Oct. 4, 1872.]
THE WRIHATKATHA.
—literally the dialect of the goblins—and that it differs from its original only in the language and by a condensation of the too prolix narrative.* After this statement the Kathâpitha, or in troduction to the work, gives the wonderful origin of the tale at great length. (Kath. I. 1-13–
I. 8) Šiva, we are told, once narrated to Pârvati the marvellous history of the seven Vidyādhara Chakravartins. He was overheard by one of his attendants, Pushpadanta, who communi cated it to his wife Jaya, a servant of Pârvati. The latter again spread it amongst her fellows and the indiscretion of Pushpadanta soon became known to the divine pair. Pârvati, filled with anger, then cursed Pushpadanta and condemned him, in punishment of his fault, to be born as a mortal. His brother Mályavān, who dared to intercede for him, received a like sentence.
But
when Pârvati saw Pushpadanta's wife, her faith
303
in 100,000 Slokas each, with his own blood. By the advice of his pupils, he sent the whole to Sātavāhana, hoping that the king being a man of taste, might preserve and spread them. But that monarch rejected with disgust a work that was written in the language of the goblins and with blood. On receiving this news Gunāqhya burnt six of his stories; the seventh was pre served with difficulty through the entreaties of his pupils.
King Sātavāhana, who accidentally
learned that the recitation of the remaining book charmed even the beasts of the forest, repented
of his former conduct, repaired to Gunādhya's habitation and obtained the MS. of the remain
ing story.
He studied it with the help of Guna
deva and Nandideva, and wrote the introduction, detailing its origin, likewise in the language of the Pišāchas.
The book then became one of
the stories that are famed in ‘the three worlds.”
ful attendant, overwhelmed by distress, she re
This account of the composition of Somadeva's
lented so far as to set a term to the effects of
original, which traces the story from Šiva,
her curse.
She decreed that, when Pushpadanta,
through Vararuchi and Kāmabhūti, to Gunadhya,
on meeting a goblin or Paisàcha called Kāna
his pupils and Sātavāhana, looks as if it were purely legendary. Its nature has led Professor H. H. Wilson,Swho first made known Somadeva's work by an analysis of its contents, Professor H. Brockhaus, the editor of the Kathasaritsä gara, and Professor Lassen," to doubt Soma
bhūti, in the Windhyas, should remember the
great tales and his former birth and should tell them to Kānabhūti, he should be delivered from his mortal body. Mályavān also should be allow ed to return to heaven, when he had heard the
Wrihatkathâs from Kānabhāti and had spread them on the earth. Agreeably to this order, Pushpa danta was born in Kaušâmbi, as Wararuchi Kātyāyana, and became a great grammarian and the minister of Yogananda, the last of the
deva's assertion, that he worked up an older Prakrit poem. These three scholars are, on
Nandas.
was certainly defensible twenty or even ten years ago, when the number of Sanskrit works, generally accessible to European Sanskritists, was not very large. But it is no longer tenable since Dr. F. E. Hall collected, in the introduc tion to his Wäsavadattà," a considerable mass of trustworthy evidence, which proves that a Wri
After an eventful life he retired into
solitude and on a pilgrimage to the temple of
Pârvati Windhyavāsini, he met Kāmabhāti in the forest.
He remembered his former life and com
municated to the Pišácha the seven ‘great tales.’
the contrary, of opinion that Somadeva col
lected various works of fiction and digested them into a harmonious whole.
Their view
Having accomplished this he re-obtained his celestial nature, according to Pârvati's prediction. Mályavān, also, who in his human birth had
hatkathá in the Paisàcha Prakritt existed,
become Gunādhya of Pratishthāna and had
many centuries before Somadeva.
The most
served King Šātavāhanat as minister, came ac important witnesses there adduced, are Dandi companied by his two pupils Gunadeva and
who mentions a Vrihatkathá composed in the
Nandideva, to the dwelling place of Kānabhāti. He received from him the seven stories in the
Bhūtabhāshā, in his Käryādarśa, I. 38, and Su bandhu who, in the Väsavadattá, speaks of a
language of the Pišāchas and wrote them down
Wrihatkathá, divided into sections called Lambas.
- Kathâsaritsägara, ed. Brockhaus, I. 1. 3.
sātavāhanas tasyāh | tadbhāshayāvatāram waktum chakre
Wrihatkathâyāh sărasya samgraham rachayāmyaham||
kathâpitham. ||
and I. 1. 10.-
Yathá millam tathaivaitanna manāgapyatikramah granthavistarasamkshepamätram bhāshā cha vidyate|| Compare for the last line Hall, Vasavadatta, Introd. p. 23. t Alias Sātavāhana or S'alivāhana.
- Tābhyām sahacha kathâm tāmāśvāsya [äsvādya 21 sa
Brockhaus, Kathá. I. 8. 37.
§ Collected Works III. 159 seq. | Kathasaritsdigara, I. p. viii.
- Indische Alterth. III. 1084 & IV. 811.
- p. 22-24.
+ Regarding the Pais'âcha dialect, see Lassen, Instit. Prakrit. pp. 377 and 439,