Kathasaritsagara (the Ocean of Story)
by Somadeva | 1924 | 1,023,469 words | ISBN-13: 9789350501351
This is the English translation of the Kathasaritsagara written by Somadeva around 1070. The principle story line revolves around prince Naravāhanadatta and his quest to become the emperor of the Vidhyādharas (‘celestial beings’). The work is one of the adoptations of the now lost Bṛhatkathā, a great Indian epic tale said to have been composed by ...
Preface to volume 7
AS stated in the Preface to Volume VI, there is only one Appendix to the present volume.
It consists of notes on the remaining seventeen (really sixteen[1]) vampire stories.
The collection, as given by Somadeva, is obviously in the form in which he found it, and it has been presented in its entirety, despite the fact that several of the tales had already appeared; and others we shall meet again later.
So far from being superfluous, I consider this repetition is both interesting and valuable. It shows what was probably the form of the story in the original Bṛhat-kathā, and the form it had after it had found its way into other collections.
The Foreword to the present volume is of the greatest importance, as it represents a definite step in the study of Fiction motifs.
Although the tabulating and explaining of “incidents” in folk-tales was begun in 1884 by Sir Richard Temple in Wide-Awake Stories, folklorists seem to have made but little headway. Professor Bloomfield, whose work I have quoted so often, now takes up the cudgels himself, and has honoured my work by a most original and suggestive Foreword.
Dr Barnett and Mr Fenton still gallantly sail with me on the Ocean, though at times I fear I have taken them on a long voyage; but the terrors of the deep seem to leave them unmoved!
N. M. P.
St John’s Wood, N.W.8,
December 1926.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
By mistake i said “sixteen (really fifteen)” in the Preface to Volume VI.