The Dark Age Ridiculed, by Níla-kantha, Beguiling Artistry, by
Ksheméndra, The Hundred Allegories, by Bhállata
Written over a period of nearly a thousand years, these works show three
very different approaches to satire. Níla-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 Sanctimonious--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 on 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.
This volume presents three Indian satirists with three different
strategies: in the ninth century C.E., Bhállata sought vengeance on his
boorish new king by producing vicious sarcastic verse, "The Hundred
Allegories;" in the eleventh century, Ksheméndra presents himself as a
social reformer out to shame the complacent into compliance with Vedic
morality; and in the seventeenth century little can redeem the fallen
characters Níla-kantha portrays, so his duty is simply to warn about the
corruption of every social type.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series,
please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.org
