A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s4.3

Language: English

c19.s4.3.1

It appears from the coincidence of the two recensions that the original was divided into eighteen Lambhakas as its main divisions, and it is a plausible conjecture that the term applies to the victories of the hero, each section dealing with some achievement of his. As we have it in both our sources, the work begins with the Kathāpīṭha, which gives as an introduction to the tale the legend of Guṇāḍhya already noted. In Book ii, the basis of the story is furnished in the adventures of Udayana, which are carried in iii to his winning of Padmāvatī, the book taking its style Lāvānaka from the place where the first queen, Vāsavadattā, was reported to have perished, a necessary preliminary to the second espousals. In iv we have the birth of the hero, Naravāhanadatta, who is to be the emperor of the Vidyādharas. The next book, Caturdārikā, is decidedly episodical. The Vidyādhara Çaktivega comes to visit the future sovereign, and relates how he himself has reached the wonderful city of the Vidyādharas and won the four beauteous maidens whence the title of the book is derived. From this point Kṣemendra and Somadeva diverge vitally. Kṣemendra continues with the legend of Sūryaprabha (vi), a strange and remarkable tale, of how that hero rose from royal rank to becoming emperor of the Vidyādharas after a desperate struggle against his foe Çrutaçarman, who was finally induced to content himself with a minor kingdom, thanks to the direct personal intervention of Çiva himself.

c19.s4.3.2

The tale is remarkable in its obvious blending of mythology involving Vedic and epic beliefs, Buddhist legends, and popular story matter; but in Kṣemendra's hands it suffers greatly from excessive condensation. The two books, it will be seen, have a certain relevance to each other and to the work as a whole, despite their episodic character; they deal with the career of other aspirants to emperorship over the Vidyādharas. In vii we return to the main story a little more clearly. The essence of the book is a long account of Kaliṅgadatta, father of Kaliṅgasenā, who serves merely to give his daughter a royal ancestry; Udayana is sought in marriage by her and he would gladly wed her, but Yaugandharāyaṇa resists the match, lest the king should become too much enamoured of his wife and neglect his duties, a ludicrous excuse seeing that he had already arranged two marriages for the prince. Doubtless in a more original form it was Kaliṅgasenā's character as hetaira which motived the objections. At any rate Udayana is induced to abandon the project, but he determines to allow her daughter to wed Naravāhanadatta, and the book carries us to his consent to a formal marriage. Book viii, which is very short, is styled Velā after the name of the character of whom and her husband a legend is narrated, quite episodically, but it ends with the vital statement that Madanamañcukā has been abducted by the Vidyādhara Mān his beloved he has to be the hero of four episodic books (ix–xii).

c19.s4.3.3

In the first he is carried off in sleep and ends by espousing another Vidyādhara maiden, Lalitalocanā, with whom he spends time on mount Malaya, but is saddened by longing for Madanamañcukā; Lalitalocanā disappears, but a hermit, Piçaṅgajaṭa, comforts him by telling him the tale of Mṛgāṅkadatta, a prince of Ayodhyā, who won in marriage Çaçāṅkavatī, daughter of his enemy Karmasena of Ujjain, who gives the book its name (ix). The next consolation is administered by Kaṇva and consists in the narration of a vast cycle of legends of the emperor Vikramāditya, though it is inconceivable that Guṇāḍhya himself could have been guilty of so flagrant an anachronism; the title is Viṣamaçīla (x). In xi, Madirāvatī, the prince is encouraged to persevere by the tale of two Brahmins who by manly effort (*puruṣakāra*) succeeded in defying the decrees of fate (*karman*) and achieving their desire, and he also recovers the missing and apparently not much regretted, Lalitalocanā. Yet another episode follows: Gomukha tells the tale of the emperor Muktāphalaketu and his beloved Padmāvatī, who gives the book its name (xii).