Part 1 (1/2)
The Kadambari of Bana.
by Bana and Bhushanabhatta.
INTRODUCTION. [1]
The story of Kadambari is interesting for several reasons. It is a standard example of cla.s.sical prose; it has enjoyed a long popularity as a romance; and it is one of the comparatively few Sanskrit works which can be a.s.signed to a certain date, and so it can serve as a landmark in the history of Indian literature and Indian thought.
THE AUTHOR.
Banabhatta, its author, lived in the reign of Harshavardhana of Thanecar, the great king mentioned in many inscriptions, [2] who extended his rule over the whole of Northern India, and from whose reign (A.D. 606) dates the Harsha era, used in Nepal. Bana, as he tells us, both in the 'Harsha-Carita' and in the introductory verses of 'Kadambari,' was a Vatsyayana Brahman. His mother died while he was yet young, and his father's tender care of him, recorded in the 'Harsha-Carita,' [3] was doubtless in his memory as he recorded the unselfish love of Vaicampayana's father in 'Kadambari' (p. 22). In his youth he travelled much, and for a time 'came into reproach,'
by reason of his unsettled life; but the experience gained in foreign lands turned his thoughts homewards, and he returned to his kin, and lived a life of quiet study in their midst. From this he was summoned to the court of King Harsha, who at first received him coldly, but afterwards attached him to his service; and Bana in the 'Harsha-Carita'
relates his own life as a prelude to that of his master.
The other works attributed to him are the 'Candikacataka,' [4] or verses in honour of Candika; a drama, 'The Parvatiparinaya'; and another, called 'Mukutataditaka,' the existence of which is inferred from Gunavinayagani's commentary on the 'Nalacampu.' Professor Peterson also mentions that a verse of Bana's ('Subhas.h.i.+tavali,'
1087) is quoted by Kshemendra in his 'Aucityavicaracarca,' with a statement that it is part of a description of Kadambari's sorrow in the absence of Candrapida, whence, he adds, 'it would seem that Bana wrote the story of Kadambari in verse as well as in prose,' and he gives some verses which may have come from such a work.
Bana himself died, leaving 'Kadambari' unfinished, and his son Bhushanabhatta took it up in the midst of a speech in which Kadambari's sorrows are told, and continued the speech without a break, save for a few introductory verses in honour of his father, and in apology for his having undertaken the task, 'as its unfinished state was a grief to the good.' He continued the story on the same plan, and with careful, and, indeed, exaggerated, imitation of his father's style.
THE PLOT OF KADAMBARI.
The story of 'Kadambari' is a very complex one, dealing as it does with the lives of two heroes, each of whom is reborn twice on earth.
(1-47) A learned parrot, named Vaicampayana, was brought by a Candala maiden to King cudraka, and told him how it was carried from its birthplace in the Vindhya Forest to the hermitage of the sage Jabali, from whom it learnt the story of its former life.
(47-95) Jabali's story was as follows: Tarapida, King of Ujjayini, won by penance a son, Candrapida, who was brought up with Vaicampayana, son of his minister, cukanasa. In due time Candrapida was anointed as Crown Prince, and started on an expedition of world-conquest. At the end of it he reached Kailasa, and, while resting there, was led one day in a vain chase of a pair of kinnaras to the sh.o.r.es of the Acchoda Lake. (95-141) There he beheld a young ascetic maiden, Mahacveta, who told him how she, being a Gandharva princess, had seen and loved a young Brahman Pundarika; how he, returning her feeling, had died from the torments of a love at variance with his vow; how a divine being had carried his body to the sky, and bidden her not to die, for she should be reunited with him; and how she awaited that time in a life of penance. (141-188) But her friend Kadambari, another Gandharva princess, had vowed not to marry while Mahacveta was in sorrow, and Mahacveta invited the prince to come to help her in dissuading Kadambari from the rash vow. Love sprang up between the prince and Kadambari at first sight; but a sudden summons from his father took him to Ujjayini without farewell, while Kadambari, thinking herself deserted, almost died of grief.
(188-195) Meanwhile news came that his friend Vaicampayana, whom he had left in command of the army, had been strangely affected by the sight of the Acchoda Lake, and refused to leave it. The prince set out to find him, but in vain; and proceeding to the hermitage of Mahacveta, he found her in despair, because, in invoking on a young Brahman, who had rashly approached her, a curse to the effect that he should become a parrot, she learnt that she had slain Vaicampayana. At her words the prince fell dead from grief, and at that moment Kadambari came to the hermitage.
(195-202) Her resolve to follow him in death was broken by the promise of a voice from the sky that she and Mahacveta should both be reunited with their lovers, and she stayed to tend the prince's body, from which a divine radiance proceeded; while King Tarapida gave up his kingdom, and lived as a hermit near his son.
(202 to end) Such was Jabali's tale; and the parrot went on to say how, hearing it, the memory of its former love for Mahacveta was reawakened, and, though bidden to stay in the hermitage, it flew away, only to be caught and taken to the Candala princess. It was now brought by her to King cudraka, but knew no more. The Candala maiden thereupon declared to cudraka that she was the G.o.ddess Lakshmi, mother of Pundarika or Vaicampayana, and announced that the curse for him and cudraka was now over. Then cudraka suddenly remembered his love for Kadambari, and wasted away in longing for her, while a sudden touch of Kadambari restored to life the Moon concealed in the body of Candrapida, the form that he still kept, because in it he had won her love. Now the Moon, as Candrapida and cudraka, and Pundarika, in the human and parrot shape of Vaicampayana, having both fulfilled the curse of an unsuccessful love in two births on earth, were at last set free, and, receiving respectively the hands of Kadambari and Mahacveta, lived happily ever afterwards.
The plot is involved, and consists of stories within each other after the fas.h.i.+on long familiar to Europeans in the 'Arabian Nights'; but the author's skill in construction is shown by the fact that each of the minor stories is essential to the development of the plot, and it is not till quite the end that we see that cudraka himself, the hearer of the story, is really the hero, and that his hearing the story is necessary to reawaken his love for Kadambari, and so at the same time fulfil the terms of the curse that he should love in vain during two lives, and bring the second life to an end by his longing for reunion. It may help to make the plot clear if the threads of it are disentangled. The author in person tells all that happens to cudraka (pp. 3-16 and pp. 205 to end). The parrot's tale (pp. 16-205) includes that of Jabali (pp. 47-202) concerning Candrapida, and Vaicampayana the Brahman, with the story told by Mahacveta (pp. 101-136) of her love for Pundarika.
THE STORY AS TOLD IN THE KATHA-SARIT-SAGARA.
The story as told in the Katha-Sarit-Sagara of Somadeva [5] differs in some respects from this. There a Nishada princess brought to King Sumanas a learned parrot, which told its life in the forest, ended by a hunt in which its father was killed, and the story of its past life narrated by the hermit Agastya. In this story a prince, Somaprabha, after an early life resembling that of Candrapida, was led in his pursuit of kinnaras to an ascetic maiden, Manorathaprabha, whose story is that of Mahacveta, and she took him, at his own request, to see the maiden Makarandika, who had vowed not to marry while her friend was unwed. He was borne through the air by a Vidyadhara, and beheld Makarandika. They loved each other, and a marriage was arranged between them. The prince, however, was suddenly recalled by his father, and Makarandika's wild grief brought on her from her parents a curse that she should be born as a Nishada. Too late they repented, and died of grief; and her father became a parrot, keeping from a former birth as a sage his memory of the castras, while her mother became a sow. Pulastya added that the curse would be over when the story was told in a king's court.
The parrot's tale reminded King Sumanas of his former birth, and on the arrival of the ascetic maiden, sent by civa, 'who is merciful to all his wors.h.i.+ppers,' he again became the young hermit she had loved. Somaprabha, too, at civa's bidding, went to the king's court, and at the sight of him the Nishada regained the shape of Makarandika, and became his wife; while the parrot 'left the body of a bird, and went to the home earned by his asceticism.' 'Thus,' the story ends, 'the appointed union of human beings certainly takes place in this world, though vast s.p.a.ces intervene.'
The main difference between the stories is in the persons affected by the curse; and here the artistic superiority of Bana is shown in his not attaching the degrading forms of birth to Kadambari or her parents. The horse is given as a present to the hero by Indra, who sends him a message, saying: 'You are a Vidyadhara, and I give you the horse in memory of our former friends.h.i.+p. When you mount it you will be invincible.' The hero's marriage is arranged before his sudden departure, so that the grief of the heroine is due only to their separation, and not to the doubts on which Bana dwells so long. It appears possible that both this story and 'Kadambari' are taken from a common original now lost, which may be the Brihatkatha of Gunadhya. [6]
In that case the greater refinement of Bana's tale would be the result of genius giving grace to a story already familiar in a humbler guise.
REFERENCES TO KADAMBARI IN THE SAHITYA-DARPANA AND ELSEWHERE.