linguistic:paraphrasing
Printed editions and modern translations

Professor H. H. Wilson was the first European scholar who drew the attention of the Western world to this storehouse of fables. In 1824, he gave a summary of the first five books in the Oriental Quarterly Magazine. The first edition of the work was undertaken by Professor Brockhaus. In 1839 he issued the first five chapters only, and it was not till 1862 that the remaining thirteen appeared. Both publications formed part of the Abhandlungen der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.

It was this text which C. H. Tawney used for his excellent translation (Ocean of the River of Streams) published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in the Bibliotheca Indica, 1880-1884 (the index not appearing till 1887). Brockhaus’ edition was based primarily on six MSS., though in the second part of the work he apparently had not so many at his disposal. Tawney was not satisfied with several of Brockhaus’ readings, and consequently made numerous fresh renderings or suggestions largely taken from MSS. borrowed from the Calcutta College and from three India Office MSS. lent him by Dr Rost.

In 1889 Durgāprasād issued the Bombay edition, printed at the Nirṇayasāgara Press, which was produced from Brockhaus’ edition and two Bombay MSS. This is the latest text now available.

In 1919, N. M. Penzer first approached Tawney with the suggestion of reissuing his Ocean of the River of Streams. But he revised and published Tawney’s 2 volumes in 10 volumes in 1924. The first volume gave an introduction of Hindu fiction and the other famous story-collections like Panchatantra, Hitopadesha etc. Volumes 2 to 10 published the original translation with extensive comments. Penzer invited different scholars to write forewords to each volume resulting in nine excellent essays dealing with all aspects of the great collection.

A project to translate the full work into modern English prose, translated by Sir James Mallinson, began to appear in 2007 from the Clay Sanskrit Library, published by New York University Press. The translation was based on the Nirnaya Press’s 1915 edition of the Sanskrit text, the edition favored by Sanskritists today. Currently available are 2 volumes of the projected 7-volume edition.