Bytal-Puchisi or the twenty five tales of Bytal

Bytal-Puchisi Or The Twenty Five Tales of Bytal
Printed at the Sobha-Bazar Press
| Calcutta 1834 | 13 x 20 cm | contemporary calf
First edition of the English translation. Portrait of Rajah Kalee-Krishen Behadur, translator, mounted on guards on the frontispiece.
Contemporary binding half red calf, spine decorated with gilt fleurons and fillets, glued paper boards highlighted with a gilt roll-stamp, marbled endpapers.
Some skillfully filled wormholes, sometimes damaging a few letters without hindering reading.
The twenty-five stories in this collection are linked to a Hindu legend, originally written in Sanskrit in the 11th century by Somadeva under the title Vetâlapanchavimshatika, but probably based on older spoken accounts.
In order to honour a promise made to a sorcerer concealed in the disguise of a beggar, the King Vikrama must go to a cemetery, by night, to look for a body hanging from a tree. The corpse turns out to be possessed by a «vetâla» (or bytàl), a sort of living dead taking possession of deceased bodies. He tells Vikrama a story, ending in a conundrum of moral significance. Each time Vikrama finds the solution, the body disappears and returns to its tree, forcing the sovereign – who is becoming more and more wise – to come and look for it.