chapter xvii

, McCrindle's translation.

[72] This story corresponds to No. XLIII, in the Avadánas.

[73] This to a certain extent resembles the 129th story in the Gesta Romanorum, "Of Real Friendship." Douce says that the story is in Alphonsus. A story more closely resembling the story in the Gesta is current in Bengal, with this difference, that a goat does duty for the pig of the Gesta. A son tells his father he has three friends, the father says that he has only half a friend. Of course the half friend turns out worth all the three put together. The Bengali story was told me by Pandit Syámá Charan Mukhopádhyáya. See also Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 291, and note 371. See also Herrtage's English Gesta, p. 127, Tale 33.

[74] A perpetually recurring pun! The word can either mean "oiliness" or "affection."

[75] Cp. what Sganarelle says in Le Mariage Forcé:

"La raison. C'est que je ne me sens point propre pour le mariage, et que je veux imiter mon père et tous ceux de ma race, qui ne se sont jamais voulu marier."

[76] This story bears a certain resemblance to the European stories of grammarians who undertake to educate asses or monkeys. (See Lévêque, Les Mythes et Légendes de l'Inde et de la Perse, p. 320.) La Fontaine's Charlatan is perhaps the best known. This story is found in Prym und Socin's Syrische Märchen, p. 292, where a man undertakes to teach a camel to read.

[77] This story is No. LI in the Avadánas.

[78] See Felix Liebrecht, Orient und Occident, Vol. I, p. 135 on the Avadánas translated from the Chinese by Stanislas Julien, Paris, 1859 where this story is found (No. LXIX.) He compares a story of an Irishman who was hired by a Yarmouth Malster to assist in loading his ship. As the vessel was about to set sail, the Irishman cried out from the quay. "Captain, I lost your shovel overboard, but I cut a big notch on the rail-fence, round stern, just where it went down, so you will find it when you come back." Vol. II, p. 544, note. Liebrecht thinks he has read something similar in the Asteia of Hierokles. See also Bartsch, Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg, Vol. I, p. 349.

[79] See Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, pp. 119 and 120, also Benfey's Panchatantra. Vol. I, p. 391, Nachträge II, 543. This is No. CIII. in the Avadánas.

[80] This is No. XLIX in the Avadánas.

[81] This is No. XXXVII in the Avadánas.

[82] In the original the husband is called a "vessel of alms," i. e., "receiver of alms," but the pun cannot be retained in the translation without producing obscurity.

[83] See Benfey's Panchatantra, IIIrd book, page 213, Vol. II. Benfey points out that in the Mahábhárata, Drona's son, one of the few Kauravas that had survived the battle, was lying under a sacred fig-tree, on which crows were sleeping. Then he sees one owl come and kill many of the crows. This suggests to him the idea of attacking the camp of the Pándavas. In the Arabic text the hostile birds are ravens and owls. So in the Greek and the Hebrew translation. John of Capua has "sturni," misunderstanding the Hebrew. (Benfey, Vol. I, 335). Rhys Davids states in his Buddhist Birth Stories (p. 292 note,) that the story of the lasting feud between the crows and the owls is told at length in Játaka, No. 270.

[84] For Pradívin the Petersburg lexicographers would read Prajívin, as in the Panchatantra.

[85] Benfey remarks that this fable was known to Plato; Cratylus, 411, A, (but the passage might refer to some story of Bacchus personating Hercules, as in the Ranæ,) and he concludes that the fable came from Greece to India. He compares Æsop, (Furia, 141, Coraes, 113,) Lucianus, Piscator, 32, Erasmus, "Asinus apud Cumanos," Robert, Fables Inédites, I, 360. (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 463.) I cannot find the fable in Phædrus or Babrius. The skin is that of a tiger in Benfey's translation, and also in Johnson's translation of the Hitopadesa, p. 74 in the original (Johnson's edition). See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 119. It is No. 189 in Fausböll's edition of the Játakas, and will be found translated in Rhys Davids' Introduction to his Buddhist Birth Stories, p. v.

[86] Benfey compares Grimm's Märchen, Vol. III, 246, where parallels to story No. 171 are given; Thousand and one Nights (Weil, III, 923). In a fable of Æsop's the birds choose a peacock king. (Æsop, Furia, 183, Coraes, 53). (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 347.) See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 110, Veckenstedt's Wendische Märchen, p. 424, De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 206. See also p. 246 for an apologue in which the owl prevents the crow's being made king. See also Rhys Davids' Buddhist Birth Stories, p. 292. See also Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III, pp. 196, 197. The story of the crow dissuading the birds from making the owl king is Játaka, No. 270. In the Kosiya Játaka, No. 226, an army of crows attacks an owl.

[87] Cp. Hitopadesa, 75, Wolff, I, 192; Knatchbull, 223, Symeon Seth, 58, John of Capua, h., 5, b., German translation (Ulm 1483) O., II, Spanish translation, XXXVI, a.; Doni, 36, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 315, Livre des Lumières, 246; Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 437. This fable is evidently of Indian origin. For the deceiving of the elephant with the reflexion of the moon, Benfey compares Disciplina Clericalis XXIV. (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 348, 349.) See also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 76.

[88] i. e. moon-lake.

[89] Common epithets of the moon. The Hindus find a hare in the moon where we find a "man, his dog, and his bush."

[90] This story is found in Wolff, I, 197, Knatchbull, 226, Symeon Seth, 60, John of Capua, h., 6, b, German translation (Ulm 1483) O., IV, 6, Spanish translation, 36, b, Doni, 38, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 322, Livre des Lumières, 251, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 442, Baldo Fab. XX, in Edéléstand du Méril, Poesies Inédites, p. 249. Benfey finds three "moments" in the Fable; the first is, the "hypocritical cat"; this conception he considers to be "allgemein menschlich" and compares Furia, 14, Coraes, 152, Furia, 15, Coraes, 6, Furia, 67, Coraes, 28, Robert, Fables Inédites, I, 216; also Mahábhárata V. (II, 283) 5421 and ff., where the cat manages to get herself taken to the river, to die, by the rats and mice, and there eats them. The second moment is the folly of litigiousness: here he compares a passage in Dubois's Panchatantra. The third is the object of contention, the nest, for which he compares Phædrus, I, 21. (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 350-354). I should compare, for the 1st moment, Phædrus, Lib. II, Fabula, IV, (recognovit Lucianus Mueller) Aquila, Feles et Aper, La Fontaine, VII, 16. See also for the "hypocritical cat" Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 121. The cat's tactics are much the same as those of the fox in Reineke Fuchs (Simrock, Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. I, p. 138.) See also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 54. The story is No. CXXV in the Avadánas. From De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, pp. 227-228 it appears that kapinjala means a heath-cock, or a cuckoo. Here the word appears to be used as a proper name. There is a very hypocritical cat in Prym und Socin, Syrische Märchen, p. lx. See especially p. 242, and cp. p. 319.

[91] This is the 3rd story in Benfey's translation of the third book of the Panchatantra. See Johnson's translation of the Hitopadesa, p. 110. Wolff, I. 205, Knatchbull, 233. Symeon Seth, 62, John of Capua, i., 1, b., German translation O., VI, 6, Spanish, XXXVII, a., Doni, 42, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 331, Livre des Lumières, 254, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 444. Benfey translates a reference to it in Pánini. He shews that there is an imitation of this story in the Gesta Romanorum, 132. In Forlini, Novel VIII, a peasant is persuaded that his kids are capons. Cp. also Straparola, I, 3; Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai, 47, 2. Liebrecht's translation of Dunlop, note 356, Lancereau on the Hitopadesa, 252. (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 355-357.) See also Till Eulenspiegel, c. 66, in Simrock's Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. X, p. 452. In the XXth tale of the English Gesta Romanorum (Ed. Herrtage) three "lechis" persuade Averoys that he is a "lepre;" and he becomes one from "drede," but is cured by a bath of goat's blood. The 69th tale in Coelho's Contos Populares, Os Dois Mentíroses, bears a strong resemblance to this. One brother confirms the other's lies.

[92] Benfey compares this with the story of Zopyrus. He thinks that the Indians learned the story from the Greeks. See also Avadánas. No. V, Vol. I, p. 31.

[93] Benfey compares Wolff, I, 210, Knatchbull, 237, Symeon Seth, p. 64, John of Capua i., 2, German translation (Ulm., 1483) No. VIII, 6, Spanish translation, XXXVIII, a., Doni, 44, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 336, Livre des Lumières, 259, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 449. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 366.) See also La Fontaine, IX, p. 15.

[94] Dr. Kern suggests vyatíta-pushpa-kálatvád. The Sanskrit College MS. has the reading of Dr. Brockhaus's text.

[95] Cp. Wolff, I, 212, Knatchbull, 238, Symeon Seth, p. 64, John of Capua i., 2, b., German translation (Ulm, 1483) P., I, b., Spanish translation, XXXVIII, a., Doni, 45, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 338, Livre des Lumières, 261, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 451. (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 368.)

[96] See