Ancient world recreated
Reviewed by Kanchan Mehta

Kadambari
by Bana, translated by Padmini Rajappa. 
Penguin. Pages 395. Rs 399.

BANA (also known as Banabhatt) was one of the top Sanskrit writers in the 7^th century. Harshacharita, a pioneer Indian biography in Sanskrit literature, has long been reckoned as his fine creation. Kadambari, another of his great work, is translated and appraised afresh by Dr Padmini Rajappa, to create interest anew in an old Sanskrit book. Clearly, she must have toiled hard to translate the classical Sanskrit prose — highly ornate, elaborate and picturesque — into English idiom.

Decoding the classical Sanskrit idiom, familiarizing the audience with the richness, variety and complexity of the multi- faced classical Sanskrit prose romance which could be "a love story", "a delightful romantic thriller" and "a fascinating fairy tale told with great feeling". The critical Introduction stimulates the interest of audience, and the detailed Glossary, facilitates their grasping of the complex verbal texture of the narrative.

Apart from its setting, with almost all the salient features of the ancient Indian literature —Brahmanism, hermitage, power of penance, kingly splendours, ravishingly beautiful princesses, love and adoration of nature, synthesis of human and cosmic worlds, sensuality and spirituality, Madana (Eros), edification and exaggerations — kadambari draws upon the traditional Indian thought and literature.

The melodramatic plot centres around evolution of romantic passionate love—its wooing, emotional excitement, agonies of separation, sacrifices and finally fulfilment. Two pairs of lovers "the cynosure of all eyes", the prince, Chandrapida (the moon god) and the beautiful and virtuous Gandharva princess Kadambari, and the divine Vaishampayana / Pundarika and the graceful, unflagging Gandharva princess, Mahashaveta, undergo much suffering, humiliation and penance, through the cycle of incarnations, before they have bliss of fulfilled love.

The narrative reinforces the idea of the destructive force of uncontrolled juvenile passion for carnal gratification and serene force of regulated desires. The amazing narrator, a parrot called Vishampayna, ‘the most wonderful of wonderful things in the world", plummeting from the world of man into the world of bird, under the sway of youthful craving for sensual pleasure, is the perfect epitome of the motif of the narrative.

Painting a masterly portrait of Madana/Manmatha/ Kamadeva (cupid), the book exalts and glorifies him ‘can the will of Manmatha be transgressed? It ask rhetorically and elaborates ‘the headiness of the spring season. . . the unruly nature of the senses the innate fickleness of the human mind ,the wildness of youth, all contribute to it. Perhaps, destiny too". Besides, Kamadeva is also the villain of this fantastic tale of love, who first brings the entirely incompatible Manashveta and Pundarika together and then reduces the latter to a parrot,

However, suspense, the pivotal strength of the romance, grips the audience till the very end notwithstanding various drawbacks of the narrative – labyrinth of stories, multitude of characters (some with divine connection) and distracting plethora of similes, metaphors and conceits.

And a word about the title. Since Manashveta, with a more impressive and bigger role, dominates over the eponymous heroine kadambari ,who (latter) appears only after almost half of the book is over, the title obviously, is deeply ironical.

That Bana was an advanced, radical thinker, the book testifies. Even in the 7^th century he condemned the evil practice of sati as "a most futile act" ‘a path treaded by the uneducated and the ignorant’ and "an act of violence and madness". Yet still notwithstanding his modern mind , he could not escape the impact of traditional patriarchal notions of society towards woman, as his following observation bear witness to the fact! "Foolish indeed is woman’s heart, and incapable of judging whether or not to fall in love with someone".

To conclude, this intriguing potpourri of suspense, wit, irony, melodrama, fantasies, a curious blend of human, avian and divine worlds and philosophy will surely thrill you!

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