round the

value of the Gunadhya legend regarding its testimony on the

form of the lost work and its language. The legend speaks of

Gunadhya's work being written in Sloka and in the dialect of

the wild people of the Vindhya regions, which is called the

dialect of the Pi^acas or Paigacl. Dandin, in his Kavyadarga

({. 88), appears to know the legend in some form, and states that

the work was written in the Bhuta-bhasa ; but he thinks that

it was a type of the prose romance known as Katha, in which,

of course, verse was allowed to be inserted. The three existing

Sanskrit versions are all metrical, but this need not invalidate

Dandin's statement, if Dandin can be presumed to have possessed

a direct knowledge of the work already famous in his time.

More inconclusive is the evidence regarding the nature and

location of the dialect in which the work was composed. In

accordance with the legend, the PaisacI Prakrit is localised 2 as

the dialect of the Vindhya regions lying near about Ujjayini, but it

is also maintained 3 that it was a North-western Prakrit of Kekaya

and eastern Gandhara, which is regarded as the ancestor of the

group of Dardic dialects now spoken in Kafirstan, Swat valley,

1 On the alleged Greek influence on MunAclhya's work, see Lacote, op. cit.

f pp. 284-86,

who argues the opposite way to show that the Greek rommce was influenced by the Indian.

See Keith, HSL, p. 866 f.

* Sten Konow in ZDMG, LXIV, 1910, p. 95 f and JRAS, 1921> p. 244 f; Keith, HSL,

p. 269. Bsjas*ekhara (Kavya-rriimarpsa, p. 51) apparently holds the same view. Sten Konow's

view, in brief, is that the Pais*aci was an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Dravidians in

Central India.

3 G. Grierson iu JRAS, 1905, p. 285 f, ZDMG, LXVI, 1913, pp. 49 f, at pp. 74-8C,

JRAS, 1921, p. 424 f, as well as ia his Linguistic Survey, 1919, Vol. Ill, pt. 2 and in

Hastings, ERE, under Paigaca, Vol. X (1918), p. 43 f.

THE B9HATKATHI 95

Citral and adjacent places. The difficulty of arriving at a final

conclusion * lies in the fact that the statements of fairly late

Prakrit grammarians about Pai^acI Prakrit, as well as the doubtful

fragments cited by them as specimens,

2 are meagre and uncertain.

It is also not safe to argue back from the character and location

of present-day dialects to those of a hypothetical Prakrit. The

designation Pai^acI was perhaps meant to indicate that it was an

inferior and barbarous dialect, and the sanction of a vow was

required for its employment ; but what we know about it

from Prakrit grammarians and' other sources makes it probable

that it was an artificial form of speech nearer in some respects

to Sanskrit than the average Prakrit. If it hardened / and d

alone, it is a characteristic which may be equally applicable to a

Vindhya dialect influenced by Dravidian and to a dialect of the

North-west. The question, therefore, does not admit of an easy

solution, although greater plausibility may be attached to the

linguistic facts adduced from the Dardic dialects.

The exact content and bulk of the original Brliatkatha cannot

also be determined, even to the extent to which we can

approximate to those of the original Pancatantra . We have two

main sources of knowledge, derived from Kashmir and Nepal

respectively, but both of them employ a different medium of

expression, and are neither early nor absolutely authentic.

The first is given by two metrical Sanskrit adaptations of

Kashmir, namely, the Brhatkatha-mafijar'i

* ' the Bouquet of Great

1 Lacote, op. cit. t p. 51 f. Lac6te believes the Pui^acT to be based upon the Indo-Aryan

language of the North-wee/, but spoken by non-Aryan people. He suggests a via media by

stating that Gunadhya picked up the idea of the dialect from travellers from the North-west;,

I ut his sphere of work lay around Ujjayinll Cf. F. W. Thomas, Foreword to Penzer's cd. of

Ocean of Story, Vol. IV, pp. ix-x.

2 Hemacandra's Prakrit Grammar, ed. Pischel, iv. 303-24; for Markendieys , see

Grierson in JRAS, 1918, p. 391. For a discussion of the passages, see Lac6te, op. erf.,

p 201 f. Vararuci speaks of one Pais'acI dialect ; Heujacandra appears to distinguish three

varieties; Mftrkan<jeya increases the number to thirteen 1 Different localities are mentioned,

i>ut one locality is agreed upon, viz., Kekaya or N. W. Punjab.

3 Ed. Sivadatta and Parab, NSP, Bombay, 1901. Parts of it (introduction and first

two stories), translated with the Eoman text, by S. Le*vi in JA, 1885-86,

Tale,' of the polymath Ksemendra, and the Katha-sarit-sagara,*

*

the Ocean of Rivers of Tales/ of Soraadeva, the latter written

between 1063 and 1082 A.D. and the former about a quarter of a

century earlier.

2 Like Somndeva's work, that of Ksemendra is

divided into eighteen Lambhakas, 3 but it is of the nature of a

condensed abstract, industriously and perhaps (as his other

Mafijaris show) faithfully compiled. It consists of about 7,5 "0

31okas, as against more than 21,000 of Somadeva's work ; but

Ksemendra makes up for the brevity and dreariness of his

narrative by a number of elegant, but mannered, descriptive and

erotic passages.

4 Somadeva, on the other hand, is not anxious

to abridge ; but he shows considerable restraint in avoiding

useless elaboration, and tells his stories with evident zest and in

a clear and attractive manner. At one time it was thought that

these two Kashmirian versions drew directly from the Prakrit

original, but the idea has now been discarded, not only from the

comparative evidence of their contents, but also in view of the

discovery in Nepal in 1893 of the second important source,

namely, the BrhatkatM-loka-samgraha of Budhasvamin, 5 which

is also in Sloka, but unfortunately incomplete. Its date is unknown,

but it is assigned, mainly on the probable date and

1 Ed. Durgaprasad and Parab, NSP, Bombay 1889 (reprinted 1903, 1915 etc.). II.

Brokhaus edited i-v (with trs.), 2 vols. Leipzig 1813, and vi-viii, ix-xviii (text only) in Abb fiir

die Kunde d. Morgenlandes, II and IV, Leipzig 1862 and 18G6. The work is well known from

its Eng. trs. by C. H. Tawney under the title Ocean of Story in Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1880-87,

reprinted with notes and essays, etc., by N. M. Penzer in 10 vols., London 1924-28.

2 See Biihler, Uber das Zeitalter des katmirisclien Didders Somadeva, Wien 1885.

Somadeva wrote the work to please SilryamatT, princess of Jalarpdbara, wife of Ananta and

mother of Kalada. Ksemendra also wrote most of his works under king Kalas*a of Kashmir.

5 The division d es not seem to be original, being missing in Budbosvamin's version,

which has Sarga division. The sections are called Gucchakas *

clusters

'

in Ksemendra, and

Tarangas 'billows

'

in Soraadeva, according to the respective titles of their "works.

* On these descriptive passages, see Speyer, op. ct., p. 17 f. Speyer estimates that

Ksemendra 's work contains 7,561 gltkas, Somadeva's 21,388.

5 Ed. F. Lacdte, with trs,, Paris 1908-29 (i-xxviii). The work was first discovered

by Haraprasad Sastri in Nepal, but its importance wag not realised till Lac6te edited the

work and published the results of his investigations. The MS is from Nepal, but otherwise

there is no sign of the Nepalese origin of the work.

tradition of the manuscript, to the 8th or 9th century A.D.

Although this work is a fragment of 28 Sargas and 4,539 stanzas,

and also, as its name implies, an abbreviated abstract, its

evidence is highly important regarding the existence of two

distinct traditions of the text, which show considerable and

remarkable divergences.

1

Tbe main theme of both the recensions appears to be the

adventures of Naravahanadatta, son of the gay and amorous

Udayana, famed in Sanskrit literature, and bis final attainment

of Madanamanjuka as his bride and the land of the Vidyadharas

as his empire; but in the course of the achievement, he visits

many lands and contracts a large number of marriages with

beautiful maidens of all kinds and ranks. A vital difference,

however, occurs in the treatment of the theme. While the

Nepalese recension concentrates upon the main theme and gives

a simple and connected narrative, comparatively free from

extraneous matters, the Kashtnirian recension is encumbered

by a stupendous mass of episodic stories, indiscriminately accumulated

and remotely connected, regardless of the constant

break and obscuration of the original theme. The Nepalese

recension, for instance, ornits the introductory Gunadhya

legend, which occurs in the Kashmirian, and plunges at once

into the story of Gopala and Palaka and of the love of Gopala's son

for Suratamanjarl, connecting it with the story of Naravahanadatta,

who is made the narrator of the tale of his twenty-six

marriages. The Kashmirian authors are apparently aware of this

beginning, but the necessity of commencing with the Gunadhya

legend and making Gunadhya the narrator of the tale makes them

shift the story of -Gopfila, Pfilaka and Suratamanjarl, and place it,

unconnectedly, as a kind of appendix at the end. The Nepalese

recension omits also the unnecessary tale of Udayana 's winning of

1 See Lac6te, Essai cited above, for a discussion of the Kashmirian versions, pp. 61-145,

the Nepalese version, pp. 146-196, comparison of the two versions, pp. 207-18, and of the

original Bfhatkatha, pp. 1-59.

PadmSvati, and does not think it desirable to provide royal ancestry

for the courtesan Kalingasena, mother of Madanamanjuka, in

order to conceal the questionable origin of the heroine. In the

Kashmirian recension, the hero Naravahanadatta does not even

pake his appearance till his birth in Bk. IV (in both versions),

but the narrative of the. hero is interrupted for two more books

by the stories of Saktivega and Suryaprabha, who, recognising

in the infant the destined emperor of the Vidyadharas, relate

their own adventures as aspirants to the same rank. In this

way, the main theme is constantly interrupted by a vast cycle

of legends, although Ksemendra and Somadeva are not in perfect

agreement, after Bk. IV, regarding the sequence and arrangement

of the extra mass of material. It is clear that both the Kashmirian

versions do not, in their zeal for collection, succeed in

producing a unified or well-constructed work, although the

narrative of Somadeva, who is a consummate story-teller, is

marked, in spite of its bulk, by greater coherence and desire

to preserve, however strenuously, the effect of the main story.

The accretions, for example, not only bring in entirely irrelevant

stones of Mrgankadatta and Muktaphalaketu, of expedition to

the Camphor Land and the White Island for the winning of

Ratnaprabha and Alamkaravati respectively, but also incorporate

the Vikramaditya cycle of legends and interpolate versions of

the entire Paflcatantra and the Vetala-pancavimati. All this,

with the addition of countless number of small tales, legends

and witty stories, would justify the quaint, but appropriate,

name of Somadeva' s largest collection as the ocean of the streams

of stories, and which in their rich mass would make the overwhelmed

reader exclaim that here is indeed God's plenty !

How far these episodes and legend-cycles belonged to the

original Brhatkatha cannot be precisely determined, but it is

clear that much of them is remotely and sometimes confusedly

connected with the main theme, and is entirely missing in the

Nepalese recension. It is true that Budhasvamin's work is

speciallyc styled a ompendium (Samgraba) and that his omissions

THE BRHATKATHA V\f

may have been dictated by a desire for^ abbreviation ; it is also

possible

1 that Budhasvainin is an independent writer rather than

a mere epitomator, although he may have adhered to Gunadhya's

narrative in the main. But it is clear^ from the way in which the

thread of the main story of Naravahanadatta is kept from being

lost in an interminable maze of loosely gathered episodes, that

these interruptions or deviations from the predominant interest

could not have occurred on a large scale in the original, if we are

to presume from its reputation that it was a work of no small

literary merit. It seems, therefore, that Budhasvamin follows

the original with greater fidelity

2 than Ksemendra and Somadeva,

who, apart from minor stories which they individually insert,

are following a recension refashioned and much enlarged in

Kashmir. In this recension the central theme appears to occupy,

after the fashion of Kavya-poets, a subordinate interest; their

essentials are often abridged and throughout sacrificed to the

uluborutioii of subsidiary adventures, as well as to a somewhat

confused insertion of tales derived from other sources. Whether

this Kashinirian recension was in Pai&lc! or in Sanskrit is

not known ; but Somadeva distinctly speaks of having altered

the language, and there are not enough verbal similarities3

between Somadeva and Ksemendra to warrant the supposition

oi a common Sanskrit original.

In the absence of the original work of Gunadhya, an estimate

of its literary merit would be futile. Each of the three adaptations

have their own characteristics, which may or may not

have been inherited from the original. Ksemendra's abridged

compilation is rapid, dreary and uninspiring, except in ornamental

passages," which doubtless show the influence of the

Kavya. Somadeva' s larger and more popular masterpiece has

J Winternitz, GIL, III, pp. 315-17.

*

Lac6be, Essai, p. 207 f, Lacote believes that the Kashmir recension is far removed from

the original Bfhatkatha. and was compiled about the 7th century A.D.

3

Bpeyer.oy. eft., p. 27 f,

been rightly praised for its immensely superior quality of vivid

story-telling and its elegantly clear, moderate and appropriate

style. Budhasvatnin's abstract, considered nearer to the original,

is marked by a sense of proportion both in matter and mannera

rapid narration, power of characterisation and simple description,

as well as by a more bourgeois spirit and outlook suiting the

popular tale ; but, in spite of these qualities, it is of a somewhat

prosaic cast. It is difficult to say how far all the praiseworthy

qualities, if not the blemishes, of these late versions, produced

under different conditions, were present in the primary Brhatkatha,

a verbal or even a confident substantial reconstruction of which

is wellnigh impossible. To judge, however, from the principal

theme, -stories and characters, as well ay iiom the general method

and outlook, it is possible to assert that Gunadbya must have

been a master at weaving into his simple story of romantic

adventure all the marvels of myth, magic and fairy tale, as well

as a kaleidoscopic view of varied and well-conceived characters and

situations. Although JSaravahanadatta is a prince, the story is

not one of court life or courtly adventure, nor even of heroic

ideals ; it is essentially a picture consonant with the middle class

view of life and sublimated with the romance of strange adventure

in fairy lands of fancy. It is certainly a work of larger and

more varied appeal, containing a gallery ol sketches from liie,

romantic as well as real ; and Keith is perhaps just in characterising

it as a kind of bourgeois epic. The loves of the muchmarried

Naravahanaclatta are perhaps too numerous and too lighthearted,

like those of his famed father LJdayana, but his chief and

best love, Madanamanjuka, has only one parallel in Vasantasena

of the Mfcchakatika ; while in Goraukha we have a fine example of

an energetic, resourceful and wise courtier and friend. It cannot

be determined with certainty if the numerous tales of fools, rogues

and naughty women existed in the original ; but they form an

unparalleled store-house ot racy and amusing stories, which evince

a wide and intimate experience of human life and are in keeping

with the humour and robust good sense of people at large.

 

Om Tat Sat
                                                        
(Continued...) 

(My humble salutations to Sreeman S N Dasgupta ji and Sreeman S K De ji for the collection)