Somadeva

Somadeva, also known as Somadeva Bhatta, was an eleventh-century writer from Kashmir. He is best known for his work Kathasaritsagara. He is believed to have lived in Kashmir, in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, during the eleventh century, as a Shaivite Brahmin scholar and court poet. His most famous work is a vast compilation of stories and folktales drawn from earlier Indian texts, oral traditions and the literary heritage of Kashmir, divided into eighteen books, each containing interconnected stories within a larger narrative. He composed it at the court of King Ananta of Kashmir.