A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s1.3

c19.s1.3

Of his personality we have an account, reproduced with little variation in three Kashmirian sources, the *Bṛhatkathāmañjarī* of Kṣemendra, the *Kathāsaritsāgara* of Somadeva, and the *Haracaritacintāmaṇi* of Jayaratha. Çiva one day, asked by Pārvatī for a new tale, related to her the substance of the *Bṛhatkathā*, *inter alia*. A Gaṇa Puṣpadanta overhearing it told it to his wife Jayā, who repeated it to Pārvatī. She in great anger cursed Puṣpadanta to lose his rank, which he was not to regain until he had met and related to a Yakṣa Kāṇabhūti the tale he had overheard, the Yakṣa being another unfortunate under a curse. Further, Mālyavant, a comrade of Puṣpadanta who had intervened to intercede for him, was cursed to leave heaven until he should have met and heard from Kāṇabhūti the tale. In course of time Puṣpadanta was born as Vararuci-Kātyāyana at Kauçāmbī; becoming the minister of Nanda, he finally retired to the Vindhya and there told to Kāṇabhūti the tale of the seven emperors of the Vidyādharas, and attained release. Guṇāḍhya meantime had been born at Pratiṣṭhita or Pratiṣṭhāna on the Godāvarī as a reincarnation of Mālyavant; he is in high favour with Sātavāhana, but the latter suffers a severe mortification when during the water play with his wives he is told by his queen not to throw any more on her (*modakaiḥ*), which he in his ignorance of the laws of verbal combination misunderstands as a request to be pelted with sweetmeats—an appalling request if the ancient Indian sweets were like the modern. Dejected, he refuses to be comforted unless he can learn Sanskrit. Guṇāḍhya offers to teach him in six years, but when Çarvavarman the author of the *Kātantra* laughs at this offer, and suggests that he can do it in six months, Guṇāḍhya vows to use neither Sanskrit, Prākrit, nor the vernacular if the deed is done. It is accomplished and Guṇāḍhya wanders disconsolate in the Vindhya, where Kāṇabhūti meets him and relates the tales learned from Vararuci. Guṇāḍhya would record them, but must write in Paiçācī, the language of the goblins, as he is debarred from use of any other speech by his vow. His disciples take the vast work to the king Sātavāhana, who rejects it. Guṇāḍhya recites it to the beasts and birds, burning the manuscript as he proceeds; the beasts, intent on the sweet poetry, become thin, and the cooks in the royal kitchen no longer serve good soup. Hence the marvel is revealed and the king saves one-seventh of the 700,000 Çlokas of the original, the tale preserved in the *Bṛhatkathā*. The Nepalese version contained in the *Nepālamāhātmya* is different. We hear nothing of Vararuci-Kātyāyana, there is but one sinner Bhṛṅgin who enters the private room of Çiva and Pārvatī in bee form; he is reborn at Mathurā as Guṇāḍhya, becomes a Paṇḍit of king Madana of Ujjain, is vanquished by Çarvavarman, and is advised to write in Paiçācī by a seer Pulastya. Nothing is said of the pledge as to language, naturally enough, for Nepal lay outside the interest on this point of India proper.