Kathasaritsagara
 A 16th century folio from an Indian retelling of the Kathasaritsagara |
The Kathāsaritsāgara ("Ocean of the Streams of Stories") is a famous 11th-century collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales as retold in Sanskrit by a Shaiva named Somadeva.
Kathasaritsagara is said to have been adopted from Guṇāḍhya's Brihatkatha, which was written in a poorly-understood language known as Paiśācī. The work is no longer extant but several later adaptations still exist — the Kathasaritsagara, Brihatkathamanjari 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 Brihatkatha in Sanskrit. Presently available are its two Sanskrit recensions, the Brihatkathamanjari by Kshemendra and the Kathasaritsagara by Somadeva.
Content
The work consists of 18 books of 124 chapters and approximately 22,000 ślokas (distichs) in addition to prose sections.[1] 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 weighs in at 10,565 lines. All this pales in comparison to the (presumably legendary) 700,000 ślokas of the lost original Brihatkatha. The principal tale is the narrative of the adventures of Naravahanadatta, son of the legendary king Udayana. A large number of tales are built around this central story, making it the largest existing collection of Indian tales. It also contains early recensions of the Panchatantra in Book 10; and the Vetālapañcaviṃśati, or Baital Pachisi, in Book 12.
The Kathāsaritsāgara is generally believed to derive from Gunadhya's lost Brihatkatha written in the lost Paisaci dialect. But the Kashmirian (or "Northwestern") Brihatkatha that Somadeva adapted may be quite different from the Paisaci ur-text, as at least 5 apparent descendants of Gunadhya'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.
Editions and translations
Editions
- Pandit Durgāprasāda; Kāśīnātha Pāṇḍuraṅga Paraba, eds. (1889), The Kathâsaritsâgara of Somadevabhatta, The Nirnaya-Sâgara Press
- Pandit Durgāprasāda; Kāśīnātha Pāṇḍuraṅga Paraba; Wasudev Laxman Shastri Pansikar, eds. (1915), The Kathâsaritsâgara of Somadevabhatta (3rd ed.), The Nirnaya-Sâgara Press
Translations
- C. H. Tawney (1880-84), The Kathá sarit ságara; or, Ocean of the streams of story, 2 vols, Vol I, Vol II at the Internet Archive. The only complete translation into English.
- N. M. Penzer (1924-28), The ocean of story, being C. H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's Katha sarit sagara (or Ocean of streams of story), 10 vols Vol I, Vol II, Vol III, Vol IV, Vol V, Vol VI, Vol VII, Vol VIII, Vol IX, Vol X at the Internet Archive. Based on Tawney's translation, but greatly expanded, with additional notes and remarks comparing stories from different cultures.
- A. R. Krishnashastry (1952), Kathaamrita (Kannada: ಕಥಾಮೃತ), Geetha Book House, K.R. Circle, Mysore 570 001, India.
- Sir James Mallinson (2007-9), The Ocean of the Rivers of Story, Clay Sanskrit Library. New York: New York University Press. vol 1, vol 2. intended to be a complete translation in nine volumes, only two volumes, reaching up to canto 6.8, were published before the publisher ended operations.
- Arshia Sattar (1997), Tales from the Kathasaritsagara. Penguin. Includes key selections from the Kathasaritsagara.
- Radhavallabh Tripathi, Katha Sarit Sagar (Hindi). National Book Trust.ISBN 9788123714318.
Influence
The book was a favourite of scholar of Buddhism Herbert V. Guenther, according to Jodi Reneé Lang, Ph.D.[2]
The idea of a sea of stories was an inspiration for Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.[3]
See also
References
- ^ Penzer 1924 Vol I, p xxxi.
- ^ "Jodi Reneé Lang, Ph.D.: Herbert Guenther, The Man".
- ^ The Ocean of the Rivers of Story Volume One, trans. by James Mallinson, Clay Sanskrit Library (New York: New York University Press, 2007), p. 23.
External links
- Online HTML ebook of The Ocean of Story (kathasaritsagara), volume 1-9, proofread, including thousands of notes and extra appendixes.
- Works by Somadeva Bhatta at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Somadeva Bhatta at the Internet Archive
- Works by or about Kathasaritsagara at the Internet Archive
- Works by Kathasaritsagara at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Somadeva Bhaṭṭa at Library of Congress, with 43 library catalogue records
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