A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s8.7

c21.s8.7

We can see from the *Kathāsaritsāgara*¹ that Bāṇa has followed in his part very faithfully the main outlines of the story, though the names in the two versions are quite different, and the Kashmirian version has the Himālaya and Vidyādharas for the more southern regions and Gandharvas and Apsarases of Bāṇa. Bāṇa, moreover, expands and duplicates; he creates the attractive character of Çukanāsa, wise and loyal, and brings Vaiçampāyana in as comrade of Candrāpīḍa; he has even two Kinnaras for the one of the tale, and develops the theme of his hero’s birth as he does that of the children in the *Harṣacarita*. All his own are his brilliant descriptions and his elaborations of the signs of love in his hero and heroine. In the tale, however, after the prince’s departure the princess, Makarandikā, annoys by her grief her parents so deeply that she is cursed to become a Niṣāda maiden, while her father it is who, ashamed of his action, dies and becomes the parrot, who repeats the tale of its own experiences and what it heard Pulastya recite to king Sumanas. At the court of that prince Somaprabha is reunited to the Niṣāda maiden, who resumes her true shape, and it is the king who is revealed as Raçmimant, mind-son of the sage Dīdhiti, and is united to Manorathaprabhā, while the parrot is released and reaps the fruit of its asceticism.