The Katha Sarit Sagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story Part 108

[237] For the consequences entailed in European Stories by eating fruit in the under-world, see Kuhn, Westfalische Marchen, Vol. 1, p. 127; Grimm, Irische Marchen, p. ciii.

[238] The Sanskrit College MS. has dantadrishtadharotkatan. Perhaps drishta should be dashta. It would then mean terrible because they were biting their lips.

[239] The Sanskrit College MS. reads vimanavijigishaya.

[240] Descendants of Vrishni and relatives of Krishna. In Achyuta there is a pun: the word may mean "Vishnu" and also "permanent": ramam may also refer to Balarama, who is represented us a drunkard.

[241] Patala, like Milton's lower world, "wants not her hidden l.u.s.tre, gems and gold."

[242] k.u.mudini means an a.s.semblage of white water-lilies: female attendants may also mean bees, as the Sandhi will admit of ali or ali: rajendram should probably be rajendum, moon of kings, as the k.u.mudini loves the moon.

[243] Cp. the story of Saktideva in Chapter 26.

[244] By the laws of Hindu rhetoric a smile is regarded as white.

[245] We have an instance of this a little further on.

[246] I read durabhrashta. The reading of the Sanskrit College MS. is duram bhrashta.

[247] See Vol. I. pp. 327 and 577, also Prym und Socin, Syrische Marchen, p. 36, and Southey's Thalaba the Destroyer, Book I, 30, with the notes.

[248] The moon suffers from consumption in consequence of the curse of Daksha, who was angry at his exclusive preference for Rohini.

[249] Here there is a pun: upachitam means also "concentrated."

[250] Cp. a story in the Nugae Curialium of Gualterus Mapes, in which a corpse, tenanted by a demon, is prevented from doing further mischief by a sword-stroke, which cleaves its head to the chin. (Liebrecht's Zur Volkskunde, p. 34 and ff.) Liebrecht traces the belief in vampires through many countries and quotes a pa.s.sage from Francois Lenormant's work, La Magie chez les Chaldeens, which shews that the belief in vampires existed in Chaldaea and Babylonia.--See Vol. I, p. 574.

[251] Cp. the Vampire stories in Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, especially that of the soldier and the Vampire, p. 314. It seems to me that these stories of Vetalas disprove the a.s.sertion of Herz quoted by Ralston, (p. 318) that among races which burn their dead, little is known of regular corpse-spectres, and of Ralston, that vampirism has made those lands peculiarly its own which have been tenanted or greatly influenced by Slavonians. Vetalas seem to be as troublesome in China as in Russia, see Giles's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Vol. II, p. 195. In Bernhard Schmidt's Griechische Marchen, p. 139, there is an interesting story of a Vampire, who begins by swallowing fowls, goats and sheep, and threatens to swallow men, but his career is promptly arrested by a man born on a Sat.u.r.day. A great number of Vampire stories will be found in the notes to Southey's Thalaba the Destroyer, Book VIII, 10. See also his poem of Roprecht the Robber, Part III. For the lamps fed with human oil see Addendum to Fasciculus IV, and Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. I, p. 312, Waldau's Bohmische Marchen, p. 360, and Kuhn's Westfalische Marchen, p. 146.

[252] A series of elaborate puns.

[253] The significance of those names will appear further on.

[254] The word may mean "man of romantic anecdote."

[255] Cp. Vol. I, pp. 355 and 577.

[256] The Sanskrit College MS. reads na for tu.

[257] I read janasi with the Sanskrit College MS. instead of janami which Dr. Brockhaus gives in his text.

[258] For European methods of attaining invisibility see Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. I, p. 315; Bartsch, Sagen, Marchen, und Gebrauche aus Meklenburg, Vol. II, pp. 29 and 31; Kuhn, Westfalische Marchen, Vol. I, p. 276, Vol. II, p. 177. The virtues of the Tarnkappe are well-known. In Europe great results are expected from reciting certain sacred formulae backwards. A somewhat similar belief appears to exist among the Buddhists. Milton's "backward muttering of dissevering charms" is perhaps hardly a case in point.

[259] An elaborate pun! varna = caste and also colour: kala = digit of the moon and accomplishment, or fine art: doshakara = mine of crimes and also the moon. Dowson, in his Cla.s.sical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, tells us that Lata is a country comprising Kandesh and part of Guzerat about the Mhye river. It is now called Lar and is the Larike of Ptolemy.

[260] I read prapnomyaham the reading of the Sanskrit College MS.

[261] i. e. Dice-mendicant.

[262] I conjecture oghaprasantyaiva.

[263] Cp. No. LXVI in the English Gesta, page 298 of Herrtage's edition, and the end of No. XII of Miss Stokes's Fairy Tales. See also Prym und Socin, Syrische Marchen, pp. 83 and 84.

[264] Cp. Odyssey, Book IV, 441-442.

[265] I read damabhih for dhamabhih.

[266] Benfey (Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 214, note,) traces this superst.i.tion through all countries.

[267] This pa.s.sage is a concatenation of puns.

[268] The whole pa.s.sage is an elaborate pun. The lady is compared to a bow, the string of which vibrates in the notches, and the middle of which is held in the hand.

[269] I read, with the MS. in the Sanskrit College, drutam anuddhritya for drutam anugatya.

[270] As a life-buoy to prevent him from drowning.

[271] There must be a reference to the five flowery arrows of the G.o.d of Love.

[272] When applied to the moon, it means "glorious in its rising."

[273] Bohtlingk and Roth give upasankhya as uberzahlig (?).

[274] I adopt pramatta the reading of the Sanskrit College MS.

[275] The G.o.ds and Asuras used it as a churning-stick at the churning of the ocean for the recovery of the Amrita, and other precious things lost during the deluge.

[276] The Mongolian form of these stories is to be found in Sagas from the Far East. This work appears to be based upon a translation made by Julg from the Calmuck language. Oesterley, in his German version of these tales, tells us that Julg's translation appeared in Leipzig in the year 1866 under the t.i.tle of "The tales of the Siddhikur." Oesterley mentions a Sanskrit redaction of the tales, attributed to Sivadasa, and one contained in the Katharnava. He also mentions a Tamul version translated into English by Babington under the t.i.tle of Vetala Cadai; two Telugu versions, a Mahratta version, the well-known Hindi version, a Bengali version based upon the Hindi, and a Canarese version.

[277] Here there is probably a pun. The word translated "jackal"

also means the G.o.d Siva. Bhairava is a form of Siva.

[278] See note on page 293.

[279] This story is the 27th in Miss Stokes's collection.

[280] I read satalani, which I find in the Sanskrit College MS., instead of sajalani. The mistake may have arisen from the blending of two readings satalani and jatalani.

[281] In this there is a pun; the word translated "lotus" may also refer to Lakshmi the wife of Vishnu.

[282] Pandit Syama Charan Mukhopadhyaya thinks that the word dantaghataka must mean "dentist:" the Petersburg lexicographers take it to mean, "a worker in ivory." His name Sangramavardhana has a warlike sound. Pandit Mahesa Chandra Nyayaratna thinks that dantaghata is a proper name. If so, sangramavardhana must mean prime minister.

[283] Cp. the way in which Pushpadanta's preceptor guesses the riddle in page 44 of Vol. I of this work; so Prince Ivan is a.s.sisted by his tutor Katoma in the story of "The Blind Man and the Cripple,"

Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 240. Compare also the story of Azeez and Azeezeh in Lane's Arabian Nights, Vol. I, particularly page 484. The rapid manner, in which the hero and heroine fall in love in these stories, is quite in the style of Greek romances. See Rohde, Der Griechische Roman, p. 148.

[284] The Chakora is fabled to subsist upon moonbeams.

[285] See the numerous parallels in Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 232; and Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, p. 185, note, where he refers to the story of the Machandel boom (Kinder und Hausmarchen, No. 47), the myth of Zeus and Tantalus, and other stories. In the 47th tale of the Pentamerone of Basile, one of the five sons raises the princess to life and then demands her in marriage. In fact Basile's tale seems to be compounded of this and the 5th of the Vetala's stories. In Prym and Socin's Syrische Marchen, No. XVIII, the bones of a man who had been killed ten years ago, are collected, and the water of life is poured over them with the same result as in our text. There is a "Pergamentblatt" with a life-restoring charm written on it, in Waldau's Bohmische Marchen, p. 353.