Dip into the ocean of ancient tales

The Kathasaritsagara of Somadeva: A retelling

by Meena Arora Nayak.

Aleph.

Pages 456.

Rs999

Aradhika Sharma

The ancient, yet eternally modern Kathasaritsagara (‘The Ocean of the Rivers of Story’) is a significant work that serves to remind us of our cultural heritage and scholarship. Estimated to have been compiled around 1070 CE and retold by the Shaivya Brahman, Somadeva Bhatt, during the reign of Raja Ananta of the Lohara dynasty of Kashmir, the Kathasaritsagara is said to be the inspiration of great masterpieces of the world. These include the ‘Arabian Nights’ — the compendium of middle Eastern fold tales written during the Islamic Golden Age; The ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm written in 1812; and Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’, written between 1387 and 1400. The fascinating work continues to inspire authors and fascinate readers thousands of years after it was written.

However, as admitted by Somadeva himself, the Kathasaritsagara is an abridged version of a much larger compendium of stories — Bṛhatkathā (The Great Story) written by Guṇāḍhya in the lost Paishachi dialect in the 1st century CE. Writes Somadeva: “My purpose is to ensure that this conglomeration of stories is remembered.”

Meena Arora Nayak’s retelling of the legends and tales contained in this mighty work is an opportune reminder of the country’s cultural diversity. The classic, which is one of the oldest surviving collection of stories in the world, contains more than 350 tales told across 18 books in over 20,000 stanzas. Kathasaritsagara consists of 18lambhakas (books) of 124taramgas (chapters named ‘waves’). Nayak, however, has consciously chosen to cover just 14lambhakasin the interest of a more linear and less rambling narrative.

The central story of this epic revolves around Naravahanadatta, the son of the famed Raja Udayana, and his marital quests wherein he cohorts with the ladies of terrestrial and celestial origin. Nayak’s primary attempt is to adhere to the core narrative of Naravahanadatta’s story.

Kathasaritsagara celebrates the art and craft of the oldest form of literature — the short story. All the stories are adroitly intertwined, while proceeding from the original tale.Yet many are self-contained, one nimbly leading to another. Interspersed with legends, myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and anecdotes, the Kathasaritsagara follows the ‘frame narrative’ or the story within a story technique. Still, the stories are complete in themselves and many of them, such as the tale of Nala-Damyanti, are well known and oft narrated.

“Somadeva wrote the Kathasaritsagara as a cure for the psyche rather than an intellectual pursuit,” says Nayak. The stories are told for the pure delight of storytelling, without aiming for moral teachings. Yet, wisdom is intrinsic to them. In ‘The Bodhsattva Calls for Help’, Naravahanadatta’s minister Gomukha says: “Those who have good thoughts lead a good life and those who have evil thoughts… suffer misery”.

In the tale of ‘Upkosha Outwits Her Harassers’, the virtuous Upkosha outmaneuvers (in a way that would make the modern feminists proud) four respected but lecherous men who were trying to sexually exploit her. Diametrically opposite to this story is that of ‘Bodhisattva and The Wanton Wife’, in which the treacherous wife betrays her husband for the love of another man and, subsequently, has to suffer poverty and humiliation.

Kathasaritsagara includes tales of penance and sin; of temptation and redemption; of crime and punishment; of curses and boons; justice and injustice; love, longing, separation, and union with the beloved and the divine.

The pages abound with talking swans and monkeys, huge, bloodthirsty rakshasas, snake gods, wise rishis, beauteous apsaras, gallant princes, yakshas, scholars and yoginis and magical shoes in which you can stride in the skies. There’s a whole section of stories on foolish men; it includes stories such as ‘Kesha-Murkha’, ‘Asthi-Murkha’, ‘The Fool Who Marked the Ocean’.

In the story named ‘The City of Wooden People’, Naravahanadatta comes across the “expansive city of Hemapura”, which was populated with wooden people — “moneylenders, prostitutes, citizens, horses, elephants — all going about their business like real live beings, but mechanical and mute.” Thus, imagination takes wondrous flights, bringing abundant fantasy into mundane life, the reader enthralled today, as he must have been centuries ago.