Dashakumaracharita - The Text

The Text

Most extant texts of Dashakumaracharita are composed of

  1. Purvapithika (पूर्वपीठिका, Prologue) divided into 5 Uchchhwasas (उच्छ्वास: chapters);
  2. The Dsc. proper, divided into 8 Uch.;
  3. The Uttarapithika (उत्तरपीठिका, Epilogue), without any subdivisions.

Some text at the beginning and the end of Dsc. proper has been lost; thus it contains only eight of the ten narratives, and furthermore, the stories of Rajavahan and Vishruta are incomplete. The 1st and the 3rd parts seem to have been added later by various authors (some of whom have tried to mimic the style of the original); indeed, there are several disparate versions for these parts in existence.

Read more about this topic:  Dashakumaracharita

Famous quotes containing the word text:

    I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.
    Umberto Eco (b. 1932)

    The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.... Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.
    Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)