The Katha Sarit Sagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story Part 109

[286] Nishkantam is perhaps a misprint for nishkrantam the reading of the Sanskrit College MS.

[287] Cp. Sagas from the Far East, p. 303.

[288] Cp. the story told by the "faucon peregryn" in Chaucer's Squire's Tale.

[289] The following story is the Xth in Sagas from the Far East.

[290] The G.o.d of love, with Buddhists the Devil. Benfey considers that the Vetala Panchavinsati was originally Buddhistic.

[291] A pun difficult to render in English.

[292] The Sanskrit College MS. reads vibuddhesvatha, i. e., being awake.

[293] I conjecture prahari for the pahari of Brockhaus' edition. In dhara there is a pun as it also means the "edge of a sword."

[294] I read with the Sanskrit College MS. gupta-bhuvane kalatamasi.

[295] Cp. the way in which the Bans.h.i.+ laments in Grimm's Irische Marchen, pp. 121 and 122.

[296] I read kritapratishtha which I find in the Sanskrit College MS.

[297] Sattvavara means distinguished for courage.

[298] i. e., Moonlight.

[299] Vijnana appears to have this meaning here. In the Pentamerone of Basile (Liebrecht's translation, Vol. I, p. 266) a princess refuses to marry, unless a bridegroom can be found for her with a head and teeth of gold.

[300] The wife of Siva, called also Parvati and Durga.

[301] The word suklayam, which is found in the Sanskrit College MS., is omitted by Professor Brockhaus.

[302] So in the Hero and Leander of Musaeus the two lovers meet in the temple of Venus at Sestos, and in the aethiopica of Heliodorus Theagenes meets Chariclea at a festival at Delphi. Petrarch met Laura for the first time in the chapel of St. Clara at Avignon, and Boccacio fell in love with Maria, the daughter of Robert of Naples, in the Church of the bare-footed friars in Naples. (Dunlop's History of Fiction, translated by Liebrecht, p. 9.) Rohde remarks that in Greek romances the hero and heroine usually meet in this way. Indeed it was scarcely possible for two young people belonging to the upper cla.s.ses of Greek society to meet in any other way, (Der Griechische Roman, p. 146 and note). See also pp. 385 and 486.

[303] For taya in sl. 10. b, the Sanskrit College MS. reads tatha.

[304] Prasnayah in Professor Brockhaus's text should be prasvayah.

[305] An allusion to the Ardhanarisa, (i. e. half male half female,) representation of Siva.

[306] Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology, p. 185, note, seems to refer to a similar story. He says, "The fastening of heads, that have been chopped off, to their trunks in Waltharius 1157 seems to imply a belief in their reanimation;" see also Schmidt's Griechische Marchen, p. 111. So St. Beino fastened on the head of Winifred after it had been cut off by Caradoc; (Wirt Sikes, British Goblins, p. 348). A head is cut off and fastened on again in the Glucksvogel, Waldau's Bohmische Marchen, p. 108. In Coelho's Portuguese Stories, No. XXVI, O Colhereiro, the 3rd daughter fastens on, in the Bluebeard chamber, with blood, found in a vase marked with their names, the heads of her decapitated sisters.

[307] Cp. Giles's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, pp. 98, 99; Do Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. I, pp. 303 and 304.

[308] The word translated "ragged garment" is karpata. The word translated "dependent" is karpatika. Cp. the story in the 53rd Chapter.

[309] Hridayani should of course be hridyani, as in the Sanskrit College MS.

[310] Cp. the palace of Morgan la Fay in the Orlando Innamorato, canto 36, (Dunlop's History of Fiction, p. 168, Liebrecht's translation, p. 76); also the continuation of the romance of Huon de Bourdeaux, (Dunlop's History of Fiction, p. 262, Liebrecht's translation, p. 128); and the romance of Ogier le Danois, (Dunlop's History of Fiction, p. 286, Liebrecht's translation, p. 141); cp. also the 6th Fable in the IInd book of the Hitopadesa, (Johnson's translation, p. 57). Stories in which human beings marry dwellers in the water are common enough in Europe, see Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 116, and ff, Veckenstedt's Wendische Marchen, p. 192, and La Motto Fouque's story of Undine. The present story resembles in many points "Der rothe Hund" in Gaal's Marchen der Magyaren. There is a similar castle in the sea in Prym und Socin, Syrische Marchen, p. 125. Cp. Hagen's Helden-Sagen, Vol. I, p. 53, where king Wilkinus marries a Meerweib, and the following extract from a letter of Mr. David Fitzgerald's in the Academy.

"The Siren's tale--like many other episodes of the Iliad and the Odyssey--reappears in various forms, one of the most curious of which is perhaps to be found in Ireland. I borrow it from O'Curry; and I omit the depreciatory criticism with which it is now the fas.h.i.+on to season extracts from that scholar's useful works. Ruad, son of Rigdonn, a king's son, crossing over to North-land with three s.h.i.+ps and thirty men in each found his vessel held fast in mid-sea. [Compare the tale of Vidushaka in Vol. I.] At last he leaped over the side to see what was holding it, and sinking down through the waters, alighted in a meadow where were nine beautiful women. These gave him nine boatloads of gold as the price of his embraces, and by their power held the three vessels immoveable on the water above for nine days. Promising to visit them on his return, the young Irish prince got away from the Sirens and their beds of red bronze, and continued his course to Lochlann, where he stayed with his follow-pupil, son to the king of that country, for seven years. Coming back, the vessels put about to avoid the submerged isle, and had nearly gained the Irish sh.o.r.e, when they heard behind them the song of lamentation of the nine sea-women, who were in vain pursuit of them in a boat of bronze. One of these murdered before Ruad's eyes the child she had borne him, and flung it head foremost after him. O'Curry left a version of this tale from the Book of Ballymote. I have borrowed a detail or two given in the Tochmarc Emere (fol. 21b)--e. g., the important Homeric feature of the watery meadow (machaire). The story given by Gervase of Tilbury (ed. Liebrecht, pp. 30, 31), of the porpoise-men in the Mediterranean and the young sailor; the Shetland seal-legend in Grimm's edition of Croker's tales (Irische Elfen-Marchen, Leipzig, 1826, pp. xlvii et seqq.); and the story found in Vincentius Bellovacensis and elsewhere, of the mermaid giantess and her purple cloak, may be named as belonging or related to the same cycle. These legends are represented in living Irish traditions and the purple cloak just referred to appears, much disguised, in the story of Liban in the book of the Dun." Coraes in his notes on the aethiopica of Heliodorus, p. 225, has the following quotation from the life of Apollonius of Tyana written by Philostratus, IV, 25, referring to Menippus who married a female of the Rakshasi type and was saved from his fate by Apollonius.

"He chreste nymphe mia ton Empouson estin has Lamias te kai Mormolykias hoi polloi hegountai ......... sarkon de, kai malista anthropeion, erosi, kai palleuousi (is. sphallousi) tois aphrodisiois, hous an ethelosi daisasthai."

[311] Cp. the 26th Taranga of this work, and the parallels referred to there. See also the Losakajataka, the 41st in Fausboll's edition. Oesterley refers us to Benfey's Panchatantra, 151 and following pages. See Waldau, Bohmische Marchen, p. 410.

[312] More literally "through my merits in a former state of existence."

[313] Cp. Spenser's Fairy Queen, Book III, canto 6. stanza 42.

There is continual spring, and harvest there Continual, both meeting at one tyme.

Cp. also Odyssey VII 117, Milton, P. L., IV. 148.

[314] Niyogajanitas is a misprint for niyogijanatas, as is evident from the Sanskrit College MS.]

[315] Literally "grove of ancestors," i. e., cemetery.

[316] Here we have one of the puns in which our author delights.

[317] More literally, "for my own two garments." A Hindu wears two pieces of cloth.

[318] See note on Vol. I. p. 499, Liebrecht's translation of the Pentamerone of Basile, Vol. II, p. 215, Herrtage's edition of the English Gesta Romanorum, p. 55, the Greek fable of Teiresias, Waldau, Bohmische Marchen, p. 1. Cp. also Hagen's Helden-Sagen, Vol. II, p. 24. We are told that Melampus buried the parents of a brood of snakes, and they rewarded him by licking his ears so that he understood the language of birds. (Preller, Griechische Mythologie, Vol. II, p. 474.)

[319] This idea is common enough in this work, and I have already traced it in other lands. I wish now to refer to Rohde, der Griechische Roman, p. 126, note. It will be found specially ill.u.s.trative of a pa.s.sage in Vol. II, p. 144 of this work. Cp. also the Volsunga-Saga, in Hagen's Helden-Sagen, Vol. III, p. 33, and Murray's Ancient Mythology, p. 43. So Hanuman, in the Ramayana, brings medicinal herbs from the Himalaya.

[320] The word vajra also means thunderbolt.

[321] Or "to protect the realm of Anga;" a shameless pun! The G.o.d of Love was consumed by the fire of Siva's eye.

[322] i. e. wise.

[323] One of our author's puns.

[324] The word that means "mountain" also means "king."

[325] The Sanskrit College MS. reads yantra for Brockhaus's yatra. The wis.h.i.+ng-tree was moved by some magical or mechanical contrivance.

[326] The Sanskrit College MS. reads anayatta, which Dr. Kern has conjectured.

[327] This part of the story may remind the reader of the story of Melusina the European snake-maiden: see Simrock's Deutsche Volksbucher, Vol. VI. It bears a certain resemblance to that of the Knight of Stauffenberg (Simrock's Deutsche Volksbucher, Vol. III.) Cp. also Ein Zimmern und die Meerfrauen, in Birlinger, Aus Schwaben, p. 7. Cp. also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 206. There is a slight resemblance in this story to the myth of Cupid and Psyche.

[328] For bhujagah the Sanskrit College MS. rends bhujaga, which seems to give a better sense than the reading in Brockhaus's text.

[329] Oesterley (Baital Pachisi, 201) compares the 12th chapter of the Vikramacharitam in which Vikramaditya delivers a woman, who was afflicted every night by a Rakshasa in consequence of her husband's curse.

[330] I follow the reading of a MS. in the Sanskrit College yantradvaravapika.