[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Literature, language and dating](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.literature) › [A History of Sanskrit Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.literature.keith-1920) › c19.s5.9 # A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s5.9 A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s5.9 - **Language:** English ### [c19.s5.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.literature.keith-1920.c19.s5.9) A book of tales about women seems to have been used by the compilers of the Kashmir recension, to judge from the mass of stories, unhappily often to their disadvantage; we hear of murderous women, of one who mutilates her husband in revenge for a beating, of one who regularly betrays him but insists on burning herself on his pyre, of the woman who got rid of ten husbands, and apparently met her match in the man who had disposed of ten wives, but defeated him also and became so unpleasantly notorious that she turned into an ascetic. Full of reminiscences of various Märchen \*motifs\* is the tale of the king whose white elephant can be healed only by the touch of a chaste woman; none of 80,000 in the kingdom can help it, until a poor young wife succeeds; the king marries her sister, immures her in a palace, and is after all betrayed. But Somadeva gives us also tales of faith and truth among women. Devasmitā revenges herself on her would-be lovers by giving them assignations, but merely in order to brand them; charming is the picture of an Indian Philemon and Baukis.¹ It is death to tell another what one has remembered of existence in a former birth; nevertheless the queen of Dharmadatta and her husband are alike seized with the feeling that they must tell each other of their suddenly aroused memories. The story is pretty; the lady was a faithful servant in the house of a Brahmin, while her husband was the loyal retainer of a merchant; they lived together in poverty, eating the little they had over when gods, ancestors, and guests had taken their share. In time of famine a Brahmin comes, the husband gives him the little they had, and then his life leaves him, indignant that he had preferred the Brahmin to himself. His wife follows him in death, and the same fate again meets them when they have exchanged these memories of a faithful love. - [Previous: c19.s5.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.literature.keith-1920.c19.s5.8) - [Next: c19.s5.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.literature.keith-1920.c19.s5.10) - [Up: c19.s5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.literature.keith-1920.c19.s5) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.literature.keith-1920.c19.s5.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.literature.keith-1920.c19.s5.9) · Pramāṇa