The Katha Sarit Sagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story Part 105

[107] This is No. CIV in the Avadanas.

[108] This is No. LXVI in the Avadanas.

[109] Cp. the 37th story in Sicilianische Marchen, part I. p. 249. Giufa's mother wished to go to the ma.s.s and she said to him "Giufa, if you go out, draw the door to after you." (Ziehe die Thur hinter dir zu.) Instead of shutting the door, Giufa took it off its hinges and carried it to his mother in the church. See Dr. Kohler's notes on the story.

[110] For the superst.i.tion of water-spirits see Tylor's Primitive Culture, p. 191, and ff.

[111] Does this throw any light upon the expression in Swift's Polite Conversation, "She is as like her husband as if she were spit out of his mouth." (Liebrecht, Volkskunde, p. 495.)

[112] The fact of this incident being found in the Arabian Nights is mentioned by Wilson (Collected Works, Vol. IV, p. 146.) See Lane's Arabian Nights, Vol. I, p. 9. Leveque (Les Mythes et les Legendes de l' Inde et de la Perse, p. 543) shews that Arios...o...b..rrowed from the Arabian Nights.

[113] I follow the Sanskrit College MS. which reads rakshatyubhayalokatah.

[114] This is the beginning of the fourth book of the Panchatantra. Benfey does not seem to have been aware that it was to be found in Somadeva's work. It is also found, with the subst.i.tution of a boar for the porpoise, in the Sindibad-namah and thence found its way into the Seven Wise Masters, and other European collections. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 420.) See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, pp. 122, 123. For the version of the Seven Wise Masters see Simrock's Deutsche Volksbucher, Vol. XII, p. 139. It is also found in the Mahavastu Avadana, p. 138 of the Buddhist Literature of Nepal by Dr. Rajendra Lal Mitra, Rai Bahadur. (I have been favoured with a sight of this work, while it is pa.s.sing through the press.) The wife of the k.u.mbhila in the Varanindajataka (57 in Fausboll's edition) has a longing for a monkey's heart. The original is, no doubt, the Sumsumara Jataka in Fausboll, Vol. II, p. 158. See also Melusine, p. 179, where the story is quoted from Thorburn's Bannu or our Afghan Frontier.

[115] The Sanskrit College MS. reads caks.h.i.+pan where Brockhaus reads ca ks.h.i.+pan.

[116] In Bernhard Schmidt's Griechische Marchen, No. 5, the Lamnissa pretends that she is ill and can only be cured by eating a gold fish into which a bone of her rival had been turned. Perhaps we ought to read sadya for sadhya in sl. 108.

[117] For stories of external hearts see Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, pp. 109-115, and the notes to Miss Stokes's XIth Tale.

[118] Benfey does not seem to have been aware of the existence of this story in Somadeva's work. It is found in the Sanskrit texts of the Panchatantra (being the 2nd of the fourth book in Benfey's translation) in the Arabic version, (Knatchbull, 264, Wolff I, 242,) Symeon Seth, 75, John of Capua, k., 2, b., German translation (Ulm 1483) Q., VII, Spanish translation, XLIV, a, Doni, 61, Anvar-i-Suhaili, 393, Cabinet des Fees, XVIII, 26; Baldo fab. XIII, in Edelestand du Meril, p. 333; Benfey considers it to be founded on Babrius, 95. There the fox only eats the heart. Indeed there is no point in the remark that if he had ears he would not have come again. The animal is a stag in Babrius. It is deceived by an appeal to its ambition. In the Gesta Romanorum the animal is a boar, which returns to the garden of Trajan, after losing successively its two ears and tail. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 430 and ff.) See also Weber's article in Indische Studien, Vol. III, p. 338. He considers that the fable came to India from Greece. Cp. also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. I, p. 377. An a.s.s is deceived in the same way in Prym und Socin, Syrische Marchen, p. 279. In Waldau's Bohmische Marchen, p. 92, one of the boys proposes to say that the Glucksvogel had no heart. Rutherford in the Introduction to his edition of Babrius, p. xxvii, considers that the fable is alluded to by Solon in the following words:

hymeos d' heis men hekastos alopekos ichnesi bainei sympasin d' hymin chouros enesti noos es gar glossan horate kai eis epos aiolon andros, eis ergon d' ouden gignomenon blepete.

But all turns upon the interpretation of the first line, which Schneidewin renders "Singuli sapitis, cuncti desipitis."

[119] I have followed the Sanskrit College MS. in reading nirbadhasukham.

[120] For parallels to this story compare Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 33, where he treats of the Avadanas, and the j.a.panese story in the Nachtrage. In this a gentleman who had much enjoyed the smell of fried eels, pays for them by exhibiting his money to the owner of the cook-shop. See also p 112 of the same work. M. Leveque shews that Rabelais' story of Le Facquin et le Rostisseur exactly resembles this as told in the Avadanas. He thinks that La Fontaine in his fable of L'Huitre et les Plaideurs is indebted to the story as told in Rabelais: (Les Mythes et les Legendes de l'Inde, pp. 547, 548.) A similar idea is found in the Hermotimus of Lucian, chapters 80 and 81. A philosopher is indignant with his pupil on account of his fees being eleven days in arrear. The uncle of the young man, who is standing by, being a rude and uncultured person, says to the philosopher--"My good man, pray let us hear no more complaints about the great injustice with which you conceive yourself to have been treated, for all it amounts to is, that we have bought words from you, and have up to the present time paid you in the same coin." See also Rohde, Der Griechische Roman, p. 370 (note). Gosson in his School of Abuse, Arber's Reprint, pp. 68-69, tells the story of Dionysius.

[121] There is a certain resemblance between this story and a joke in Philogelos, p. 16. (Ed. Eberhard, Berlin, 1869.) Scholasticus tells his boots not to creak, or he will break their legs.

[122] This corresponds to the 14th story in the 5th book of the Panchatantra, Benfey, Vol. II, p. 360. At any rate the leading idea is the same. See Benfey, Vol. I, p. 537. It has a certain resemblance to the fable of Menenius. There is a snake in Bengal with a k.n.o.b at the end of his tail. Probably this gave rise to the legend of the double-headed serpent. Sir Thomas Browne devotes to the Amphisbaena Chapter XV of the third book of his Vulgar Errors, and craves leave to "doubt of this double-headed serpent," until he has "the advantage to behold, or iterated ocular testimony." See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 120, where he treats of the Avadanas. The story is identical with that in our text. M. Leveque shews that this story, as found in the Avadanas, forms the basis of one of La Fontaine's fables, VII, 17. La Fontaine took it from Plutarch's life of Agis.

[123] This story is No. LIX in Sir G. Cornewall Lewis's edition of the Fables of Babrius, Part II. The only difference is that the tail, when in difficulties, entreats the head to deliver it.

[124] I read hanum, the conjecture of Dr. Kern.

[125] This story appears to have been known to Lucian. In his Demonax (28) he compares two unskilful disputants to a couple, one of whom is milking a goat, the other holding a sieve. So Aristophanes speaks of onou pokai and ornithon gala. It must be admitted that some critics doubt Lucian's authors.h.i.+p of the Demonax. Professor Aufrecht in his Beitrage zur Kenntniss Indischer Dichter quotes a Strophe of Amarasinha in which the following line occurs,

Dugdha seyam achetanena jarati dugdhasayat sukari. Professor Aufrecht proposes to read gardabhi for sukari.

[126] Benfey does not appear to have been aware that this story was to be found in Somadeva's work. It is found in his Panchatantra, Vol. II, p. 326. He refers to Wolff, II, 1; Knatchbull, 268; Symeon Seth, 76; John of Capua, k., 4; German translation, (Ulm, 1483) R., 2; Spanish translation, XLV. a; Doni, 66; Anvar-i-Suhaili, 404; Cabinet des Fees, XVIII, 22; Baldo fab. XVI, (in Edelestand du Meril p. 240). Hitopadesa, IV, 13, (Johnson's translation, page 116.) In Sandabar and Syntipas the animal is a dog. It appears that the word dog was also used in the Hebrew translation. John of Capua has canis for ichneumon in another pa.s.sage, so perhaps he has it here. Benfey traces the story in Calumnia Novercalis C., 1; Historia Septem Sapientum, Bl. n.; Romans des Sept Sages, 1139; Dyocletian, Einleitung, 1212; Gra.s.se, Gesta Romanorum II, 176; Keller, Romans, CLXXVIII; Le Grand d' Aussy, 1779, II, 303; Grimm's Marchen, 48. (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 479-483.) To Englishmen the story suggests Llewellyn's faithful hound Gelert, from which the parish of Bethgelert in North Wales is named. This legend has been versified by the Hon'ble William Robert Spencer. It is found in the English Gesta, (see Bohn's Gesta Romanorum, introduction, page xliii. It is No. XXVI, in Herrtage's Edition.) The story (as found in the Seven Wise Masters) is admirably told in Simrock's Deutsche Volksbucher, Vol. XII, p. 135. See also Baring Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, 1st Series, p. 126.

[127] Here, as Wilson remarked, (Collected Works, Vol. IV, p. 149) we have the story of Rhampsinitus, Herodotus, II, 121. Dr. Rost compares Keller, Dyocletia.n.u.s Leben, p. 55, Keller Li Romans des Sept Sages, p. cxciii, Liebrecht's translation of Dunlop's History of Fiction, pp. 197 and 264. Cp. also Sagas from the Far East, Tale XII; see also Dr. R. Kohler in Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 303. He gives many parallels to Campbell's Gaelic Story of "the s.h.i.+fty lad," No. XVIII, d., Vol. I, p. 331, but is apparently not aware of the striking resemblance between the Gaelic story and that in the text. Whisky does in the Highland story the work of Dhattura. See also c.o.x's Mythology of the Aryan Nations, I, p. 111 and ff. and Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 34. A similar stratagem is described in Grossler's Sagen aus der Grafschaft Mansfeld, p. 219.

[128] Of course Karpara is the Sanskrit for pot. In fact the two friends' names might be represented in English by Pitcher and Pott. In modern Hindu funerals boiled rice is given to the dead. So I am informed by my friend Pandit Syama Charan Mukhopadhyaya, to whom I am indebted for many kind hints.

[129] I read ahritendhanah. The Sanskrit College MS. seems to me to give hritendhana.

[130] So Frau Claradis in "Die Heimonskinder" advises her husband not to trust her father (Simrock's Deutsche Volksbucher, Vol. II, p. 131.)

[131] The Sanskrit College MS. has mama for the maya of Dr. Brockhaus.

[132] Mr. Gough has kindly pointed out to me a pa.s.sage in the Sarvadarsana Sangraha which explains this. The following is Mr. Gough's translation of the pa.s.sage; "We must consider this teaching as regards the four points of view. These are that

(1) Everything is momentary and momentary only: (2) Everything is pain and pain only: (3) Everything is individual and individual only: (4) Everything is baseless and baseless only."

[133] This story is identical with the 5th in the 4th book of the Panchatantra in Benfey's translation, which he considers Buddhistic, and with which he compares the story of the Bhilla in chapter 61 of this work. He compares the story of Dhumini in the Dasak.u.mara Charita, page 150, Wilson's edition, which resembles this story more nearly even than the form in the Panchatantra. Also a story in Ardschi Bordschi, translated by himself in Ausland 1858, No. 36, pages 845, 846. (It will be found on page 305 of Sagas from the Far East.) He quotes a saying of Buddha from Spence Hardy's Eastern Monachism, page 166, cp. Koppen, Religion des Buddha, p. 374. This story is also found in the Forty Vazirs, a collection of Persian tales, (Behrnauer's translation, Leipzig, 1851, page 325.) It is also found in the Gesta Romanorum, c. 56. (But the resemblance is not very striking.) Cp. also Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmarchen, No. 16. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, pp. 436 and ff.) This story is simply the Cullapadumajataka, No. 193 in Fausboll's edition. See also Ralston's Tibetan Tales, Introduction, pp. lxi-lxiii.

[134] In La Fontaine's Fables X, 14, a man gains a kingdom by carrying an elephant.

[135] In the story of Satyamanjari, a tale extracted by Professor Nilmani Mookerjee from the Katha Kosa, a collection of Jaina stories, the heroine carries her leprous husband on her back.

[136] This story is found, with the subst.i.tution of a man for a woman, on p. 128 of Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. 11; he tells us that it is also found in the 17th chapter of Silvestre de Sacy's Kalila o Dimna (Wolff's Translation II, 99; Knatchbull, 346,) in the 11th section of Symeon Seth's Greek version, 14th chapter of John of Capua; German translation Ulm, 1483 Y., 5; Anvar-i-Suhaili, p. 596 Cabinet des Fees, XVIII, 189. It is imitated by Baldo, 18th fable, (Poesics Inedites du Moyen Age by Edelestand du Meril, p. 244.) Benfey p.r.o.nounces it Buddhistic in origin, though apparently not acquainted with its form in the Katha Sarit Sagara. Cp. Rasavahini, chap. 3. (Spiegel's Anecdota Paliea). It is also found in the Karma Sataka. Cp. also Matthaeus Paris, Hist. Maj. London, 1571, pp. 240-242, where it is told of Richard Coeur de Lion; Gesta Romanorum, c. 119; Gower, Confessio Amantis, Book V; E. Meier Schwabische Volksmarchen. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 192 and ff.) Cp. also for the grat.i.tude of the animals the IVth story in Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands. The animals are a dog, an otter and a falcon, p. 74 and ff. The Mongolian form of the story is to be found in Sagas from the Far East, Tale XIII. See also the XIIth and XXIInd of Miss Stokes's Indian Fairy Tales. There is a striking ill.u.s.tration of the grat.i.tude of animals in Grimm's No. 62, and in Bartsch's Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche aus Meklenburg, Vol. I, p. 483. De Gubernatis in a note to p. 129 of Vol. II, of his Zoological Mythology, mentions a story of grateful animals in Afana.s.sief. The hero finds some wolves fighting for a bone, some bees fighting for honey, and some shrimps fighting for a carcase; he makes a just division, and the grateful wolves, bees, and shrimps help him in need. See also p. 157 of the same volume. No. 25 in the Pentamerone of Basile belongs to the same cycle.

See Die dankbaren Thiere in Gaal's Marchen der Magyaren, p. 175, and Der Rothe Hund, p. 339. In the Saccamkirajatataka No. 73, Fausboll, Vol. I, 323, a hermit saves a prince, a rat, a parrot and a snake. The rat and snake are willing to give treasures, the parrot rice, but the prince orders his benefactor's execution, and is then killed by his own subjects. See Bernhard Schmidt's Griechische Marchen, p. 3, note. See also Ralston's Tibetan Tales, Introduction, pp. lxiii-lxv.

[137] In Giles's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, a tiger, who has killed the son of an old woman, feeds her henceforth, and appears as a mourner at her funeral. The story in the text bears a faint resemblance to that of Androclus, (Aulus Gellius. V, 14). See also Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 111, with the note at the end of the Volume.

[138] Cp. Gijjhajataka, Fausboll, Vol. II, p. 51.

[139] Cp. the 46th story in Sicilianische Marchen gesammelt von Laura von Gonzenbach, where a snake coils round the throat of a king, and will not let him go, till he promises to marry a girl, whom he had violated. See also Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 523.

[140] The Petersburg lexicographers explain takka as Geizhals, Filz; but say that the word thaka in Marathi means a rogue, cheat. The word kadarya also means n.i.g.g.ardly, miserly. General Cunningham (Ancient Geography of India, p. 152) says that the Takkas were once the undisputed lords of the Panjab, and still subsist as a numerous agricultural race in the lower hills between the Jhelum and the Ravi.

[141] So in the Russian story of "The Miser," (Ralston's Russian Folk-tales, p. 47.) Marko the Rich says to his wife, in order to avoid the payment of a copeck; "Harkye wife! I'll strip myself naked, and lie down under the holy pictures. Cover me up with a cloth, and sit down and cry, just as you would over a corpse. When the moujik comes for his money, tell him I died this morning." Ralston conjectures that the story came originally from the East.

[142] This resembles the conclusion of the story of the turtle Kambugriva and the swans Vikata and Sankata, Book X, chap. 60, sl. 169, see also Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 292. A similar story is told in Bartsch's Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche aus Meklenburg, Vol. I, p. 349, of the people of Teterow. They adopted the same manoeuvre to get a stone out of a well. The man at the top then let go, in order to spit on his hands.

[143] I follow Dr. Kern's conjecture avikritanana.

[144] In the Sicilianische Marchen, No. 14, a prince throws a stone at an old woman's pitcher and breaks it. She exclaims in her anger, "May you wander through the world until you find the beautiful Nzentola!" Nos. 12 and 13 begin in a similar way. A parallel will be found in Dr. Kohler's notes to No. 12. He compares the commencement of the Pentamerone of Basile.

[145] Cp. the Yaksha to whom Phalabhuti prays in Ch. XX. The belief in tree-spirits is shewn by Tylor in his Primitive Culture to exist in many parts of the world. (See the Index in his second volume.) Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology (p. 70 and ff) gives an account of the tree-wors.h.i.+p which prevailed amongst the ancient Germans. See also an interesting article by Mr. Wallhouse in the Indian Antiquary for June 1880.

[146] The Sanskrit College reads anena for asanena. Dr. Kern wishes to read suhitasyapy asanena kim. This would still leave a superfluity of syllables in the line.

[147] This part of the story may be compared with the story of As tres Lebres in Coelho's Contos Portuguezes, p. 90, or that of the Blind Man and the Cripple in Ralston's Russian Folk Tales.

[148] In the notice of the first ten fasciculi of this translation which appeared in the Sat.u.r.day Review for May 1882, the following interesting remark is made on this story:

"And the story of the woman, who had eleven husbands, bears a curious but no doubt accidental likeness to an anecdote related by St. Jerome about a contest between a man and his wife as to which would outlive the other, she having previously conducted to the grave scores of husbands and he scores of wives."

[149] So in the Novellae Morlini, No. 4, a merchant, who is deeply involved, gives a large sum of money to the king for the privilege of riding by his side through the town. Henceforth his creditors cease their importunities. (Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 494.)