On Parvatis insistence, Shiva begins to tell her a story that has seven wondrous tales about vidhyadharas. These are stories within stories within stories.
While Shiva narrates these tales, Pushpadanta, his gana, arrives to meet him. Nandi stops him but he uses his yogic powers to make himself invisible and enters. He listens to the story and then tells his wife when he goes home. His wife, not knowing where her husband heard the story, narrates it back to Parvati.
Parvati, in a fit of anger, curses Pushpadanta and his supportive friend, Malyavana to be born as mortals. She tells them that they will be liberated when Pushpadanta, as the mortal Vararuchi, relates the story to Kanabhuti. Kanabhuti will narrate the story to Malyavana, born as Gunadhya, who will tell it to the world.
The story that Gunadhya composed in a lost language called Paisachi, as told by Shiva, was called the Brihatkatha. The Great Story. But this original text is lost. One of Indias greatest epics, the Kathasaritsagara – Ocean of River of stories, is one of the longest creations in Indian and world literature. It is considered to be only a small part of the even longer Brihatkatha.