Kathasaritasagara means the ocean of rivers of stories and
it is a collection of stories of ancient Hindu world. It was written by
Somadeva in the 11th century AD who hailed from Kashmir. It is a collection of
poetry and literature which has Sanskrit narrative poetry and also
miscellaneous folklorist works. It also give insights into important aspects of
Hindu religion of the period.
Other important themes
Other Stories - Merchants - Thieves - Boatmen
Kathasaritasagara is a storehouse of popular ideas and
folklore which developed in oral tradition over the centuries in ancient India.
Kathasaritasagara has nearly 350 tales in 21,000 shlokas
reflect the problems of common people of society and their problems.
Kathasaritasagara Inspired By Brihatkatha Of Gunadhya
Somadeva was only a redactor of an earlier collection of
stories from folk sources, known as Brihatkatha, which is attributed to the
little-known author Gunadhya. This collection, composed in Prakrit, is known as
Paisachi and survives partly in Somadeva’s collection.
Legendary anecdotes are furnished by Somadeva about the
birth of Gunadhya’s first story collection. We are told that these stories were
first narrated by Lord Shiva for the entertainment of his consort, Goddess
Parvati, on Mount Kailash in the Himalayan Mountains. They were overheard by a
servant who was curse to be born on the earth as Pishacha.
In the original text by Gunadhya, there was clearly a
depiction of the Aryan structure of the society with its castes and multiple
religious faiths and professions. But the Kashmiri Brihatkatha made it a real
ocean into which several rivers empty their waters. Thus the story of Nala and
Damayanti (occurring in the Mahabharata and Puranas), the entire Panchatantra
stories bearing on polity and moral values (lokaniti), Vetala Panchvimshati or
the stories of the ghost and King Vikrama, are found in this ocean of
Kathasaritasagara.
Stories of Ancient Hindu World And Common Hindus
We can see several strands of reality as understood by the
Hindu mind in the stories of Kathasaritasagara. Important mythical beings found
in Puranas are found in the stories.
Some of characters and incidents related to Hinduism in the
stories are:
- Mythical beings like yakshas and vidyadharas,
- the motif of dohada
- cravings of pregnant women,
- the institution of devadasis (sacred servants of the gods),
- the appearance of Shiva with a necklace of human skulls,
- religious practices invoking terrible spirits,
- sacrifice of children to beget sons,
- demons stalking in the night,
- magical articles like footwear making one fly in the air,
- changing one’s shape at will,
- suitors entrapped by women,
- laughing fish, and
- the gift of half of one’s own life to revive the life of another.
Most of the tales are very cleverly interlaced, though there
are no internal relationships.
Other important themes
- Fictions like meeting with heavenly damsels,
- interference by gods,
- demons and sages in the affairs of men,
- the gifts of wonderful things like magic tables
- the feats of the wizards and witches are common to many of them.
- We find curious money-seekers and gold diggers.
- The transformation of man into an animal is a recurring motif.
- Magic locks and keys occur, too.
Other Stories - Merchants - Thieves - Boatmen
A note of realism is also found in some of the stories. We
have stories of boatmen by the side of shipwrecked merchants, along with
wonderful palaces at the bottom of seas, stories of adventurous heroes
travelling on the earth, as well as romantic stories, in which love is aroused
through dreams and portraits.
Stories of thieves and scoundrels rub shoulders with stories
of wise men. The world of knaves and rouges is headed by master Muladeva, his
wife and associates. Though they are antisocial in their work, they are
characterized as lively and amiable. They ridicule the religious and those that
champion them. As foils to faithful wives, we have a large number of women who
deceive their husbands.
Style of Writing
To readers today what is most striking is Somadeva’s
literary art. He is not only a story teller but a poet of the first order. In
Somadeva’s hands the classical shloka meter acquires a new glow. In depicting
the rasas of wonderment and high flow love, in describing the heartwarming and
breathtaking exploits of adventurous men and women and in devising climaxes
varying in different stories, Somadeva is a master. His style shifts easily to
a pedestrian movement when he relates the incidents of these men and women in
all their humdrum activities with their innocent joys and pains.
Somadeva’s age held the brilliant style of long compounds as
most literary, but he avoided that extreme of Bana’s style. Somadeva may be
said to have shaped for himself a new style, combining the merits of Valmiki
and Kalidasa.
Through his style of writing Somadeva is able to hold the
reader’s attention all along and ensure an unflagging interest in the stories
by the mere variety and changing beauty of themes, at once romantic and
imaginative.
If the two epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata,
represent the Vedic and Puranic culture of ancient period. Kathasaritasagara
contains more detailed culture of the period and stories of common people.
The stories of people in the forest and streets and their magic and culture of the Vedic and Puranic period is unraveled through the 350 odd stories in Kathasaritasagara.
Source -
A History of Indian Literature Vol.III (1963) Maurice Winternitz
Encyclopedia of Hinduism Volume VI (IHRF) page 2 and 3