Three Satires

By Nīlakaṇṭha, Kṣemendra, and Bhallaṭa Translated by Somadeva Vasudeva Foreword by Mani Shankar Aiyar

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Written over a period of nearly a thousand years, these works show three very different approaches to satire.

Nila·kantha gets straight to the point: swindlers prey on stupidity.

The artistry that beguiles Ksheméndra is as varied as human nature and just as fallible. We are off to a gentle start with Sanctimoniousness – really no more than a warm-up among vices – but soon graduate to Greed and Lust. From there it’s downhill all the way, as Unfaithfulness leads to Fraud, and Drunkenness to Depravity; Deception and Quackery bring up the rear. What’s this at the very end? Virtue? A late arrival, pale and unconvincing. Bhállata the disgruntled court poet speaks of a setting sun (his former king and patron Avánti·varma) being replaced by a flickering firefly (the new king Shánkara·deva, who did not continue his predecessor’s patronage).

Only an elephant, who batters towering cliffs with relentless assaults of his spear-pointed tusk-tips knows the pain of the thunderbolt-swipes of a lion’s paw; not a jackal, whose spirit perishes at the yapping of a puppy.

About the Translator
Somadeva Vasudeva is Assistant Professor in Sanskrit at Columbia University, New York. He has also translated The Recognition of Shakúntala and The Quartet of Causeries (together with Csaba Dezső) for the CSL.

About the Foreword Writer
Three Satires (Kaliviḍambana, Kalāvilāsa & Bhallaṭaśataka)
(to be published in the second edition)