Essay name: Brihatkatha-kosha (cultural study)
Author:
Himanshu Shekhar Acharya
Affiliation: Pondicherry University / Department of Sanskrit
This essay is an English study of the Brihatkatha-kosha reflecting cultural traditions of the life of people in ancient and medieval India during the 10th century. The Brihatkathakosha contains a collection of Jain Kathas (stories) intended to propagate Jain ideology and inspire people to lead a religio-ethical life. The book is written in over 12,000 Sanskrit verses
Chapter 2 - Brihatkatha-kosha鈥擜 literary study
15 (of 24)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
68
鈥� Motifs :
Various motifs which are grouped under conventional captions"
10 ,
such as Biter
bit (Nos. 64, 72). Wicked ascetics (Nos. 19, 64, 93, 102) Sibi motif (No. 85.7)
pistakurkuta (No. 73) Elephant selecting a heir (No. 56.258), Pregnancy whim
(No. 56.155,106.129), Human sacrifices (No. 73), proclamation by drum (No.
57.210), Immediate causes of renunciation like a transitory cloud, a grey hair etc.
(57.452, 574) are found in the stories of the BKK".
鈥� Peculiar forms :
We come across certain peculiar forms, viz. S膩m墨pyat膩 (a compromise between
s膩m墨pya and sam墨pat膩 (93.212), m膩nusya (a compromise between m盲nu峁a and
尘腻苍耻蝉补),
鈥� Usages :
Some words are used in an unusual sense. For example, dev膩n膩峁� vallbha (25.24,
also devapriya 73.133) is used in a positive sense where as it usually means a
fool in Sanskrit texts. In the sense of hugging, angalagna峁� dadau (157.73) or
ksema峁� dadau (70.69) are used. Similarly adhyaksa in the sense of samak峁
(53.7, 71.37) mandala in the sense of a dog (34.11, 55.297, 57.168, 58.13,
73.44), maithunika in the sense of brother-in-law (12.38, 47.8, 97.25), p膩峁環aka
in the sense of teacher, the word y奴tha with men (110.21), milyena parivarjitam
(10.6, 16.25, 28.20), in the sense of precious, draw readers' attention.
