A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s8.1.3

c21.s8.1.3

Yet a closer approach is achieved in the *Daçakumāracarita* in so far as the princes each narrate their own experiences, thus introducing a degree of life which is wanting in the other forms, for in the Jātakas, though the Bodhisattva tells a tale of what was really his past experience, it is not narrated in the first person. As the idea of the *Daçakumāracarita* is doubtless borrowed from the *Bṛhatkathā*, we have an additional proof of the free use there of this device of first-hand narrative which is still further developed in the *Kādambarī*,¹ because the whole of the tales told are essentially part of one complex action, unlike those of the princes of the romance of Daṇḍin. But in one respect there is more semblance of realism in the *Daçakumāracarita*; the *Kādambarī* places its main narrative in effect in the mouth of the sage Jābāli, who knows by his great insight the tale he relates; he places himself largely at the point of view of the hero Candrāpīḍa, but that prince is not actually the narrator. The adoption of this device had already taken place in the *Bṛhatkathā*, where we find a close parallel in substance and form to the *Kādambarī* in the tale of king Sumanas. Doubtless both Somadeva and Kṣemendra may have been influenced by Bāṇa's work, and the latter certainly was, but there is no ground whatever to suspect that the Kashmirian compilers borrowed the tale from Bāṇa.