Thread by @dhruvkotru

Kashmir: The Fountainhead of World’s Folk Literature
#TuJantaHeKyaHaiKashmirKeBareMai - A Thread
Credits: #SNPArchives
Atop the Mount Kailasa Shiva narrates the stories of seven Kings of Vidayadharas to his wife Parvati. Overheard by his invisible attendant Kausambi, (1/11)

he brings the stories to humans. Kanabhuti narrates the stories in #Paisachi that #Gunadhya in service of King Satavahana converts them to writing. Comprising of 7 lakh Slokas written in blood, yet the king Satavahana despised the effort for having been written in (2/11)

Paisachi; a language he abhorred and knew not. Heartbroken and dejected Gunadhya returned to forest and read the stories to forest animals and subsequently burned the stories leaf after leaf after he read them to the animals. The animals who heard the stories later became (3/11)

the poor meat for Satavahana's table. And thus 6 lakh Slokas were lost. As the news reached the king and wanting to atone for the sin of having caused the loss of first six stories, the remorseful Satavahana prevails upon Gunadhya from further burning of the remaining (4/11)

one lakh Slokas that spelled the tale of Naravahanadatta. With six tales lost to fire, the seventh story #Brahathkatha luckily survived for the humanity.
Adopted from Gunadhya's Brahathkatha, the 11th century Kashmiri Saivite Somadeva retold the multiple layered stories (5/11)

within stories in his Ocean of the Stream of Stories, the Kathasartiasagara. Written in 18 Lambakhas(books) of 124 Taramgas (chapters) called waves, Kathasaritasagara comprises of 22000 Slokas written in 66000 lines. By comparison the legendary seven lakh Slokas of the (6/11)

lost original Brahathkatha pales John Milton's The Paradise Lost of 10564 lines. And likewise the collection of popular ancient tales of India current for many centuries is the title #Panchatantra. The collection for over twenty one centuries with substance of stories (7/11)

embedded in it even older than that has had an influence upon the literature of Western Asia and Medieval Europe without a parallel. The popular adaptation being #TheArabianNights. First brought out in a scientific edition by Benfy in 1859 followed by those prepared by (8/11)

Windisch, Pischel and Hertel at the beginning of the 20th century, Panchatantra became popular all over the world. Strewn across in 90 manuscripts, the Panchatantra tales are couched best in the Kashmiri recension. Tantrakhyayika discovered first by Pandit Sahajabhatta (9/11)

in 1902. It dates 200BC. Published under the Harvard Oriental Series, the first complete edition of Panchatantra appeared in 1908 and took the world by storm. The world, however, still awaits the English translation of the Somadeva's original edition of the Kathasaritsaga-(10/11)

ra. Anyone interested? (11/11) @hansmukhi @Apeksha_Pandita @nirupamakotru @MattLaemon @vivekagnihotri @AnupamPKher @Dilleye @searchkashmir @ManMohini2 @AdityaRajKaul @sidkakspeaks @siddharthagigoo @amitabhmattoo @advaitavadini @rainaamit @rahulpandita @dkandathil @shivanibazaz

@threadreaderapp @threader - pls could you help in unrolling ?