The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
of the Hindus, as the two latter are writers of note on philological
topics. Vararuchi is also called in this work Kátyáyana, who is one of
the earliest commentators on Pánini. Nanda is the predecessor or one
of the predecessors of Chandragupta or Sandrakottos; and consequently
the chief institutes of Sanskrit grammar are thus dated from the
fourth century before the Christian era. We need not suppose that
Somadeva took the pains to be exact here; but it is satisfactory
to be made acquainted with the general impressions of a writer who
has not been biassed in any of his views by Pauránik legends and
preposterous chronology."
[37] I. e., of learning and material prosperity.
[38] Literally the gate of the Ganges: it is now well known under
the name of Haridvár (Hurdwar).
[39] Dr. Brockhaus renders the passage "wo Siva die Jahnaví im goldenen
Falle von den Gipfeln des Berges Usínara herabsandte."
[40] Skanda is Kártikeya and his mother is of course Durgá or Párvatí
the consort of Siva.
[41] This may be compared with Grimm's No. 60, "Die zwei Brüder." Each
of the brothers finds every day a gold piece under his pillow. In one
of Waldau's Böhmische Märchen, Vogelkopf und Vogelherz (p. 90) a boy
named Fortunat eats the heart of the Glücksvogel and under his pillow
every day are found three ducats. See also Der Vogel Goldschweif,
in Gaal's Märchen der Magyaren, p. 195.
[42] In this case the austerities which he had performed in a former
birth to propitiate Siva.
[43] This story is, according to Dr. Rajendra Lál Mitra, found in a
MS. called the Bodhisattva Avadána. (Account of the Buddhist Literature
of Nepal, p. 53).
[44] I. e., bali, a portion of the daily meal offered to creatures of
every description, especially the household spirits. Practically the
bali generally falls to some crow, hence that bird is called balibhuj.
[45] A similar incident is found in Grimm's Fairy Tales translated by
Mrs. Paull, p. 370. The hero of the tale called the Crystal Ball finds
two giants fighting for a little hat. On his expressing his wonder,
"Ah", they replied, "you call it old, you do not know its value. It
is what is called a wishing-hat, and whoever puts it on can wish
himself where he will, and immediately he is there." "Give me the hat,"
replied the young man, "I will go on a little way and when I call you
must both run a race to overtake me, and whoever reaches me first,
to him the hat shall belong." The giants agreed and the youth taking
the hat put it on and went away; but he was thinking so much of the
princess that he forgot the giants and the hat, and continued to go
further and further without calling them. Presently he sighed deeply
and said, "Ah, if I were only at the Castle of the golden sun."
Wilson (Collected Works, Vol. III, p. 169, note,) observes that
"the story is told almost in the same words in the Bahár Dánish,
a purse being substituted for the rod; Jahándár obtains possession
of it, as well as the cup, and slippers in a similar manner. Weber
[Eastern Romances, Introduction, p. 39] has noticed the analogy which
the slippers bear to the cap of Fortunatus. The inexhaustible purse,
although not mentioned here, is of Hindu origin also, and a fraudulent
representative of it makes a great figure in one of the stories of
the Dasa Kumára Charita" [ch. 2, see also L. Deslongchamps Essai sur
les Fables Indiennes, Paris, 1838, p. 35 f. and Grässe, Sagen des
Mittelalters, Leipzig, 1842, p. 19 f.] The additions between brackets
are due to Dr. Reinholdt Rost the editor of Wilson's Essays.
The Mongolian form of the story may be found in Sagas from the Far
East, p. 24. A similar incident is also found in the Swedish story
in Thorpe's Scandinavian Tales, entitled "the Beautiful Palace East
of the Sun and North of the Earth." A youth acquires boots by means
of which he can go a hundred miles at every step, and a cloak, that
renders him invisible, in a very similar way.
I find that in the notes in Grimm's 3rd Volume, page 168, (edition
of 1856) the passage in Somadeva is referred to, and other parallels
given. The author of these notes compares a Swedish story in Cavallius,
p. 182, and Pröhle, Kindermärchen, No. 22. He also quotes from the
Sidi Kür, the story to which I have referred in Sagas from the Far
East, and compares a Norwegian story in Ashbjörnsen, pp. 53, 171,
a Hungarian story in Mailath and Gaal, N. 7, and an Arabian tale in
the continuation of the 1001 Nights. See also Sicilianische Märchen
by Laura Gonzenbach, Part I, Story 31. Here we have a table-cloth,
a purse, and a pipe. When the table-cloth is spread out one has
only to say--Dear little table-cloth, give macaroni or roast-meat
or whatever may be required, and it is immediately present. The
purse will supply as much money as one asks it for, and the pipe is
something like that of the pied piper of Hamelin,--every one who
hears it must dance. Dr. Köhler in his notes, at the end of Laura
Gonzenbach's collection, compares (besides the story of Fortunatus,
and Grimm III. 202,) Zingerle, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, II. 73 and
193. Curze, Popular Traditions from Waldock, p. 34. Gesta Romanorum,
Chap. 120. Campbell's Highland Tales, No. 10, and many others. The
shoes in our present story may also be compared with the bed in the
IXth Novel of the Xth day of the Decameron.
See also Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 230 and Veckenstedt's
Wendische Sagen, p. 152.
See also the story of "Die Kaiserin Trebisonda" in a collection
of South Italian tales by Woldemar Kaden, entitled "Unter den
Olivenbäumen" and published in 1880. The hero of this story plays
the same trick as Putraka, and gains thereby an inexhaustible purse,
a pair of boots which enable the wearer to run like the wind, and a
mantle of invisibility. See also "Beutel, Mäntelchen und Wunderhorn"
in the same collection, and No. XXII in Miss Stokes's Indian Fairy
Tales. The story is found in the Avadánas translated by Stanislas
Julien: (Lévêque, Mythes et Légendes de L'Inde et de la Perse, p. 570,
Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 117.) M. Lévêque thinks that La Fontaine
was indebted to it for his Fable of L' Huître et les Plaideurs. See
also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. I, pp. 126-127, and 162.
We find a magic ring, brooch and cloth in No. XLIV of the English
Gesta. See also Syrische Sagen und Märchen, von Eugen Prym und
Albert Socin, p. 79, where there is a flying carpet. There is a magic
table-cloth in the Bohemian Story of Büsmanda, (Waldau, p. 44) and a
magic pot on p. 436 of the same collection; and a food-providing mesa
in the Portuguese story of A Cacheirinha (Coelho, Contos Portuguezes,
p. 58). In the Pentamerone No. 42 there is a magic chest. Kuhn has
some remarks on the "Tischchen deck dich" of German tales in his
Westfälische Märchen, Vol. I, p. 369.
For a similar artifice to Putraka's, see the story entitled
Fischer-Märchen in Gaal, Märchen der Magyaren, p. 168, Waldau,
Böhmische Märchen, pp. 260 and 564, and Dasent's Norse Tales, pp. 213
and 214.
[46] Compare the way in which Zauberer Vergilius carries off the
daughter of the Sultán of Babylon, and founds the town of Naples,
which he makes over to her and her children: (Simrock's Deutsche
Volksbücher, Vol. VI, pp. 354, 355.) Dunlop is of opinion that the
mediæval traditions about Vergil are largely derived from Oriental
sources.
[47] I. e., infantry, cavalry, elephants, and archers.
[48] Literally she was splendid with a full bosom, ... glorious with
coral lips. For uttama in the 1st half of sloka 6 I read upama.
[49] Considered to be indicative of exalted fortune.--Monier Williams.
[50] The bimba being an Indian fruit, this expression may he paralleled
by "currant lip" in the Two Noble Kinsmen I. I. 216 or "cherry lip"
Rich. III. I. I. 94.
[51] Goddess of eloquence and learning.
[52] See Dr. Burnett's "Aindra grammar" for the bearing of this
passage on the history of Sanskrit literature.
[53] And will not observe you.
[54] Instead of the walls of a seraglio.
[55] This story occurs in Scott's Additional Arabian Nights as the
Lady of Cairo and her four Gallants, [and in his Tales and Anecdotes,
Shrewsbury, 1800, p. 136, as the story of the Merchant's wife and
her suitors]. It is also one of the Persian tales of Arouya [day 146
ff.]. It is a story of ancient celebrity in Europe as Constant du Hamel
or la Dame qui attrapa un Prêtre, un Prévôt et un Forestier [Le Grand
d'Aussy, Fabliaux et Contes. Paris, 1829, Vol. IV, pp. 246-56]. It
is curious that the Fabliau alone agrees with the Hindu original in
putting the lovers out of the way and disrobing them by the plea of
the bath. (Note in Wilson's Essays on Sanskrit Literature, edited by
Dr. Rost, Vol. I, p. 173.) See also a story contributed by the late
Mr. Damant to the Indian Antiquary, Vol. IX, pp. 2 and 3, and the
XXVIIIth story in Indian Fairy Tales collected and translated by Miss
Stokes, with the note at the end of the volume. General Cunningham is
of opinion that the dénouement of this story is represented in one of
the Bharhut Sculptures; see his Stúpa of Bharhut, p. 53. A faint echo
of this story is found in Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, No. 55,
pp. 359-362. Cp. also No. 72(b) in the Novellæ Morlini. (Liebrecht's
Dunlop, p. 497.)
Cp. the 67th Story in Coelho's Contos Populares Portuguezes, and
the 29th in the Pentamerone of Basile. There is a somewhat similar
story in the English Gesta (Herrtage, No. XXV) in which three knights
are killed.
A very similar story is quoted in Mélusine, p. 178, from Thorburn's
Bannu or our Afghan Frontier.
[56] Dr. Brockhaus translates "alle drei mit unsern Schülern."
[57] This forms the leading event of the story of Fadlallah in the
Persian tales. The dervish there avows his having acquired the faculty
of animating a dead body from an aged Bráhman in the Indies. (Wilson.)
[58] Compare the story in the Panchatantra, Benfey's Translation,
p. 124, of the king who lost his body but eventually recovered
it. Benfey in Vol. I, page 128, refers to some European
parallels. Liebrecht in his Zur Volkskunde, p. 206, mentions a story
found in Apollonius (Historia Mirabilium) which forms a striking
parallel to this. According to Apollonius, the soul of Hermotimos
of Klazomenæ left his body frequently, resided in different places,
and uttered all kinds of predictions, returning to his body which
remained in his house. At last some spiteful persons burnt his
body in the absence of his soul. There is a slight resemblance to
this story in Sagas from the Far East, p. 222. By this it may be
connected with a cycle of European tales about princes with ferine
skin &c. Apparently a treatise has been written on this story by Herr
Varnhagen. It is mentioned in the Saturday Review of 22nd July, 1882
as, "Ein Indisches Märchen auf seiner Wanderung durch die Asiatischen
und Europäischen Litteraturen."
[59] Or Yogananda. So called as being Nanda by yoga or magic.
[60] I read ásvásya.
[61] Compare this with the story of Ugolino in Dante's Inferno.
[62] Dr. Liebrecht in Orient und Occident, Vol. I, p. 341 compares
with this story one in the old French romance of Merlin. There
Merlin laughs because the wife of the emperor Julius Cæsar had
twelve young men disguised as ladies-in-waiting. Benfey, in a note
on Dr. Liebrecht's article, compares with the story of Merlin one
by the Countess D'Aulnoy, No. 36 of the Pentamerone of Basile,
Straparola IV. I, and a story in the Suka Saptati. This he quotes
from the translation of Demetrios Galanos. In this some cooked fish
laugh so that the whole town hears them. The reason is the same as
in the story of Merlin and in our text.
[63] Cp. the following passage in a Danish story called Svend's