Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section is written like a personal reflection or essay and may require cleanup.
Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (April 2008)

The Sanskrit story collection called Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha (Brihat-katha-shloka-sangraha, बृहत्कथाश्लोकसंग्रह) is a reworking of the now lost Great Story (Bṛhatkathā). In it, Budhasvāmin tells the astonishing epic tale of the youthful exploits of prince Naravāhanadatta (Nara-vahana-datta).
It is indeed a great story, as its Sanskrit title declares. Epic in scope and scale, it has everything that a great story should: adventure, romance, suspense, intrigue, tragedy and comedy. The reader is taken from royal palaces to flying vidhyādharas' mountain fastnesses via courtesans’ bedrooms and merchant ships. The frame story narrates Naravāhanadatta’s progress culminating in his enthronement as the emperor of the vidhyādharas, celestial beings with magical abilities, winning twenty-six wives along the way. Unfortunately, the surviving manuscripts of the text break off while he is in pursuit of his sixth wife. The fast and witty narrative eschews lengthy description and provides fascinating insights into ancient India.
The Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha is also unusually homogeneous and hasn’t suffered the intrusion of interpolation: Budhasvāmin’s laconic style remains consistent throughout. The narrative rattles along with no derailment for description, yet the characters and locations seem all the more alive for it. Occasional allusions show that Budhasvāmin had a thorough grounding in the various sciences that made up the traditional brahmin education, but he never wears his learning on his sleeve. What he does display is a wonderfully wide acquaintance with all manner of people and places in the ancient Indian world. The action happens in cities like Ujjayinī (modern Ujjain), Vārānasi (modern Varanasi or Benares), Champa and Madurai, in royal palaces and their harems and parks, in courtesans’ parlours and boudoirs, in merchants’ mansions, caravans and ships, in paupers’ hovels and slums, in outcastes’ villages, in ascetics’ hermitages, in cremation grounds, on festive pilgrimages, in gambling dens and in jungles, mountains and deserts. The incidental descriptions of these places suggest their authors’ personal acquaintance with them; presumably he is using his imagination when he tells tales of flying vidhyādharas' mountain fortresses and the snake-people’s underwater cities.

[edit] About the Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha

Budhasvamin’s Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha: A Literary Study of an Ancient Indian Narrative by E.P. Maten, Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1973.

[edit] English Translations

The Clay Sanskrit Library has published a translation of Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha by Sir James Mallinson under the title of The Emperor of the Sorcerers (two volumes).