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A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s3: 3. The Kashmirian Bṛhatkathā

A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s3

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English

3. The Kashmirian Bṛhatkathā

c19.s3.1

The older view that the *Kathāsaritsāgara* and the *Bṛhatkathāmañjarī* were directly drawn from the *Bṛhatkathā* cannot be retained¹ in view of the discovery of the *Çlokasaṁgraha*. The Kashmirian recensions show themselves at once as vitally similar in contrast with the Nepalese and leave no option but to assume that they are derived from one source, and that not the original *Bṛhatkathā*. The date of this form of the *Bṛhatkathā* is clearly impossible to decide beyond that it must have been considerably before A.D. 1000. Nor can we say who the author was, or by what process the work assumed form. It may have been the outcome of a continued process of change if the story was regarded as specially attractive. All that can be conjectured is that the work received its final form through two main processes. In the first place, the essentials of the legend of Naravāhanadatta, including his parentage, were extracted from the original of Guṇāḍhya, and abbreviated. Then, secondly, the account was expanded and completed by inserting as satisfactorily as was possible other great legend-complexes which were popular in Kashmir, making a work essentially different from the original *Bṛhatkathā* because the original theme, the adventures of Naravāhanadatta, had fallen into a position of subordinate interest and the episodes had become of predominant importance. Which the additions were it is, of course, frankly impossible² to say on the strength of the present evidence; the absence of the rest of the *Çlokasaṁgraha* deprives us of the one useful control. But we may reasonably hold that the additions included both the version of the *Pañcatantra* and that of the *Vetālapañcaviṁçatika* which are found in both Kṣemendra and Somadeva, but which have plainly no real or original connexion with the legend of Naravāhanadatta.

c19.s3.2

¹ Despite F. D. K. Bosch, *De legende van Jīmūtavāhana* (1914), pp. 85 ff.

c19.s3.3

² Subandhu may have known the Vikramāditya legends (cf. *Vāsavadattā*, p. 110).

c19.s3.4

The language and form of the new text do not permit of precise determination. It is possible that the references to Paiçācī forms and citations in the case of Hemacandra are derived from this Kashmirian text, and if so they would show that the work was handed down in a form of Paiçācī. Nor, of course, is there anything implausible in such a proceeding. It is not rare for a dialect once established to remain in use for a certain work after the original has been changed. We have the perfectly clear statement of Somadeva that the language was altered, and this can hardly mean anything less than a translation. If the original had been in Sanskrit, it seems incredible that it would not have influenced both Kṣemendra and Somadeva sufficiently to cause frequent verbal similarities, and this is not the case. The similarities which do occur, as for instance in the stories of the *Pañcatantra*, can easily be explained by the fact that both authors were dealing with a work in a dialect which admittedly was considerably more Sanskritic than the ordinary Prākrit; indeed, on one list of the relative position of Prākrits Paiçācī is ranked after Sanskrit in honour.

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