The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
won at play. And at night he artfully came and stole my bedstead
from under me, letting me gently down on a heap of cotton, while I
was asleep. So when I woke up, and saw myself on a heap of cotton,
without a bedstead, I was at once filled with mixed feelings of shame,
amusement and astonishment.
Then, king, I went at my leisure to the market-place, and roaming
about, I saw that boy there selling the bedstead. So I went up to him
and said, "For what price will you give me this bedstead?" Then the
boy said to me, "You cannot get the bedstead for money, crest-jewel
of cunning ones; but you may get it by telling some strange and
wonderful story." When I heard that, I said to him, "Then I will tell
you a marvellous tale. And if you understand it and admit that it is
really true, you may keep the bedstead; but if you say that it is not
true and that you do not believe it, [826] you will be illegitimate,
and I shall get back the bedstead. On this condition I agree to tell
you a marvel; and now listen!--Formerly there was a famine in the
kingdom of a certain king; that king himself cultivated the back of
the beloved of the boar with great loads of spray from the chariots
of the snakes. Enriched with the grain thus produced the king put a
stop to the famine among his subjects, and gained the esteem of men."
When I said this, the boy laughed and said, "The chariots of the
snakes are clouds; the beloved of the boar is the earth, for she
is said to have been most dear to Vishnu in his Boar incarnation;
and what is there to be astonished at in the fact that rain from the
clouds made grain to spring on the earth?"
When the cunning boy had said this, he went on to say to me, who was
astonished at his cleverness, "Now I will tell you a strange tale. If
you understand it, and admit that it is really true, I will give you
back this bedstead, otherwise you shall be my slave."
I answered "Agreed;" and then the cunning boy said this, "Prince of
knowing ones, there was born long ago on this earth a wonderful boy,
who, as soon as he was born, made the earth tremble with the weight
of his feet, and when he grew bigger, stepped into another world."
When the boy said this, I, not knowing what he meant, answered him,
"It is false; there is not a word of truth in it." Then the boy said
to me, "Did not Vishnu, as soon as he was born, stride across the
earth, in the form of a dwarf, and make it tremble? And did he not,
on that same occasion, grow bigger, and step into heaven? So you
have been conquered by me, and reduced to slavery. And these people
present in the market are witnesses to our agreement. So, wherever
I go, you must come along with me." When the resolute boy had said
this, he laid hold of my arm with his hand; and all the people there
testified to the justice of his claim.
Then, having made me his prisoner, bound by my own agreement, he,
accompanied by his attendants, took me to his mother in the city
of Pátaliputra. And then his mother looked at him, and said to me,
"My husband, my promise has to-day been made good, I have had you
brought here by a son of mine begotten by you." When she had said this,
she related the whole story in the presence of all.
Then all her relations respectfully congratulated her on having
accomplished her object by her wisdom, and on having had her disgrace
wiped out by her son. And I, having been thus fortunate, lived there
for a long time with that wife, and that son, and then returned to
this city of Ujjayiní.
"So you see, king, honourable matrons are devoted to their husbands,
and it is not the case that all women are always bad." When king
Vikramáditya had heard this speech from the mouth of Múladeva, he
rejoiced with his ministers. Thus hearing, and seeing, and doing
wonders, that king Vikramáditya [827] conquered and enjoyed all the
divisions of the earth.
"When the hermit Kanva had told during the night this story of
Vishamasíla, dealing with separations and reunions, he went on to
say to me who was cut off from the society of Madanamanchuká; 'Thus
do unexpected separations and reunions of beings take place, and so
you, Naraváhanadatta, shall soon be reunited to your beloved. Have
recourse to patience, and you shall enjoy for a long time, son of the
king of Vatsa, surrounded by your wives and ministers, the position of
a beloved emperor of the Vidyádharas.' This admonition of the hermit
Kanva enabled me to recover patience; and so I got through my time of
separation, and I gradually obtained wives, magic, science, and the
sovereignty over the Vidyádharas. And I told you before, great hermits,
how I obtained all these by the favour of Siva, the giver of boons."
By telling this his tale, in the hermitage of Kasyapa, Naraváhanadatta
delighted his mother's brother Gopálaka and all the hermits. And after
he had passed there the days of the rainy season, he took leave of his
uncle and the hermits in the grove of asceticism, and mounting his
chariot, departed thence with his wives and his ministers, filling
the air with the hosts of his Vidyádharas. And in course of time he
reached the mountain of Rishabha his dwelling-place; and he remained
there delighting in the enjoyments of empire, in the midst of the
kings of the Vidyádharas, with queen Madanamanchuká, and Ratnaprabhá
and his other wives; and his life lasted for a kalpa.
This is the story called Vrihatkathá, told long ago, on the summit
of mount Kailása, by the undaunted [828] Siva, at the request of
the daughter of the Himálaya, and then widely diffused in the world
by Pushpadanta and his fellows, who were born on the earth wearing
the forms of Kátyáyana and others, in consequence of a curse. And on
that occasion that god her husband attached the following blessing
to this tale, "Whoever reads this tale that issued from my mouth,
and whoever listens to it with attention, and whoever possesses it,
shall soon be released from his sins, and triumphantly attain the
condition of a splendid Vidyádhara, and enter my everlasting world."
END OF THE COLLECTION OF TALES CALLED THE KATHÁ SARIT SÁGARA.
NOTES TO VOLUME I
[1] Dr. Brockhaus explains this of Ganesa, he is probably associated
with Siva in the dance. So the poet invokes two gods, Siva and Ganesa,
and one goddess Sarasvatí, the goddess of speech and learning.
[2] Sítkára a sound made by drawing in the breath, expressive of
pleasure.
[3] There is a double meaning: padártha also means words and their
meanings.
[4] Possibly the meaning is that the mountain covers many thousand
yojanas.
[5] This mountain served the gods and Asuras as a churning stick at
the churning of the ocean for the recovery of the Amrita and fourteen
other precious things lost during the deluge.
[6] Siva himself wears a moon's crescent.
[7] The Sanskrit word Asti meaning "thus it is" is a common
introduction to a tale.
[8] The linga or phallus is a favourite emblem of Siva. Flame is one
of his eight tanus or forms.
[9] He was burnt up by the fire of Siva's eye.
[10] Compare Kumára Sambhava Sarga V, line 86.
[11] Reading tatsanchayáya as one word. Dr. Brockhaus omits the
line. Professor E. B. Cowell would read priyam for priye.
[12] One of Siva's favourite attendants.
[13] Attendants of Siva, presided over by Ganesa.
[14] For the ativiníta of Dr. Brockhaus's text I read aviníta.
[15] Pramatha, an attendant on Siva.
[16] Kausámbí succeeded Hastinápur as the capital of the emperors of
India. Its precise site has not been ascertained, but it was probably
somewhere in the Doabá, or at any rate not far from the west bank
of the Yamuná, as it bordered upon Magadha and was not far from the
Vindhya hills. It is said that there are ruins at Karáli or Karári
about 14 miles from Allahábád on the western road, which may indicate
the site of Kausámbí. It is possible also that the mounds of rubbish
about Karrah may conceal some vestiges of the ancient capital--a
circumstance rendered more probable by the inscription found there,
which specifies Kata as comprised within Kausámba mandala or the
district of Kausámbí. [Note in Wilson's Essays, p. 163.] See note on
page 281.
[17] A tree of Indra's Paradise that grants all desires.
[18] More literally, the goddess that dwells in the Vindhya hills. Her
shrine is near Mirzápúr.
[19] Dr. Brockhaus makes parusha a proper name.
[20] Ficus Indica.
[21] Pumán = Purusha, the spirit.
[22] Prakriti, the original source or rather passive power of creating
the material world.
[23] Prajápati.
[24] The spirit was of course Brahmá whose head Siva cut off.
[25] It appears from an article in Mélusine by A Bart, entitled An
Ancient Manual of Sorcery, and consisting mainly of passages translated
from Burnell's Sámavidhána Bráhmana, that this power can be acquired
in the following way, "After a fast of three nights, take a plant of
soma (Asclepias acida;) recite a certain formula and eat of the plant
a thousand times, you will be able to repeat anything after hearing
it once. Or bruise the flowers in water, and drink the mixture for a
year. Or drink soma, that is to say the fermented juice of the plant
for a month. Or do it always." (Mélusine, 1878, p. 107; II, 7, 4-7.)
In the Milinda Pañho, (Pali Miscellany by V. Trenckner, Part. I,
p. 14,) the child Nágasena learns the whole of the three Vedas by
hearing them repeated once.
[26] A grammatical treatise on the rules regulating the euphonic
combination of letters and their pronunciation peculiar to one of
the different Sákhás or branches of the Vedas.--M. W. s. v.
[27] i. e., died.
[28] Here we have a pun which it is impossible to render in
English. Anátha means without natural protectors and also poor.
[29] Taking chháyá in the sense of sobhá. It might mean "affording
no shelter to the inmates."
[30] Dr. Brockhaus translates the line--Von diesem wurde ich meinem
Manne vermählt, um seinem Hauswesen vorzustehen.
[31] Like the Roman fascinum. guhya = phallus.
[32] I read tat for táh according to a conjecture of Professor
E. B. Cowell's. He informs me on the authority of Dr. Rost that the
only variants are sá for táh and yoshitá for yoshitah. Dr. Rost would
take evamkrite as the dative of evamkrit. If táh be retained it may
be taken as a repetition "having thus prepared it, I say, the women
give it." Professor Cowell would translate (if táh be retained)
"the women then do not need to receive anything to relieve their
fatigue during the cold and hot weather."
Professor E. B. Cowell has referred me to an article by Dr. Liebrecht
in the Zeitschrift der Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.
He connects the custom with that of the Jewish women mentioned in
Jeremiah VII. 18, "The women knead their dough to make cakes to
the queen of heaven," and he quotes a curious custom practised on
Palm Sunday in the town of Saintes. Dulaure states that in his time
the festival was called there La fête des Pinnes; the women and
children carried in the procession a phallus made of bread, which
they called a pinne, at the end of their palm branches; those pinnes
were subsequently blessed by the priest, and carefully preserved by
the women during the year. This article has been republished by the
learned author in his "Zur Volkskunde" (Heilbronn, 1879) p. 436 and
f f. under the title of "der aufgegessene Gott." It contains many
interesting parallels to the custom described in the text.
[33] Literally bodiless--she heard the voice, but saw no man.
[34] Vara = excellent ruch = to please.
[35] I. e. Palibothra.
[36] Wilson remarks (Essays on Sanskrit Literature, Vol. I,
p. 165). "The contemporary existence of Nanda with Vararuchi and Vyádi
is a circumstance of considerable interest in the literary history