Chapter 108 Yuetian's "Story Sea"

Yuetian's "Story Sea" I have long wanted to read the ancient Indian story collection "The Sea of ​​Stories", but unfortunately I can't buy this book Book.I once remembered that I saw Mr. Xu Dishan had this book in his possession, and it was an English translation.He is studying "Buddha Scripture literature and Sanskrit, naturally have to have this source of Indian classical literature works. After Mr. Xu's death, all his suicide notes were stored in the Fung Ping Shan Library of the University of Hong Kong.more than ten years ago I often go there to read books, and seeing this "Sea of ​​Stories" is still on his bookshelf, I always want to find a book.

A chance to read it carefully, has been unsuccessful.Later I heard that his entire collection, including that These rare Taoist works were sold together to the newly established Chinese language school of an Australian university.This First of all, it is not easy to have the opportunity to read this book, and I regret that I missed the opportunity.forward Some time ago, I read the newly published "Five Volume Books" translated by Mr. Ji Xianlin in China, which is also related to "The Sea of ​​Stories". A similar collection of stories, but on a smaller scale.Mr. Ji also mentioned Yuetian's "Story" in the translation preface.

"The Sea of ​​Things" aroused my desire to read this book again.I would like to pay my respects to Mr. Xu who was in charge of keeping Mr. I inquired about the relevant aspects of the book, and only then did I know that only Chinese books were sold to Australia. Most of the Western books are still here, so I hurriedly asked someone to ask for a loan, and finally borrowed a lot of books. This "Sea of ​​Stories" in Mr.'s old collection, the long-cherished wish for many years has finally come true. Yuetian's "Story Sea", according to the English transliteration from Sanskrit, is:

Somadeva: "Kathasarit Sagara" I don't know Sanskrit, so I translated the author's name Somadeva into Yuetian, according to Mr. Ji Xianlin translated.This English translation in the collection of Mr. Xu Dishan is quite precious. It was published in 1924. A limited edition published by a bookstore in London, a total of ten volumes, 1,500 copies printed, numbered. The volume in Mr. Xu's collection, numbered 1,500, should be the last volume to be printed.This Whether this translation was later reprinted, I do not know.But for years, I've been wanting to buy this book,

It seems that no advertisement for this book has ever been found in foreign books, newspapers and periodicals. This English translation of "The Sea of ​​Stories", because it is a limited edition, is very particular about the typesetting paper. The binding is also strong and generous.Each volume has Mr. Xu Dishan's own signature, and a round "Mianbizhai" stamp, this is his name.On the first page of the text, he also wrote in red pen "Story sea" three characters.He must have liked the book too.Since it is a limited edition, I bought it at the time It must have cost a lot of money.

The original English translator was CH Tawney.This version was passed through Pence (NM Penzer's collation and notes, with the biography of the English translator and Sir Tang Bai (Sir RCTemple) introduction. Yue Tian, ​​the editor of "Story Sea", his life experience is unknown.At the end of this collection of stories, Attached is a small poem of his own, which briefly described his own life experience, what posterity knows, That's all. He said that he used to be the court poet of King Alanda of Kashmir, and told stories for Queen Suryafati That's why this "Sea of ​​Stories" was written.According to textual research, King Alanda's rule in Kashmir

The period, was in the eleventh century AD, and he committed suicide in 1081.During his reign, father and son competed for the throne, is a bloody and chaotic reign.It is probably because of this that Queen Sujavati listened so well. interested in the story.When she was cremated by King Alanda, she also threw herself into the fire to die for her husband. Born on Moonday in the eleventh century, he was a Brahmin.Like all ancient stories handed down As in the story collection, instead of saying that Yuetian is the author of "Story Sea", it is better to say that he is the author of this story

editor of the collection.Because most of these stories have their own sources, and some of them have been circulated at that time. For a long time, some are collected from other stories, and some are sorted out, adapted, processed and brought together by him. The sea that forms the story. The main source of "Story Sea", according to Yuetian's own introduction, is based on ancient Indian A larger collection of stories titled "Brihat Katha" ("Brihat Katha").These They are handwritten notes on bay leaves.It is said that 600,000 leaves were burned by people in ancient times.

Only one hundred thousand leaves survived from his time.These materials were all adopted into his "Story Sea".As for "Big The Tale itself, and later also in a separate volume by Kshementra Collected by the management, it was renamed "Briliat Kaiha Man Jari" (Briliat Kaiha Man Jari), but Its length is less than one-third of "Story Sea". According to Yuetian's own explanation of the reason for the name "Story Sea", he said that his collection of stories, The stories that have been handed down from India since ancient times have been brought together, just as the sea brings together all

like the river.He said that everything originated from the ice and snow rivers of the holy mountain Himalayas, and from the The rivers of other high mountains rush down, sooner or later, they will all converge together and form a big river. ocean.So is this collection of his stories.It brings together the great feelings handed down from ancient times in India Stories of people, stories of kings and conspiracies for political change, stories of war murders, betrayals, Tales of ghostly talismans, vampires and ghosts, fables and real animal tales.In addition there are beggars Stories of beggars, alchemists, gamblers, drunkards and whores.

The book "The Sea of ​​Stories" is divided into 124 chapters.These one hundred and twenty-four chapters are divided into eighteen volumes. Based on the definition of "The Sea of ​​Stories", he called each chapter a "wave", and also called each volume a "wave". A "climax".The English translation has ten huge volumes, each with an average of more than 300 pages, so there are more than 3,000 volumes in total. Page. The content of "The Sea of ​​Stories" is that stories are included in stories, and often a big story Contains more than a dozen short stories.Some stories go back as far as the second millennium BC, Therefore, the essence of the stories passed down by ancient Indian folk and the stories contained in the classics can be said to be complete. All of them are concentrated in "Story Sea". Ancient India is indeed the hometown of many stories.These stories flowed from India to Persia, Then it was passed from Persia to the mouths and papers of the Arabs.By the Middle Ages, they had flowed in from the Middle East Constantinople and Venice.It was only then that the Europeans began to come into contact with it.Since then, Boccaccio Yes, the poet Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", and that of La Fontaine in France Many of these fables and short stories are drawn from Indian stories. The way they flowed into Chinese Zishu, jokes and story books is due to the translation of "Buddhist Sutra". introduce.Because there are many stories in the "Buddhist Scriptures", they are also compiled into the "Story Sea", such as "Buddhist Practice Collection" Sutra, and even the stories in the famous "Five Volumes", can be found in "Story Sea". The better known Tale of the Thousand and One Nights, through Garland's translation in the early eighteenth century When it was first introduced to Europe, many Europeans believed that the stories and descriptions in it were all from Garland’s own. I wrote it myself and translated it from Arabic.Even later translations of Sir Borton's more famous Doubt frequently.Until later, they found some stories in some ancient Indian story collections. It is the origin in "The Story of One Thousand and One Nights".Only then do we know that the story told by the Arabs has its origin Since then, there is no doubt about Garland's and Sir Borton's translations. These stories also originated from Yuetian's "Story Sea". The ten volumes of the English translation of "The Sea of ​​Stories" compiled by Pencer really cost a lot of effort. of.Among the ten volumes, nine volumes are the text, and the tenth volume is the index of the whole book.according to the story There are two indexes of content and names, and there is also a general index, so that if you want to refer to a story Things can be obtained all the time in the general index. In addition, there are several appendices at the end of each volume.are discussing the one involved in the story. Some ancient Indian customs, such as nude pressing, changes in the form and use of umbrellas, and marriage customs etc.In this article, there are annotations everywhere, citing classics, and textual research on some places in the story. square name.Zhao Rushi's "Zhu Fan Zhi", "Qi Min Yao Shu", "An Collection of Ancient and Modern Books", are all cited. English translator Talley (1837-1922), was born in Cambridge University, later Came to teach at the University of Calcutta for many years and thus had the opportunity to study Sanskrit.His "Sea of ​​Stories" The original translation was published in India in 1880.