A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s8.4.1

c21.s8.4.1

The poet opens his work with some stanzas in which he suggests that his Kathā is seeking favour by its novel subject and phraseology, its brilliant vivid descriptions, its resplendent similes and Dīpakas, figures where one word serves as predicate to series of clauses. We learn then of Çūdraka of Vidiçā on the Vetravatī river; to him a Caṇḍāla maiden of wondrous beauty brings a parrot, and after persuasion it tells the following narrative. In its youth it lost its mother and was tenderly reared, like Bāṇa, by its father, who was killed by a Çabara; the young parrot was taken by Hārīta to the hermitage of his father, Jābāli, who looks kindly at the bird and says that it is reaping the fruit of past misconduct. On entreaty Jābāli tells the tale which the parrot repeats. We hear of Tārāpīḍa of Ujjain and his minister Çukanāsa; the moon seems in a vision to enter the queen who bears a glorious son, Candrāpīḍa, while Çukanāsa is blessed with Vaiçampāyana, born of a lotus placed in his wife's bosom. The two grow up in loving amity; at sixteen, when both have been fully trained, they are brought home from the place in which they have spent their time, and Candrāpīḍa receives the gift of a wondrous horse, Indrāyudha, and from the queen a maiden Pattralekhā, a captive daughter of the king of Kulūta. With his steed to aid him and the sage counsel of Çukanāsa to guide him, he enters on a campaign of world conquest lasting three years.