A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s4.3.2

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).