Title

Śukasaptati, “Textus Simplicior”

Pandit Work ID

116326

Edition Short

Schmidt 1893

Edition

• Editor: Schmidt, Richard
• Title: Die Çukasaptati. Textus Simplicior.
• Place: Leipzig
• Publisher: Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft
• Series: Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes
• Series Part: Band X, No. 1
• Year: 1893
• Note: Band X as a whole (Nos. 1–4) was published in 1897.

Edition PDFs

• 1897 Band X on Archive (DLI & public.resource.org)
• 1893 Band X, No. 1 (improved by V. Gostishchev) on Archive, to be uploaded soon...

PDF Page Offset

• 1 → 19

Extent

• The complete work is nearly extant except for a few small lacunae.
• The edition contains a complete text of the known work.
• The text fills 206 pages in the edition, with roughly half of each page dedicated to variant readings.

File Size (KB)

174

Structure

The work consists of seventy stories in a frame story. The edition does not explicitly distinguish the frame story's introduction and conclusion with distinct sections.

Work Description

The work's frame story takes place over seventy nights. In the frame, a pet parrot belongs to a young, lonely woman named Prabhāvatī, and he seeks to keep her faithful while her merchant husband, Madanavinoda, is away on business. Each night, when Prabhāvatī is tempted to meet a lover, the clever bird tells her a story meant to dissuade her. After seventy nights of such tales, her husband returns, and she has remained true, bringing the drama to a close. The stories feature clever protagonists who extricate themselves from difficult situations, especially women who outsmart men in episodes involving adultery.

Genres

• Kāvya
• Kathā

Translations

• German, editor = R. Schmidt, 1894, on HathiTrust
• German, editor = R. Schmidt, 1913, on Archive
• See excellent translation bibliography by V. Gostishchev, on Google Drive (Word doc)

Source Collection

Personal collection of Viliam Gostishchev.

HANSEL License

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Contributors

• Viliam Gostishchev
• Tyler Neill

Digitization Notes

• (2020–2025): V. Gostishchev: Typed up from edition, intensively proofread and structured.
• (July 2025): Tyler Neill: Restructured for HANSEL.

File Creation Method

I (Tyler Neill) produced this HANSEL edition by manually converting the original Word document to plaintext and then automatically adding XML markup. The text still needs a final proofread.

Text Type

Prose with verse

Word Division Style

Roman-like (ity evam, not ityevam)

Additional Notes

• Indian editions (e.g. Ramakant Tripathi, Vārāṇasī, 1966, basis of the GRETIL text) are based on this Simplicior text by Schmidt.
• V. Gostishchev's original version of the file contains added chāyās from the Indian editions and other useful notes.
• On the construction of the text, see the editor's 1890 PhD dissertation “Vier Erzählungen aus der Çukasaptati”, on Google Books
• See also the editor's: “Anmerkungen zu dem Textus simplicior der Śukasaptati”, ZDMG 48, 1894, 580-628.

Original Submission Last Updated

2025-06-25

Text Last Updated

2025-09-29

Metadata Last Updated

2025-11-28