Bruhatkatha

Bruhatkatha means “Big Story” or the “Big Narrative.”

Bruhatkatha has been written by a man called Gunadhya and the story has been written in the language of Paisachi. The sad part is that this work no longer exists nor do we know all the stories of the work. The reason that we know that Bruhatkatha exists is because other great Sanskrit works like ‘Kathasarithsagara’, Bruhatmanjari, etc. refer to the Bruhatkatha.

This is the story of how the Bruhatkatha came to be written and why the work has been lost to us.

“You will have to tell me a story that you have told to no one before.” Goddess Parvathi looked playfully at Lord Shiva as they were both seated in Mount Kailash.

It was a difficult task because there would be almost no story which the Goddess would not know. But then Lord Shiva knew the perfect story. As he was about to begin, Goddess Parvathi asked all the people in Kailash to leave them alone and she placed Nandi as guard outside and she asked Nandi not to let anyone in.

Once they were alone, Lord Shiva started his story.

It was at this time that Pushpadanta, one of the Ganas came to see Lord Shiva. Pushpadanta was more than shocked when Nandi barred him from entering the place. Curiosity got the better of the Gana and using his powers he transformed himself and entered the room where Shiva and Parvathi were alone.

Pushpadanta was caught in a beautiful astonishment as he heard the wonderful story of the Vidhyadharas – whose story Shiva was telling Parvathi. The Vidhyadharas were the supernatural beings who were canons of wisdom and were attendants of Lord Shiva. Pushpadanta was bursting with joy as he heard the story. He left the inner room of the Lord and the Goddess quietly and from there, Pushpadanta went back to meet his wife, Jaya.

Jaya could not miss the fact that Pushpadanta looked so radiantly happy. It seemed to Jaya like as if something had changed her husband.

The minute Jaya asked him about it, Pushpadanta could contain himself no more and told his wife the entire story of the Vidhyadharas.

Jaya heard the brilliant story and could feel waves of happiness wash over her as she heard the story. She understood exactly why her husband was feeling so excited on hearing the stories.

Unfortunately for Pushpadanta, his troubles had just begun.

Jaya was one of the friends of Goddess Parvathi.

The very next day, Jaya came to Goddess Parvathi and with barely contained excitement, she told the story to Parvathi. She definitely did not understand why the Goddess got more and more angry as the story progressed.

That evening, Lord Shiva met a very angry Parvathi.

“The story that you told me was not a special one! Everyone knows of it. Jaya told me the same story.” The Goddess hissed angrily.

Lord Shiva looked surprised and using his powers figured out what must have happened. As the Goddess realized what had happened, she angrily had Pushpadanta come before her. Trembling, the Gana came before her.

The Goddess cursed the man. “Go to earth and live as a mortal! You have no right to be in a place like Kailash.” She thundered.

“Mother!”

Parvathi turned as she saw that Pushpadanta was incapable of speech.

The person who had actually spoken was another Gana, named Malyavan. “Pushpadanta acted out of sheer curiosity. He should not….”

That was as far as Malyavan got.

“You think he did the right thing? Then join him on earth.” Parvathi said now looking thoroughly furious.

“Mother, please do not be so harsh.” The two Ganas were looking stricken as they saw the furious Goddess.

Parvathi was heaving now, but then her natural temperament took over. Besides she had cursed the men and she knew that her curse would come to pass. The men deserved a chance to come back to Kailash.

She studied the two men. “Kubera, the Lord of Wealth, cursed a Yaksha called Supratika to become a ghoul. Under the effect of the curse Supratika is now a ghoul under the name Kanabhuthi.”

The two Ganas looked at each other wondering what this had to do with them.

“You Pushpadanta,” the Goddess said pointing at him. “As a mortal if you meet Kanabhuthi and tell him the story of the Vidhyadharas, your curse shall be lifted,” the Goddess pronounced.

Pushpadanta nodded, his head trembling with fear, as the Goddess continued. “And Malyavan, when you hear the story from Kanabhuti and publish it, your curse shall be lifted.”

The minute the Goddess finished speaking, the two men vanished from there.

The story goes on about how Pushpadanta was reborn as Varurchi in the town of Kaushambi. Remembering all the details of his past life, Pushpadanta went in search of the ghoul – Kanabhuti and finally he found the ghoul and told him the story of the Vidhyadharas.

Thus Pushpadanta was released from his curse.

Malyavan was reborn as Gunadhya and was an extraordinarily intelligent man. Gunadhya became the minister of King Satyavahana. But remembering his curse, Gunadhya went to the Bindhya forest and found the ghoul Kanabhuthi and wrote down the entire story as told by the ghoul. It is believed that Malyavan wrote the story in his own blood and he also wrote it a Ghoulish language (Pishachi language) a language which was not known to many people . (There could be a reason about why Gunadhya wrote the Bruhatkatha in the Paisachi language. Gunadhya was a very learned man but he was arrogant and he lost a literary debate with another scholar. One of the conditions of the debate was that Gunadhya could not publish any of his works in the known languages of his times.)

After getting all the stories, the next problem faced by Gunadhya was the publication of the stories. He knew that the best way to get the stories published was to get the king to hear it. Gunadhya took the story to the king. Unfortunately as the king could not read the language in which the stories were written, the king ignored them.

Unable to bear the fact that he was not going to be released from his curse, Gunadhya retired to the forest again. He was so depressed that he pulled out the parchments on which he had written the stories and read it out aloud in the forest with the fire before him.

After reading the page, Gunadhya would burn the page.

The story was so powerful that it was said that even the wild animals were drawn to the fire as Gunadhya read the story out aloud.

Around this time, King Satyavahana, as was his habit came to the forest for hunting and found that all the animals in the forest were missing. Tracking the animals, the king came to the clearing where Gunadhya was reading the story. The king could not make out the words but the sound of the reading was so charming that it soothed the king. That was when the king saw exactly what Gunadhya was doing.

The king hastily stopped Gunadhya from sacrificing the epic. But the king was late. Gunadhya had written a total of seven chapters and he had already burned six of the chapters.

The only remaining was the seventh chapter.

This seventh chapter became the remains of the Bruhatkatha.

The Bruhatkatha as we know it, is written in Prakrit and the fables of India – the Panchatantra, the Vetala Panchvimsathi were all based on the seventh chapter of Bruhatkatha.

It was based on the Bruhatkatha, that Kathasaritsagara which is an almost complete collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales were told by an author named Somadeva.

What the original six chapters contain is something that is lost to us, forever.

- Indian Folk Stories