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OCTOBER, 1928)
NOTES ON THE KATHA SARIT SAGARA
195
with the approval of the author and his audience, for "Yaugandharayana, that ocean of calm resolution, answered him (Rumanvat, who had strong doubts as to the ultimate success of pure deception]: I have arranged the whole plan, and the affairs of kings often require such steps to be taken.'"
2. Victory Columns. In the main story the King of Vatea conquers the Gangetio lands in the East, and "on its (Ganges') extreme shore sets up pillars of stone." Here Mr. Penzer, following Wilson, remarks on the jayustambha (p. 92) that "the erection of the columns is often alluded to by Hindu writers and explains the character of the solitary columns which are sometimes met with, as the Lat at Delhi, the pillars at Allahabad, Budal, etc." But is this so? Some at any rate were used by Asoka for his Buddhist propaganda. If this suggestion of Mr. Penzer's is correct, it is an important point, though it is quite possible that Somadeva is here merely giving a popular view of the nature of the "solitary pillars."
3. Strong Drink. Continuing the main story, Somadeva, at p. 125, gives a florid account of the life of "Udayana," the King of Vates at Kausâmbi: "While the roof of his palace was white with moonlight, as with his own glory, he drank wine in plenteous streams . ... ; beautiful women brought him, as he sat retired, in vessels of gold, wine flaming with a rosy glow. ...; he divided between the two queens the cordial liquor, red, delicious and pellucid, in which danced the reflections of their faces." The "two queens" were Vâsavadatt& and Padmavati. There is a lusciousness in this description of old Court life for the delectation of the mediæval Kashmiri Queen, which seems to spring from the very heart of the poet.
4. Eunachs. In the main story again, the marriage of the King of Vatsa with Padmavati is described at length, and at p. 29 he goes in search of Vasavadatta. "Entering the house, at the door of which eunuchs were standing" he finds her. I can merely draw attention to the fact of eunuchs being employed in Somadeva's day before the introduction of the pardah into India, as Mr. Penzer's note here is : "I shall give a long note on Indian eunuchs in a later volume."
5. The Water-borne Foundling. Through all Indian story the water-borne foundling, especially the river-borne variety, plays a great part. She, or sometimes he, also has frequent place in the tales of folketymology invented to set up claims of low castes to a higher social position. When a caste is increasing in worldly wealth it is apt to set up a claim to be descended from some such foundling, brought up of course by some man or woman of humble origin, and equally of course of true Rajput origin in reality. So it is important to enquire into the tale of one in such a collection of tales as the Katha Sarit Sagara. In pp. 4-5, in The Story of the Hypocritical Ascetic, we find that the ascetio, in order to get possession of a certain girl, induces her father by a fraud, to put her by night into a basket and set her adrift on the Ganges, intending to find it himself and so get the girl. But en route a prince finds the basket, takes the girl out of it, and sets it afloat again with a fierce monkey inside it. So that was all that the ascetic eventually found to his great grief. The idea has thus been used merely to fill & passing tale. It has also been found in European collections occasionally, perhaps, though not necessarily, borrowed from the Indian story.
6. Hindu and Savage : Caste Feelings. Somadeva was a Brahman, and though eclectic in the sources of his tales, he was clearly an upholder of Brahmanic Hinduism ; but occasionally he gives us glimpses of the situation of other natives of India in social life. In Jimutavdhana's Adventures in c Former Birth it is explained (p. 141) that the hero was an immortal Vidyadhara cursed by Siva to be born again as & mortal, and he is so born," as the son of a rich merchant in a city named Vallabhi
