Summary of Kadambary
Banabhatta
Kadambari
Roman in prose, left unfinished and finished, according to legend, the son of Bana – Bhushana.
To the king Shudrake comes a girl from the caste of the untouchables (candals) and gives him a talking parrot. At the request of Shudraki, the parrot tells that, as a chick, he barely escaped the mountaineers-hunters and took refuge in the cloister of the wise-visionary Jambadi. Jambali told the parrot about his past births, for the sins of which he suffers in a bird’s guise.
Once in the city of Ujjayini, King Tarapid reigned, who had no children for a long time. One day he saw in a dream how a full month entered the mouth of his wife Vilasavati, and when after this miraculous sign his son was born, he called him Chandrapida (“Crowned by the month”). At the same time Minister Tarapida Shukanasy also has a son – Vayshampayana, and from early childhood he becomes Chandrapida’s closest friend. When Chandrapida
Mahashveta introduces Chandrapida to her friend, also the princess of Gandharvas, Kadambari. Chandrapida and Kadambari fall in love with each other no less passionately than Pundarika and Mahashveta. Soon they have to part because Chandralida, at the request of his father, must return to Ujjaini for a time. He leaves, leaving Vaishampayana at the head of the army, and the latter lingers for a few days at Achchody, where he meets Mahashvetu, to whom he feels an irresistible attraction. Pagged by Pundarik and enraged by the persistent persecution of Vaishampayana, Mahashvet curses him, predicting that he will become a parrot in the future birth. And then, as soon as she pronounced the curse, the young man dies.
When Chandrapida returns to Achchhod and finds out about the sad fate of a friend, he himself falls lifeless to the ground. Kadambari is desperate for death, but again suddenly there is a divine voice that commands her to give up her intention and stay with Chandralida’s body until his forthcoming resurrection. Soon Kadambari and Mahasvete descend from the sky Capinjala. He learned that the body of Pundarika was carried to heaven by none other than the god of the moon Chandra. Chandra told him that once he delivered Pundarike to his suffering, because of his love for Mahashvette, and that he was tormented for his heartlessness: he was doomed to an earthly birth in which the moon-god must experience the same as Pundarika, the love flour. To the curse Chandra responded with a curse, according to which and Pundarika in a new birth, will share with the god of the moon his sufferings. Due to mutual curses, Chandra was born on earth as Chandrapida, and then as Shudraka; Pundarika, first as Vaisampayana, and then in the guise of a parrot, who told the story of his former births to King Shudrake.
Thanks to the selflessness of Father Pundarika Shvetaketu, the term of cursing uttered by Chandra, Pundarika and Mahashveti comes to an end. Once Kadambari, in a sudden impulse, embraces the body of Chandrapida. The touch of the beloved returns the prince to life; Then Pundarika descends from the heavens and falls into the embrace of Mahashveta. The next day, Chandrapida and Kadambari, Pundarika and Mahashvet celebrate their weddings in the capital of the Gandharvas. Since then, the lovers are no longer parted, but Chandra Chandrapida spends part of her life (the bright half of the lunar months) in the sky as the god of the moon, and the other part (their dark half) on earth as the king of Ujjaini.
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