The 'Arabian Nights' and the 'Katha Sarit Sagara' occupy respectively the same position in Arabic and Hindoo literature. They are both collections of tales adapted to the people of the country for which they have been written. A perusal of both the works will show how much they differ. The characters and ideas of the heroes and heroines, their thoughts, reflections, speeches, surroundings, and situations are worth studying in the two books as an exposition of the manners and customs, ideas and habits of two distinct peoples. The Hindoo characters, as depicted in their story-book, will be found to be duller, heavier, more reverential, and more superstitious than the characters in the 'Nights.' There are two things, however, common to the two books: the power of destiny, and the power of love, against which it is apparently useless to struggle. While there are 426 stories in Burton's 'Nights,' there are 330 tales of sorts in Tawney's 'Katha.' Both works are rather formidable as regards size and quantity of matter; still, after a start has been fairly made, the interest goes on increasing in a wonderful way, until at last one becomes absorbed and interested to a degree that can scarcely be imagined. The stories in the 'Katha Sarit Sagara' are supposed to have been originally composed by one Gunadhya, in the Paisacha language, and made known in Sanscrit under the title of 'Vrihat Katha,' or Great Tale. From this work one Bhatta Somadeva, in the eleventh century A.D., prepared the work now known as the 'Katha Sarit Sagara,' but probably stories have been added to it since. At present it consists of eighteen books, divided into one hundred and twenty-four chapters, and containing three hundred and thirty stories, along with other matter. Of Gunadhya, the supposed original author, not much is known, but Vatsyayana, in his 'Kama Sutra' (printed privately for the Kama Shastra Society) mentions the name of Gunadhya as a writer whose works he had consulted, and gives frequent quotations from them in his chapter on the duties of a wife. The exact date of Vatsyayana's life is also uncertain; some time not earlier than the first century B.C., and not later than the sixth century A.D., is considered to be the approximate period of his existence.