Soma·deva composed his “Ocean of the Rivers of Story” in Kashmir in the eleventh century CE. It is a vast collection of tales based on “The Long Story,” a now lost (and perhaps legendary) …
Budha·svamin tells the astonishing epic tale of the youthful exploits of prince Nara·váhana·datta. It is indeed a great story, as its Sanskrit title declares. Epic in scope and scale, it has ev…
Kali·dasa’s fifth-century CE “Cloud Messenger” is a beautiful and pure expression of an exiled lover’s love. That first messenger poem is imitated in the twelfth century in the “Wind Mes…
“The Ocean of the Rivers of Story” was written by Soma·deva in Kashmir in the eleventh century CE, in order to amuse queen Súryavati. Its frame narrative is so swamped in the flood of stories…
Volume two of Budha·svamin’s “The Emperor of the Sorcerers” begins with the merchant Sanu·dasa telling the story, an epic in itself, of how he acquired Gandhárva·datta, his daughter whose…