The Bṛhatkathā Re-told Again: The Double-narrative of Somadeva’s Kathāsaritsāgara

The eleventh-century Kathāsaritsāgara of Somadeva is a magisterial narrative, so large as nearly to constitute an encyclopedia of Indian story literature, this even as it is likely to convey only a fraction of the original text of which it is a retelling, Guṇāḍhya’s perhaps sixth-century, Paiśācī-language narrative, the Bṛhatkathā.  In this presentation, I identify unique features of what is in fact only one of many retellings of Guṇāḍhya’s now-lost work.  I argue it presents a double narrative, transforming a text originally steeped in Buddhism and mercantile life into a Brahmanical work tied to a popularized understanding of Śaiva tantrism.  Ultimately, the narrative claims that kings need Brahmins to succeed in the world and beyond, and that Brahmins need tantra—and the powers that can be furnished at the edges of polite society in the dangerous charnel grounds—if they are fruitfully to guide kings to the same.