A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s3.1

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.