The word 'Kadambari' is what is used, in a few south Indian languages like Kannada, Telugu and Marati, to refer to genre of literature that in English is called a 'novel'. A story that is usually voluminous giving a detailed account of the events and characters of a story that is semi-narrated and not directly always in the form of dialogues between the characters.
Now a days the word 'Kadambari' has become so synonymous to the word 'novel' that many people of these languages do not know the origin of the word altogether.
The word 'Kadambari' in its etymological origin is a word of Sanskrit that can refer based on context used to either a female Indian cuckoo or a type of liquor. However it is also used to mean 'a preaching crow' or the one who keeps on giving 'lectures' about one thing or the other. At a later point in time, a writer by name 'Banabhatta' used the word 'Kadambari' as a name of his heroine of his big novel type literary work. He named the work as 'Kadambari' as well. He must have named the heroine with all the three meanings of the word that was used till then - a female Indian cuckoo to represent the tone of his heroine and a liquor to represent the attachment and indulgence a reader may get reading it and as a preaching crow to represent the elaborate plot of the novel. This was the first voluminous story telling work that was written in 'prose' (unlike the voluminous poetry works like Ramayan, Mahabharat, etc). The novel became so famous that the name of the novel, 'Kadambari' is now used to mean 'novel' in many south Indian languages.
The story of the novel as well as its origin and the origin of its original inspiring work is very interesting. Before I give a brief overview of the novel, let us examine the historical related works.
From 250 BC till 230 AD, nearly for 500 years, south Indian region of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Karnataka was ruled by 'Shatavahana'/'Shalavahana' dynasty.
There was a king of this dynasty by name Simukha, who did not have any sons, but one daughter. It was the time when Mauryan empire had declined long back and Shatavahanas had declared independence. Kadambas and Pallavas were yet to become aggressive and try capturing the Shatavahana empire. It was the time of peace. King loved his daughter very much and to while away the time, asked people to tell stories. Story tellers were getting good rewards in return. By and by, the princess started losing interest in stories that 'ended'. She wanted to hear longer and more interesting stories and started getting angry at story tellers who 'finished' their story! During those times, Sanskrit was a prevalent language and the national language, even though local languages like Pali, Prakrut, Paishachik, Simhal, Brij, Avadh, etc were popular among the locals across India. The one who could speak, write and read Sanskrit was treated with respect as a well educated person. Being able to write works in Sanskrit was treated with more respect than writing in the local languages. So most of the writers preferred writing in Sanskrit.
Story tellers who used to tell stories in the Simukha's court and used to get rewarded with gold coins, 4 writers (lipikaraks) who can be used to get the stories written on bhoorjh patras or taale pathras to preserve the story in the written form. The 4 people used to take dictations from the story teller and later each person to make copies of the rest of the 3 writers and his writings again leading to 20 copies of the story (1+3+1 each). Then each of the 20 copies were distributed to writers across different dynasties for them to follow the same protocol and make more copies. However, it so happened that, in Simukha's court, the daughter started disliking the stories which 'ended'. So, as a sort of soft punishment, it was enforced on the story tellers and writers that if their story ended, it would not be written in Sanskrit, but in the local Paishachik language. This way the story even if were made copies, was more or less bound to remain locally and did not go out of Shatavahana dynasty where the local language Paishachik was not used much.
By and by the story tellers became discouraged, until one day a grand master of story telling by name Gunadhya came along. He promised not to end the story and that it be written in Sanskrit. The king was not however convinced that he could tell a story that does not end. But seeing his confidence, told him that he will grant 8 writers, 4 of whom would write in Sanskrit and 4 others in Paishachik. If the story ends, the sanskrit version will be burnt out. But if it does not end till the king himself and his daughter both die, he will get to keep both versions.
Gunadhya went on telling the story that was recorded as 'Brikat Katha' - the big story. It was composed in verses, not prose. It is said to have more than 6 lakh stanzas. By the time it had become 6 lakh verses, the king Simukha was long dead and the daughter's son was ruling the kingdom. But the daughter was continuing to listen to the story. Gunadhya had also gone old and one day while telling the story, collapsed and died.
According to her father's agreement with Gunadhya the daughter got the Sanskrit version of the book BURNT. What remained for a few centuries later was the Paishachik language version of the story.
This Brikatkatha of Gunadhya was some centuries later recovered by 'someone' (some say Buddhasvamin) and Brihatkatha Shloka Samgraha was written as a translation of the Paishachik version to Sanskrit.
This was used by Kshemendra to write a shorter Sanskrit version of the same by name Brihatkatha Manjari.
Again during later 8th century, for the entertainment of queen Suryamati of Kashmir, a poet by name Somadeva translated Brihatkatha in the same detail of original and called it Kathasaritsagara.
The original Sanskrit works have now been revived and made available by many. The original work Brihatkatha of Gunadhya has also been a direct inspiration for the other works like Vishnu Sharma's panchatantra, Vetalapanchavimshati (Vikram Betaal stories), Narayana's Hitopadesha along with Banabhatta's Kadambari. These are not translations but parts of Brihatkatha taken and the story of that part stretched out further.
The Kathasaritsagara has about 22000 verses. Off these about 160 verses of a particular chapter was chosen by Banabhatta to write his novel - 'Kadambari'. However, Banabhatta did not live to see the novel to completion but his son Bhushanabhatta finished the later part as per the plot laid out by his father. Just the 160 verses of Kathasaritsagara has been expounded to such a large novel that it is unbelievably huge.
The original Kadambari has been translated to English by Peter G Peterson in 1884, C M Ridding in 1896, P V Kane in 1921, M R Kale in 1968 and Gwendolyn Layne in 1991.
In Indian languages, there are so many local language translations that it is not even possible to write the entire list here. In Kannada, a great scholar of our times, Padmasri Vidyavachaspati Sri Bannanje Govindacharya has rendered it beautifully. The book is about 950 pages long and has been rendered flawlessly with a foreword by Da Ra Bendre.
The story plot is so intricate that while Christopher Nolan in his Inception went up to 4 levels of story within a story, this novel goes 7 layers deep. It is a story of 2 princes and 2 ladies falling in love with each prince falling for a different lady, separated by various factors and situations till they finally unite. Person A tells person B of a story of a person C where the person C hears his own story that he has forgotten from a person D who explains that person C was in love with a person E and when he first saw her and asked her whereabouts, person E narrates her story from her childhood where she had been friends with person F. She had met person F for the first time when person F told person E about her story of meeting person G. It goes deeper as the plot goes more thicker and more interesting. The story at each of the levels goes deeper and deeper and more and more intricate and after 7 layers of the story starts folding back to the original layers.
The entire story is a romantic fiction with a grandeur of places visited, wonderland of nature, so many twists and turns, making it very interesting. If you like fantasy fictions like the Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Narnia Chronicles, and the like, you should try reading this and then compare!!
Now a days the word 'Kadambari' has become so synonymous to the word 'novel' that many people of these languages do not know the origin of the word altogether.
The word 'Kadambari' in its etymological origin is a word of Sanskrit that can refer based on context used to either a female Indian cuckoo or a type of liquor. However it is also used to mean 'a preaching crow' or the one who keeps on giving 'lectures' about one thing or the other. At a later point in time, a writer by name 'Banabhatta' used the word 'Kadambari' as a name of his heroine of his big novel type literary work. He named the work as 'Kadambari' as well. He must have named the heroine with all the three meanings of the word that was used till then - a female Indian cuckoo to represent the tone of his heroine and a liquor to represent the attachment and indulgence a reader may get reading it and as a preaching crow to represent the elaborate plot of the novel. This was the first voluminous story telling work that was written in 'prose' (unlike the voluminous poetry works like Ramayan, Mahabharat, etc). The novel became so famous that the name of the novel, 'Kadambari' is now used to mean 'novel' in many south Indian languages.
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| Penguin Classic's English version of Kadambari |
The story of the novel as well as its origin and the origin of its original inspiring work is very interesting. Before I give a brief overview of the novel, let us examine the historical related works.
From 250 BC till 230 AD, nearly for 500 years, south Indian region of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Karnataka was ruled by 'Shatavahana'/'Shalavahana' dynasty.
There was a king of this dynasty by name Simukha, who did not have any sons, but one daughter. It was the time when Mauryan empire had declined long back and Shatavahanas had declared independence. Kadambas and Pallavas were yet to become aggressive and try capturing the Shatavahana empire. It was the time of peace. King loved his daughter very much and to while away the time, asked people to tell stories. Story tellers were getting good rewards in return. By and by, the princess started losing interest in stories that 'ended'. She wanted to hear longer and more interesting stories and started getting angry at story tellers who 'finished' their story! During those times, Sanskrit was a prevalent language and the national language, even though local languages like Pali, Prakrut, Paishachik, Simhal, Brij, Avadh, etc were popular among the locals across India. The one who could speak, write and read Sanskrit was treated with respect as a well educated person. Being able to write works in Sanskrit was treated with more respect than writing in the local languages. So most of the writers preferred writing in Sanskrit.
Story tellers who used to tell stories in the Simukha's court and used to get rewarded with gold coins, 4 writers (lipikaraks) who can be used to get the stories written on bhoorjh patras or taale pathras to preserve the story in the written form. The 4 people used to take dictations from the story teller and later each person to make copies of the rest of the 3 writers and his writings again leading to 20 copies of the story (1+3+1 each). Then each of the 20 copies were distributed to writers across different dynasties for them to follow the same protocol and make more copies. However, it so happened that, in Simukha's court, the daughter started disliking the stories which 'ended'. So, as a sort of soft punishment, it was enforced on the story tellers and writers that if their story ended, it would not be written in Sanskrit, but in the local Paishachik language. This way the story even if were made copies, was more or less bound to remain locally and did not go out of Shatavahana dynasty where the local language Paishachik was not used much.
By and by the story tellers became discouraged, until one day a grand master of story telling by name Gunadhya came along. He promised not to end the story and that it be written in Sanskrit. The king was not however convinced that he could tell a story that does not end. But seeing his confidence, told him that he will grant 8 writers, 4 of whom would write in Sanskrit and 4 others in Paishachik. If the story ends, the sanskrit version will be burnt out. But if it does not end till the king himself and his daughter both die, he will get to keep both versions.
Gunadhya went on telling the story that was recorded as 'Brikat Katha' - the big story. It was composed in verses, not prose. It is said to have more than 6 lakh stanzas. By the time it had become 6 lakh verses, the king Simukha was long dead and the daughter's son was ruling the kingdom. But the daughter was continuing to listen to the story. Gunadhya had also gone old and one day while telling the story, collapsed and died.
According to her father's agreement with Gunadhya the daughter got the Sanskrit version of the book BURNT. What remained for a few centuries later was the Paishachik language version of the story.
This Brikatkatha of Gunadhya was some centuries later recovered by 'someone' (some say Buddhasvamin) and Brihatkatha Shloka Samgraha was written as a translation of the Paishachik version to Sanskrit.
This was used by Kshemendra to write a shorter Sanskrit version of the same by name Brihatkatha Manjari.
Again during later 8th century, for the entertainment of queen Suryamati of Kashmir, a poet by name Somadeva translated Brihatkatha in the same detail of original and called it Kathasaritsagara.
The original Sanskrit works have now been revived and made available by many. The original work Brihatkatha of Gunadhya has also been a direct inspiration for the other works like Vishnu Sharma's panchatantra, Vetalapanchavimshati (Vikram Betaal stories), Narayana's Hitopadesha along with Banabhatta's Kadambari. These are not translations but parts of Brihatkatha taken and the story of that part stretched out further.
The Kathasaritsagara has about 22000 verses. Off these about 160 verses of a particular chapter was chosen by Banabhatta to write his novel - 'Kadambari'. However, Banabhatta did not live to see the novel to completion but his son Bhushanabhatta finished the later part as per the plot laid out by his father. Just the 160 verses of Kathasaritsagara has been expounded to such a large novel that it is unbelievably huge.
The original Kadambari has been translated to English by Peter G Peterson in 1884, C M Ridding in 1896, P V Kane in 1921, M R Kale in 1968 and Gwendolyn Layne in 1991.
In Indian languages, there are so many local language translations that it is not even possible to write the entire list here. In Kannada, a great scholar of our times, Padmasri Vidyavachaspati Sri Bannanje Govindacharya has rendered it beautifully. The book is about 950 pages long and has been rendered flawlessly with a foreword by Da Ra Bendre.
The story plot is so intricate that while Christopher Nolan in his Inception went up to 4 levels of story within a story, this novel goes 7 layers deep. It is a story of 2 princes and 2 ladies falling in love with each prince falling for a different lady, separated by various factors and situations till they finally unite. Person A tells person B of a story of a person C where the person C hears his own story that he has forgotten from a person D who explains that person C was in love with a person E and when he first saw her and asked her whereabouts, person E narrates her story from her childhood where she had been friends with person F. She had met person F for the first time when person F told person E about her story of meeting person G. It goes deeper as the plot goes more thicker and more interesting. The story at each of the levels goes deeper and deeper and more and more intricate and after 7 layers of the story starts folding back to the original layers.
The entire story is a romantic fiction with a grandeur of places visited, wonderland of nature, so many twists and turns, making it very interesting. If you like fantasy fictions like the Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Narnia Chronicles, and the like, you should try reading this and then compare!!