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 ...

Vetāla 10: Madanasenā and her Rash Promise

(Pp. 5-9)

Click the link to jump directly to the english translation of the tenth Vetāla. This page only contains the notes.

This is the ninth story in the Hindi version.[1] It is more condensed than in Somadeva. The thief is no gallant, as in our text, and thinks only of securing the jewels which Madanasenā is wearing. The would-be lover, by name Somadatta, is amazed at the girl keeping her word.

“This affair,” he says,

“is like jewels without a suitable dress, or food without ghī, or singing without melody; they are all alike unnatural. In the same way dirty clothes will mar beauty; bad food will undermine strength; a bad wife will worry one to death; a disreputable son will ruin his family; an enraged demon will kill. A woman, whether she love or hate, will be a source of pain. There are few things a woman will not do, for she never brings to her tongue what is in her heart, never speaks out what is on her tongue, never tells what she is doing: the deity has created woman in this world a strange creature.”

On returning home her husband has ceased to feel any affection for her, and says:

“The beauty of a cuckoo is its note, of a woman is chastity; an ugly man’s beauty is knowledge, and a devotee’s beauty is forgiveness.”

The reply to the Vetāla’s question is the same in both versions.

Once again Babington’s[2] modesty intervenes, and he entirely omits the tale in the Tamil version as “being unfit for publication”!

As a matter of fact the tale is highly moral, and is a lesson in magnanimity. As such it has migrated towards the West and has found a place in every important literature in the world. In fact, it is one of the most interesting stories with which we have to deal, and a volume could easily be written on its ramifications and the different uses of its chief motifs. In these present notes I shall give ample reference for the preparation of such a volume, but will be able to deal briefly with only some of the most important variants.

Although in Somadeva the story appears complete in itself, in most of its other forms it is nearly always a substory, being quoted by some clever person in order to find a thief by noting what different answers are given to the question put at the end of the tale. Thus in this case the original form of the story has been preserved, although, of course, it is no longer the Vetāla who asks the question.

Let us examine some Indian parallels first. In Hemavijaya’s Kathāratnākara[3] we read of Cillaṇā, the wife of King Śreṇika, who has a wonderful garden. It contains a fine mango-tree, from which a thief has been stealing fruit to satisfy the pregnant cravings (see Vol. I, pp. 221-228) of his wife. This he successfully accomplishes by magically making the tree bend towards him. The matter is reported to the king, who seeks advice from his minister Abhaya. This astute man manages to attend a meeting of all the worst characters of the city.

They have a concert and get very merry. Abhaya volunteers to tell them a story, which he proceeds to do:

“An old spinster, longing for a husband, steals flowers from a garden, wherewith to worship the God of Love. She is caught in the act by the gardener, who bids her do his will for ransom. She agrees to come to him after her wedding. After she has succeeded in obtaining a husband she starts, arrayed in her best, to fulfil her contract, but is successively held up by robbers, who crave her jewels, and by a hungry Rākṣasa, both of whom she tells of her engagement with the gardener. She promises to return after she has been with the gardener. When she comes to each in turn, they are so much struck with her honesty that they allow her to return unharmed to her husband.”

At the completion of the story Abhaya turns to the company and asks which character had displayed the most magnanimity. Various answers are given, but the mango-thief, who is also present, at once votes for the robbers. Hence Abhaya spots the thief.

The story is quoted by Bloomfield[4] in “The Art of Stealing in Hindu Fiction,” to which excellent article I must now refer more fully. As already stated above, the chief theme of the story is magnanimity. To such an extent is this gospel preached that it is made to affect not only people in the ordinary walks of life, but thieves also. So the “Noble Thief” becomes one of those lesser motifs, which, however, merits individual consideration. Professor Bloomfield has treated the subject with his accustomed scholarly elucidation. The following extracts, therefore, are to be found in his article mentioned above, pp. 218-220.

The Robin Hood of Indian fiction is Apahāravarman, who, in the second story of the Daśa-kumāra-charita, not only plunders the rich to give to the poor, but also aids a loving couple, by first bringing them together, and then steering them into the haven of happiness.

Then in the Satapatta Jātaka, No. 279, we read of a generous robber who lets off a poor man who has collected a debt of a thousand pieces.

In the Daridravarṇana, “description of poverty,” in the Śārṅgadhara Paddhati, stanza 9, a poor man says to his wife:

“Hand me the rag, or take the boy into your own lap.”

The wife responds:

“There is nothing here on the floor, husband, but behind you there is a heap of straw.”

A thief, come to steal, hears them, throws a strip of cloth, which he has got elsewhere, over the boy, and goes off in tears.

In Vīracharita, adhyāya 26 (Indische Studien, xiv, 138), five robbers come from Ayodhyā to Mount Śataśṛṅga. There lives an ascetic, Sutapas, who, during a famine, has gone from home, leaving his family behind. The robbers, out of pity, support the family, and thus save its life. After twelve years Sutapas returns, rejoices to find, contrary to expectation, that his family is alive, and rewards the robbers with magic gifts.

In Pārśvanātha-caritra, ii, 619 et seq., a young thief, Mahābala, son of a good family, to be sure, decides to steal in the house of a merchant, Datta. As he peeks into the house through a lattice window he hears Datta quarrelling bitterly with his son over some trifling disagreement of accounts. Out of decency he reflects that a man who will abandon sleep in the middle of the night and quarrel with his diligent and proper son over such a trifle, will die of a broken heart if he were to steal his property. So he goes to the house of a courtesan, Kāmasenā. He sees her lavish her professional ministrations upon a leprous slave as though he were a god. He decides that he cannot steal from anyone as greedy for money as all that. Then he goes to the house of a Brāhman, and sees him sleeping with his wife on a couch. A dog urinates into the Brāhman’s outstretched hand, who says “Thank you” as he rises with a start. The thief reflects that such is the Brāhman’s greed for alms that it persists even while he is asleep. He, therefore, must not steal there. He then decides to eschew mean folk, and breaks into the king’s palace.

In Prabandhacintāmaṇi (Tawney, p. 17), Vanarāja, destined by his horoscope for kingship, is temporarily a thief. Once he digs a tunnel into a merchant’s house, and is stealing his wealth, when his hand slips into a bowl of curds. He says to himself, “I have eaten in this house,” and so he leaves all the merchant’s possessions there and goes out.

Apart from the “Noble Thief” motif our tale contains another one which is found throughout folklore stories of all lands—namely, the “Promise to Return” motif. How often have we read of people caught by ogres, giants, ghouls, etc., who have been released on the understanding that in a certain time and at a certain place they will return! Examples have already occurred in the Ocean (see, e.g., Vol. Ill, p. 33), and abound in the Nights and all European collections. Here it is only necessary to note the occurrence in passing. The motif has been fully treated by Bloomfield[5] as far as Hindu fiction is concerned.

Now, to return to the story of the damsel’s rash promise, we find that it soon spread to neighbouring countries—Burma,[6] Persia,[7] Palestine,[8] Arabia,[9] and so on to Turkey[10] and across to Europe. Here it was given new impetus by being included by Boccaccio first in his Filocolo[11] and later in the Decameron.[12] It was included in numerous French versions, and used by Chaucer for the Franklin’s Tale.

I have, of course, mentioned only the chief milestones on the road of its progress, but they are quite sufficient to show its wide circulation both in the Orient and Occident.

The story has been studied chiefly by students of Chaucer and Boccaccio. Of Chaucer articles I would mention the one by Clouston, Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, part iv, No. 16, The Chaucer Society, 2nd series, 20, London, 1886, pp. 291-340. Here will be found translations of most of the above-named versions, all given as variants of the Franklin’s Tale. See also W. H. Schofield, “Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale,” Modern Language Ass. Amer., vol. xvi (N.S.), vol. ix, pp. 405-449.

The author supports the view that Chaucer based his story on an old Breton lay, as indeed he says himself in The Prologe of the Frankeleyns Tale:

“Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes
Of divers aventures maden layes,
Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge; 
Which layes with hir instruments they songe,
Or elles redden hem for hir plesaunce;
And oon of hem have I in remembrance....”

A large number of useful references will be found in A. C. Lee’s The Decameron, its Sources and Analogues, pp. 322-328.

The Russian variant of Radloff, Proben der Volkslitteratur der Türkischea Stämme Süd-Sibiriens, vol. iii, p. 389, besides being in Clouston, op. cit. sup., p. 320 et seq., is included by Coxwell, Siberian and Other Folk Tales, p. 351 et seq.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Ibid., pp. 174-184.

[2]:

Babington, op. cit., p. 57.

[3]:

J. Hertel, Kathāratnākara. Das Märchenmeer. Eine Sammlung indischer Erzahlungen von Hemavijaya, vol. i, 1920, p. 233 et seq.

[4]:

Amer. Journ. Phil., vol. xliv, 1923, pp. 200-201.

[5]:

Life and Stories of the Jaina Savior Pārçvanātha, Baltimore, 1919. P. 183 et seq. See also his “Art of Stealing.. op. cit., p.218n28 .

[6]:

See J. Bandow, Precedents of Princess Thoodamma Tsari, 1881, p. 18 et seq.

[7]:

Ṭūṭī-nāmah, India Office MS. See Clouston, Originals and Analogues, Chaucer Soc., 2nd series, 20, p. 310 et seq.; J. Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, 1828, chap. xx, vol. ii, pp 164-171; J. Scott, Bahar-Danuṣ, vol. ii, p. 295.

[8]:

M. I. Levi, Mélusine, vol. ii, 1885, cols. 542-546; Gaster, Exempla of the Rabbis, pp. 79, 206.

[9]:

Nights, from the Tunis MS. of Habicht. See Chauvin, op. cit., viii, pp. 123, 124.

[10]:

Rosen, Tuti-nameh, vol. i, pp. 243-258; cf. vol. ii, p. 168 et seq. and p. 174; J. Hammer, Rosen""öl, vol. ii, p. 277; Gibb, Forty Feziers, p. 105.

[11]:

Book IV, question 4, vol. ii, p. 48 of the Moutier edition, 1829.

[12]:

Day 10, novel 5, “Madonna Dianora and Messer Ansaldo.”

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