Kathasaritsagara
Also known as: Ocean of the Streams of Story, Katha Sarit Sagara, Katha-sarit-sagara, The Ocean of Story
An enormous Sanskrit tale-compendium framed by the adventures of Naravahanadatta, destined to rule the Vidyadharas, weaving hundreds of stories of kings, ascetics, tricksters, demons, and gods. Adapted by Somadeva from the lost Brihatkatha, it became a cornerstone of South Asian narrative tradition.
Description
Somadeva’s Kathasaritsagara (“Ocean of the Streams of Story”) is an eleventh-century Kashmiri Sanskrit redaction of an older story-cycle known as the Brihatkatha. Organized in eighteen “books” and over a hundred “waves” (tarangas), it interlaces courtly romances, ascetic marvels, clever trickster plots, and encounters with gods, yakshas, nagas, rakshasas, and vidyadharas. The principal frame follows Naravahanadatta, son of King Udayana, whose destined ascent to the kingship of the sky-traveling Vidyadharas occasions a cascade of inset tales narrated by ministers, sages, and spirits. Across its layered frames, the work preserves and transmits a vast archive of Indic motifs—vows and boons, cursed transformations, moral tests of dharma, riddling vetalas, city-foundation myths, merchant voyages, and sorcery—while constantly reflecting on storytelling itself. Its reach shaped later Indo-Persian, Arabic, and European collections through retellings and translations.
Historiography
Composed in Kashmir for Queen Suryavati, the text adapts material from the lost Paiśācī Brihatkatha. It coexists with Kshemendra’s near-contemporary verse epitome, the Brihatkathamanjari, and survives in multiple manuscript families that differ in ordering and tale inclusion. Nineteenth-century editions and C. H. Tawney’s English translation popularized the work internationally. Modern scholarship examines its layered frames, intertextual borrowings, and the relationship between oral performance traditions and courtly redaction.
Date Notes
Somadeva’s Sanskrit prose redaction in Kashmir adapts the lost Paiśācī Brihatkatha attributed to Gunadhya; many tales reflect older oral and written strata.
Major Characters
- Naravahanadatta
- Udayana
- Vasavadatta
- Padmavati
- Yaugandharayana
Myths
- Adventures of Naravāhanadatta
- The Vetāla Tales Cycle
- Vidyādhara Kingship Quest
- Frame Tales of Guṇāḍhya’s Great Story
Facts
- Somadeva compiled the work in Kashmir, likely for Queen Suryavati, in the late 11th century CE.
- It adapts the lost Brihatkatha, attributed to the author Gunadhya and composed in the Paiśācī language.
- The overarching frame narrates Naravahanadatta’s destined ascent to the kingship of the Vidyadharas.
- The text is arranged in 18 books (lambakas) subdivided into over 100 waves (tarangas).
- It preserves diverse tale-types: court romance, wonder-tales, framed riddles, exempla, and miracle stories.
- The Vetala cycle (Vetalapanchavimsati) appears within the collection’s broader narrative ecology.
- Kshemendra’s Brihatkathamanjari is a contemporaneous verse epitome of similar source material.
- The work influenced later Indo-Persian and European story traditions through translations and retellings.
- Many episodes feature gods and semi-divine beings—yakshas, nagas, rakshasas, and vidyadharas—intervening in human affairs.
- Nineteenth-century printed editions and English translations established a modern standard ordering of tales.