Introduction to Story books

Like the novels stories in Sanskrit are variously called fairy tales, myths, and fables. It is vain to try to discriminate them. "It was, however, a distinct and important step when the mere story became used for a definite purpose, and when the didactic fable became definite mode of inculcating useful knowledge". A germ of our stories may be traced to the famous hymn of the Rigveda (vii, 103) in which Brahmans are compared to croaking frogs as they sing at their sacrifice. A certain kinship between man and animals comes out clearly in the Upanishads (Chhandogya, 1, 12; iv, 1; 5, 7) where we have the allegory or satire of the dogs who search out a leader to howl food for them, the talk of two

flamingoes whose remarks call attention to Raikva, and the instructions of the young Satyakama first by a bull, then by a flamingo, then by an aquatic bird. In the epic, Mahabharata, a clear recognition of fables is noticed, and in the Puranas and elsewhere stories are often related to illustrate an idea. Whether known as Akhyana or Akhyay ika (narrative) or Katha (conversation) in 'spirit' some stories are essentially connected with Nitisastra, some with Artha- sastra, and others with Dharmasastra intending to bear lesson on general good conduct, economics, and royal duties. In 'form' the stories are related in prose, but the moral is fixed in the memory by being put in verse form, and other didactic verses are strewn in the tale. In the structure of the story there is a distinctly artistic touch in complicating and enlarging the theme, not merely by combining a number of fables to form a book, but in interweaving the fables so that the whole would become a unity. The subject matters of the stories are naturally various and are intended to entertain both the adults of various temperament as well as children who are fond of animals and birds behaving like human beings. The Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa are the earliest and the most popular of the Brahmanical story-books which have influenced the Buddhist and Jain storybooks like the Jataka-mala and also the Dasakumara. charita, Brihat-katha, Kathasarit-sagara and several others. The Panchatantra must have been written after the Mahabharata, and it is not later than 200 A.D. It is Brahmanical in spirit throughout with Vaishnava tendency. It is ascribed to Vishnusarman who was engaged by king Amara-sakti of Mahilaropya, a city of the south, on his promise to teach in six months the three idle princes moral science (nitisastra) and the royal polity (dharma-sastra) and probably economics (arthasastra). The book of five (pancha) subject-matters (tantra) comprises five parts, iz mitra-bheda (separation of friends), mitra-samprapti (winning of friends), Kakolukiya (vigraha, sandhi, war and peace), Labdha-pranasa (loss of one's gettings), and Aparikshita-karaka (karita, inconsiderate action). The frame-work of the first book is the story of a bull and lion, who are introduced to one another in the

forest by two jackals and become fast friends. One of the jackals, feeling himself neglected, starts an intrigue by telling the lion and the bull that each is plotting against the other. As a result the bull is killed in battle with the lion, and the jackal, as prime minister of the latter, enjoys the fruits of his machinations. This book gives ample room for political discussions. It contains a number of interesting fables. For instance the fate of the ape who pulled out a wedge and was split up by it is recounted to prove the folly of interfering with what does not concern one. one. Again there. are three cases of evils brought on oneself 'in the tales of the foolish monk who took a thief as pupil and had his cash stolen, of the jackal who ran in between and was killed by the impact of two butting rams, and of the procuress who took the place of a weaver's wife in order to further her intrigue with a patron, and suffered in consequence of the loss of her nose." The second book, named, 'winning of friends" is meant to illustrate the advantages of judicious friendships and deals with the adventures of a tortoise, a deer, a crow, and a mouse. a mouse. It contains more attractive stories. For instance there is the tale of the clover kirg of the doves who saves his retinue from the hunter's net by making them all fly up with it and then has the bonds cut by the mouse, being careful to have his cut last. Again the story of the Brahn.an who bade his wife prepare focd to feed Brahmans at the change of the moon, and to override her objections on the score of economy, tells the story of the overgreedy jackal who, having as food a boar, deer, and hunter, nibbled the end of the bowstring which killed him by splitting his throat. The third book, named, 'war and peace', points out the danger of friendship concluded between those who are old enemies. An illustration refers to the tale how the stronghold of the owls was burned by the crows. "The origin of the war is explained as due to an error in speech and this elicits the tale of the ass in the panther's skin, which by braving lost its life. Again, an ascetic rescued a mouse and made it a maiden, when she became ripe for marriage he sought a meet husband; the sun declined the proposais as the cloud was stronger than he, the cloud admitted inferiority to the wind, the wind to the mountain, and it to the mouse, so that the sage turned the maid to a mouse again.'

The fourth book, named, 'loss of what has been acquired' is meant to illustrate how fools can be made by flattery to part with their possessions. The main story of the monkey and crocodile illustrates the point. Both of them lived in such amity that the crocodile's wife became jealous, and falling sick would be content with nothing save her riaval's heart. The crocodile, though sad, seeks to entice the ape to visit him but the ape finds out his plan and saves himself by saying that his heart is kept on a fig-tree, escaping when the crccodile seeks to obtain it from the tree. The croco :ile seeks to renew the friendship, but is told instead that the ape is not like the ass who came back; this leads to another story. The fifth book, named, 'inconsiderate action', contains a number of stories connected with the experiences cf a barber, who came to grief through failing to take all the circumstances of the case into consideration. For instance, a Brahman goes to the king's palace leaving his pet mongoose in charge of his baby son who has been entrusted by his wife to his care. On his return he finds the mongoose rushing to meet him with bloody paws and mouth; in a rage he deems his son. killed and slays the beast, only to find that the blood was that of a cobra which the faithful guardian had destroyed'.1 1 "The reconstructed text is unquestionably a text book for the instruction of kings in politics and the practical conduct of everyday life, but it is also a story-book, and the author was not inclined to cut down his stories merely to the bare minimum necessary of his task of instruction. " The chief characteristics consist of the embodiment of and the intermingling of prose with gnomic stanzas and little stanzas giving the moral in each tale. "The language of the author is distinctly elegant. There can be no doubt that the work was the production of an artist." In addition to Pahlavi and South Indian versions many mixed versions of the text is found in Sanskrit. It was also rendered into old and modern Gujerati, old and modern, Maharashtri, Braja. bhasha, and into Tamil. It was used freely by Sivadasa in his Vetalapancha-vim sati, the Sanskrit texts of the Sukasaptati, and the Dva-trimsat-puttalika. "Its tate in western lands has been still more brilliant. The Hitopadesa, of Narayana (900), the Bengal descendant of the Panchatantra, is the best known and most popular work of Sanskrit literature. It comprises four books, viz. Mitra-libha (winning of friends), Suhrdbheda (separation of friends), Vigraha, (war), and Sandhi (peace).

The Brihat-katha (long story) of Gunadhya does not exist in its original form. It was written at an uncertain date and locality in Paisachibhasha which is etymologically the language of those who live on eating uncooked meat, and applied to a number of low Prakrit dialects spoken by the most ignorant and degraded classes, which are identified by Grierson with dialects spoken in Kafiristan, the Swat valley, Chitral and Gilgit where the people were cannibals and called eaters of raw flesh pisacha) The date of Gunadhya cannot be definitely ascertained. It may be that Bhasa's dramas drew some inspiration from this source, but we have no strict proof. The Brihat-katha is alluded to in the Dandin's Dasakumara-charita and Bana's Kadambari. Thus the date may be placed between 400 B. C and 500 A. D. The locality is also indefinite owing to the fact that there is one Pratishthana on the Godavari and another at the junction of the Ganga and the Yamura at Jhunsi near Allahabad. What is clear that Ujjain or Kausambi was the scene whence Gun-dhya derived much of his inspiration, which is a very different thing from the place where he got royal patronage and completed his work. The source of the Brihat-katha cannot be determined with precision. It is, however, clear that Gunadhya drew upon three sources. "Ihe Ramayana gave him the motif of the search of a husband for a wife cruelly stolen from him soon after a happy marriage. From Buddhist legends and other traditions of Ujjain and Kausambi he was deeply familiar with the tales of Pradyuta or Mahasena and the gallant and dashing hero Udayana, whose love-adventures were famed for their number and variety. He was also in touch with the many tales of sea-voyage and strange adventures in far lands which were current in the busy centres of Indian trade, and with the abundant fairy-tales and legends of magic current in India." The original plot of Gunadhya's Brihatkatha appears to be simple. The king Udayana had a son named Naravahanadatta who was a model of his father and was born with with thirty-auspicious signs which indicated either asceticism of the Buddha's type or universal dominionship of the world. In his youth Naravahanadatta fell in love, despite other wives, with 47

Madana-manchuka (manjuka) who was a hetaira. She hated her position and wanted to be recognised as a woman of family (kulastri), and avoid her compulsory polyandry. But soon after the happy marriage she was stolen by Manasavega, a Vidyadhara. Naravahanadatta with the aid of his faithful minister and a number of friendly princes was successful in discovering and rescuing her and simultaneously winning the empire of the Vidyadharas who dwell beyond the formidable defences of the Himalayas. Naravahanadatta and other priuces set out to different directions in their expedition. Ultimately they were reunited and they recounted the adventures to one another. The reports include reference to Narav hanadatta's other loves and many a tale of adventurous journeying as well as love-story and fairy lore. A series of adventures were drawn from low life and allied to marvellous happenings of every kind¹. The disappearance of the Brihatkatha of Gunadhya is a serious loss in Indian literature because it was "a work which ranked beside the Mahabharata and the Ramayana as one of the great store houses of Indian literary art." But his enduring memorial is furnished by the versions of the Brihatkatha which exist. The earliest of the four versions is the Brihatkatha-sloka sangraha of Buddhasvamin of uncertain date (from eighth or ninth century A.D.). The manuscripts of his work are from Nepal. "It is divided into cantos of which twenty-eight survive, probably a mere fraction of the original, though it extends to 4,539 verses." The story in the main is the same with a lengthy introduction and the mention of a number of Vidyadhara girls whom the hero married in rescuing the heroine Madanamanjuka, the daughter of a hetaira, Kalingasena. Buddhasvamin followed far more faithfully his original than the Kashmirian authors of the later versions. 1 The author Gunadhya was clearly the post, not of kings so much, as of the merchants, the traders, the seafarers, and even the handicraftsmen of his day. "His epic was a bourgeois epic." The story of the Ramayana is thus repeated. The Dasakumaracharita repeats the adventures of the princes. Madanamanchuka the heroine, called Kalingasena in Buddhasvamin's Brihatkatha. sloka-samgraha, is repeated in Bhasa's Charudatta and the Mrichchhakatika of a king Sudraka of uncertain identity and date. The fantasy of Gunadya lives on also in the Yasastilaka of Somadeva Suri and in the Tilakamanjari of Dhanapala.

The Brihat-katha-manjari of the Kashmirian poet Kshemendra (much before Somadeva, 1063 A.D.) in verse comprises eighteen books of which four (xiii, xiv, xv, xvi) are interpolation containing extra matter. The original story of Gunadhya has been retained and the influence of Buddhasvamin is not absent. But the source of Kshemendra (and Somadeva) appears to be a lost version of the Brihatkatha. The "dry and sober" abridgement of the main story by Kshemendra (and Somadeva) has deprived it "of all life and attraction." The greater interest of the Brihat-katha-manjari lies in its extra matter which includes both the versions of the Panchatantra and that of the Vetala-pancha-vimsatika which have no real connection with the story of Naravahanadatta. There are a series of additional episodes wherein lies the real interest of Kshemendra's work. The Katha-sarit-sagara was written by the Kashmirian poet Somadeva, a considerable period after that of Kshemendra, between 1063 and 1081 in order to divert the troubled mind of Suryamati, a princess of Jalandhar, wife of Ananta and mother of Kalasa. In addition to the eighteen books (lambhakas) he has divided the work into 25 Tarangas comprising 21,388 verses. The object and method of his composition in verse is related by Bopadeva in a verse which in Keith's translation reads "literary convention and the connexion of topics have been presented as best as I could, as well as the arrangement of a part of the poem so as not to offend against the sentiment of the story (or the story and its sentiment)." Thus there is a change of order but there is no change in the first five books as given in Kshemendra's work. The source of Somadeva is common to that of Kshemendra and is a lost Sanskrit version of Gunadhya's original work in Paisachi. Like Kshemendra Somadeva has also retained the main story with additional information regarding Udayana's love affairs including the episode that he himself was about to marry the hetaira, Kalingasena, the mother of Madana manchuka, the heroine of Naravahanadatta, whose wives included over a dozen Vidyadhara maidens. His additions also included both the versions of the Panchatantra and that of the Vetala-panchavimsatika and a series of episodes.

The Vatala-pancha-vimsatika was originally part of a distinct cycle, but it is preserved in its oldest form in Kehemendra's Brihat-katha-manjari and Somadeva's Katha-sarit sagara. The frame-work of this collection of twenty-five stories is as follows. 'Trivikramasena, or as later accounts have it, king Vikramaditya of Ujjayini, used to get annually a fruit from an ascetic containirg a jewel. In gratitude he offers to aid the ascetic who asks him to go to a cemetery and bring down from a tree a corpse which is on it. without uttering a single word, to a spot in a graveyard where certain rites for the attainment of high magical powers are to take place. As the kirg is carrying the corpse alorg on his shoulders, a ghoul (Vetala, Vampire) which has entered it, begins to speak and tells him a fairy tale. On the king inadvertently replying to a question the corpse at once disappears and is found hanging on the tree again. The king goes back to fetch it, and the same process is repeated till the ghoul has told twenty-five stories. Each of these is so constructed as to end in a subtle problem, on which the king is tempted to express his opinion. The king is thus finally defeated and is silent. The demon then reveals to him that the evil ascetic is seeking in reality to slay him (king), and at his bidding the king asks the ascetic to show him how to perform the prostration required in the rite which is to be performed with the corpse, and hows off the evil-doer's head.' The stories are interesting. One. for instance, ends with the question of relationship of the children of a father who marries the daughter of a lady whom his son espouses. Another relates to the question of the marriage of a girl "when she has been rescued from a demon by the united work of three lovers, one of whom finds by his skill the place where she is hidden, the other by mygic provides an aerial car to seek for her, and the third by valour slays the demon; the king gives the palm to valour. "Which again is the nobler, the husband-to-be who permits his beloved one a last assignation, the robber who lets her pass him unscatted when he knows her mission, or the lover who returns. her unharmed when he learns of the husband's noble deed." "A king desires a human sacrifice for his own benefit, parents and Brahman priest seek to carry out, the demon is ready, but the little child to be offered laughs at their shameless folly in ignoring the

transient nature of all earthly things, and his life is spared.' "1 otherwise known as The Simhasana-dvatrimsika, Vikrama charita, is a book of thirty-two tales of unknown date and authorship. It is later than Vetalapanchavimsatika and comprises both verses and prose. The tales are told by thirty-two maidens. The throne (simhasana) was presented to king presented to king Vikramaditya by Indra. After the death of the king in battle against Sali vahana it was burried in the earth where thirty-two spirits bound there in statue form. It is alleged to have been discovered by king Bhoja of Dhara in the eleventh century when that king desired to seat himself on it All the stories relate to king Vikramaditya. After relating the tales the spirits got released. The most interesting of the stories is that of a king who gives to his dearly beloved wife the fruit that drives away old age, but she gives it to the master of the house who gives it to a hetaira and the king in disgust abandons his throne. In the Jain recension of Kshemamkara the stories are framed to make out the king a model of generosity "who spent his substance in gifts to the priests of what he won by his great deed of valour. In it there are narrative verses at the beginning and end of each prose tale. The South Indian version contains like the original form maxim verses and narrative verses mingled in its prose. In a North-Indian recension the stories are lost in the morals. There is another version consisting entirely in verses. The Bengal version ascribed to Vararuchi is based on the Jain recension. There are a few imitations of this work, all dealing with Vikramaditya's adventures. One of those is the Viracharitra in thirty chapters of Ananta "whose real hero is rather Sudraka, once co-regent of Salivahana, 1 There are several recensions of this book of twenty-five stories. Sivadasa's edition cannot be earlier than twelfth century; it is in prose and verse and may represent the original form of the tales, but some of the verses are taken from Kshemendra's Brihat-katha-manjari. Another anonymous recension is mostly in prose also based on Kshemendra. The late recension of Jambhaladatta has no verse maxims. An abbreviated version by Vallabhadasa "has been freely rendered into modern Indian vernaculars and also exists in the Mongolian Ssiddi-kur,"

but later a supporter of the decendants of Vikramaditya. Another is the Salivahanakatha in eighteen cantos, partly in prose by Sivadasa. "The third one is known as the Madhavanalakatha" in simple prose with Sanskrit and Prakrit stanzas by Ananda. The fourth one is anonymous called Vikramodaya in verse, where the hero appears as a learned parrot. The fifth is a Jain compilation of the fifteenth century, Pancha-danda chhatra-pravandha, where the hero appears "as a magician and master of black magic." The third collection is the Suka-saptati where a parrot narrates seventy stories. The frame-work is interesting. A merchant, Haradatta, had a foolish son, Madanasena, who spends his wholetime in making love with his youngman. In order to make the son wise the father presents to the former two wise birds, a parrot and a crow, whose talk converts the son. Thus when he goes out on business he entrusts his young wife to the birds. She regrets the absence of her husband but is ready to accept a substitute. The advice of the crow enrages the lady who threatens to kill it. The wiser parrot seemingly approves of her plan but warns her of the risks she runs and makes her promise not to go and meet any paramour unless she can extricate herself from difficulties as Gunasalini did. The curiosity of the lady is thus aroused. The bird tells one story but only as far as the dilemma when he asks the woman what course the person concerned should take. As she cannot guess, the parrot promises to tell her if she stays at home that night. Seventy days pass in the same way maintaining her virtue till the husband returns. About half of these seventy stories deal with breaches of the marriage-bond and the rest 'exhibit other instances of the cunning usually of hetairai or clever decisions of arbitrators. Religion plays its parts in helping helping immorality; religious processions, temples, pilgrimages, marriages, sacrifices, all are convenient occasions for assignations.' One story refers to Muladeva who is asked to decide which of two hideous wives of demons is the better-looking. There are other less known collections of tales in Sanskrit, Prakrit and vernaculars. The late Katharnava of Sivadasa is a collection of thirty-five tales including

stories of fools and thieves The Purusha-pariksha of Vidyapati of Mithila is a similar collection of forty-four stories, dated fourteenth century. The Pravandhachintamani of Jain Merutunga and the Pravandha-kosa of Jain Rajasekhara, both, belonging to the fourteenth century, deal with legends of authors and other important persons. Another Jain story book is Bharatakadvatrimsika of which the thirty-two tales are intended to deride Brahmans. The Parisishtaparvan of Hemachandra deals with the oldest Jain teachers in a folk-ta'e form, including the myth of the incest of brother and sister, children of a hetaira, of Chandragupta Maurya dying as a pious Jain. The Jain Charitras and Puranas which "do not attain the level of literature, contain elaborate allegory of human life in the form of a tale written in 906 A. D. by Siddha or Siddharshi. The Upaniti-bhavaprapancha-katha in Sanskrit prose with a number of verses is an allegory of "unrelieved dreariness due to the dry and scholastic Jain tenets and the somewhat narrow views of life prevalent in Jain circles." The Samyak-tattva-kaumudi of unknown date and authorship contains the story of the picus Arhad-dasa who relates to his eight wives and they to him how they obtained true religion and how overhearing them a king and a thief were converted. The Kathakosa of unknown date and authorship is "a series of tales without connection, in bad Sanskrit with verses in Prakrit. which gives a poor Jain version the story of Nala and Damayanti". The Champaka-sreshthi-kathanaka of Jinakirti of fifteenth century is in frame a story containing three tales, one of Ravana's vain effort to avoid fate. The Palagopala-kathanaka of the same author contains the tale of a woman who accused of attempts on her honour the youth who has refused to yield to her seductions. This brief survey of the story class of literature will ilustrate the large variety and number of stories dealing with almost all phases of Brahmanical, Jaina, and Buddhist faith. Among all classes of literature the stories supply a clear state of our civilization and culture in the different grades of the society.