Tales of the Ten Princes – Dasa Kumara Charitam

Translated from the Sanskrit with an introduction by A N D Haksar, Tales of the Ten Princes is a novel of romance and adventure from ancient India.

Its author Dandin’s work as a novelist, poet and pioneering theorist of literary style has secured for him an important place in classical Sanskrit literature.

The Dasa Kumara Charitam is a prose romance recounting the exploits of Prince Rajavahana and his nine companions. Its colorful tales of adventure are notable for their ironic humor, amoral outlook, and uninhibited descriptions of contemporary life and manners.

Dandin vivifies each personage, major and minor, and provides lively accounts of assassinations, executions, dance festivals and royal assemblies, describes at length the training of a courtesan, and even the tools for burgling the house.

Even though the Das Kumara Charitam can be enjoyed for its absorbing magical stories alone, it is also a wonderfully detailed sociological account of an important age in ancient India.