KATHAA-SARIT-SAAGARA OF SOMADEVA
[OCEAN TO WHICH STORY-RIVERS ENTER INTO]
INTRODUCTION
[OCEAN TO WHICH STORY-RIVERS ENTER INTO]
INTRODUCTION
Beautiful hill summit!
Fruit trees abounded there and flowers smiled from all the
creepers.
However on that fatal day the forest which populated only tame
animals like deer, boars and buffaloes was empty. All the animals were sitting
quietly near a Sage who was reciting something aloud in an unintelligible
language!
All the quarters echoed the weird sounds coming out of that sacred
hill.
There was a huge fire blazing in front of that old man.
The Sage was dropping some old worn out Taala-leaves marked with
red letters into the fire one by one.
The dark smelly smoke rising from the fire filled the sky making
it a dark day for the entire earth.
The Sage looked very old and emaciated.
His pale skin was hanging loose over the collection of bones which
still held the Praana within somehow.
The brown and grey hued entangled mass of hair on his body
overflowed and covered his thin body.
His face was covered with lines all over as if exhibiting the
countless pains he underwent in his long long life.
He looked very sad!
But he had no tears! His heart had dried up long back fighting the
senseless follies of the ignorant and learned alike.
He mechanically read out the words written on the Taala-leaves and
dropped the leaves, his life-work, into the ever-hungry mouth of the Fire-God.
It was his Yajna!
A Sacrifice which will prove the end of all his sufferings on the
earth!
The deepest pain that pierced his heart was his being away from
the lotus feet of his Lord, his Shiva whom he loved so much!
He just wanted to finish his gruesome work of destruction and walk
out of this horrifying mortal world to rest under the shade of the lotus feet
of Mother Paarvati.
The animals understood his suffering as it were!
They were the only sympathizers he had and they did not fail him.
They had no arrogance! They had no envy!
They were part of the Nature (Prakrti), the Supreme Goddess (Umaa)
who watched everything silently. These animals did not even move! They did not
eat any grass! They did not drink water also! They sat there just listening to
the Sage!
Wonder of wonders!
Did they understand anything?
Or did they all, absorb the thoughts of the Sage just like that?
We do not know!
We know this much only that knowledge was ignored and discarded
even in his times!
The Sage was none other than Shri Gunaadya (गुणाड्य– one rich in
virtues), the devoted servant of Shiva stuck in a mortal form by the curse of
Paarvati!
The text he was burning was an exact rendering of the countless
stories related by Lord Shiva to his beloved wife Umaa!
He had written those stories in the Paishaacha dialect, inside a
formidable forest, living with the Paishaacha clan, using his own blood as ink,
for seven whole years, day and night without a break.
Actually he had poured his life and blood into his work!
The text contained seven stories, each containing one lakh verses,
totally making it seven lakh verses.
But he was burning them all now to be lost forever, for no human
knew the value of that work and nobody wanted them.
His two Paishaacha disciples and the animals watched the tragic
end of the work, shedding tears at the loss of a great work.
All would have been lost completely but...
… the earth still had some virtuous
people maybe!
By their merit as it were, the two disciples begged the Sage to
spare the last of the work containing the history of King NaraVaahanaDatta, as
they favored the king and his exploits.
That was the only left over work of Gunaadya we have on this earth
now.
The sacred stories told by Lord Shiva are not fully given to us
because of the folly of human arrogance that always blocks any knowledge given
by anybody.
Even this text was so huge that a Kashmir
poet named SomaDeva managed to compile into a short form and called it
KathaaSaritSaagara – the ocean into which all rivers of stories enter.
Yes! This is an ocean of stories where rivers of stories
continuously enter making it ever-turbulent! It is difficult to cross indeed.
Poet SomaDeva divides his work into eighteen ‘Lambakas’ (swells or
surges). Each ‘Lambaka’ again is divided
into ‘Tarangas’ (waves).
‘Lambaka’ is not a flooding wave which drowns you but a huge wave
which is made of many numbers of waves; which rises high and ‘hangs’ for a
fraction of a second before falling down.
In this great work of SomaDeva, eighteen huge waves (Lambaka) of
stories carrying within them, many mini waves of mini-stories, appear one after
the other.
As SomaDeva is a devotee of Lord Shiva, the book abounds in the
various names of Shiva and Paarvati.
This is not just a story book; but the sacred ocean of Shiva
A humble attempt has been made to translate the Sanskrit text of
SomaDeva verbatim, in simple English as an offering to the lotus feet of Lord
Shiva and his spouse Shivaa.
मङ्गलाचरणम् / BENEDICTION
इदं गुरुगिरीन्द्रजाप्रणयमन्दरान्दोलनात्पुरा किल कथामृतं हरमुखाम्बुधेरुद्गतम् ।
प्रसह्य सरयन्ति ये विगतविघ्नलब्धर्द्ध्यो धुरं दधति वैबुधीं भुवि भवप्रसादेन ते ॥
This nectar of stories rose out of Shiva’s ‘mouth-ocean’,
when churned by the ‘heavy Mandara Mountain
of the ‘daughter of the Mountain-king’!
Those who cross over it perforce,
will have all the obstacles removed from their heart,
and obtain all the divine prosperities,
by the grace of ‘Bhava’, the source of all.
Everyone knows very well about the nectar that came out of the milk ocean, when the Gods and non-Gods churned the ocean with the huge Mandara Mountain
But there was another ocean that got churned!
It was the mouth of Shiva, the auspicious milk-ocean wherein resides the Supreme knowledge.
Who placed the Mountain in Shiva’s mouth?
Paarvati, the daughter of the Mountain!
After all, her father was the King of Mountains; and she could easily place some weighty mountain in Shiva’s mouth!
What was the Mandara Mountain
‘Love’! So much love! It created turbulent waves in the heart of Shiva!
And what nectar came out?
‘Stories’! What could be sweeter than a story?
How many stories?
Countless! Shiva’s mouth overflowed with the nectar of stories!
Who gets benefited by that nectar?
We! The mortals!
Whoever can cross over this ocean of stories will surely be blessed by Lord Shiva and will be rewarded by the prosperities of heaven!
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