The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
uncanny president, Birlinger, Aus Schwaben, pp. 323 and 372. In
Bartsch's Sagen &c. aus Meklenburg, pp. 11--44, will be found the
recorded confessions of many witches, who deposed to having danced
with the Teutonic Bhairava on the Blocksberg. The Mothers of the
second part of Faust probably come from Greece.
[776] Mukta for yukta, which is clearly a misprint.
[777] This story is identical with the story of "The merchant who
struck his mother," as given by the Rev. S. Beal in the Antiquary
for September 1880. It is also found in the Avadána Sataka: see
Dr. R. L. Mitra's Buddhist Literature of Nepal, p. 28, where the above
MS. is described. See also Dr. R. Morris's remarks in the Academy of
the 27th of August, 1881.
[778] A similar transferable wheel is found in the Panchatantra,
Vth Book, 3rd Story. Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. II, p. 331.
[779] Cp. Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 358. "Great stress is laid
in the skazkas and legends upon the terrible power of a parent's
curse. The hasty word of a father or mother will condemn even an
innocent child to slavery among devils and when it is once uttered,
it is irrevocable." Throughout the present work curses appear to
be irrevocable but susceptible of modification and limitation. See
Waldau's Böhmische Märchen, p. 537, and the remarks of Preller in
his Griechische Mythologie, Vol. II, p. 345.
[780] Perhaps we should read mrishyatám, forgive me, be patient.
[781] This character is probably taken from the Mahábhárata (see
Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, p. 90).
[782] I have followed the Sanskrit College MS. which gives ádarsa.
[783] I. e. Benevolent, and also satisfied at heart.
[784] Sadguna means good quality, also "good thread."
[785] The epithet refers also to the arrows and means "bright with
excellent heads."
[786] So in Heliodorus, Æthiopica, Lib. III, cap. XIII.
alla tois t' aphthalmois an gnôstheien atenes diolou blepontes kai to
blepharon ou pot' epimyontes.--In the third canto of the Purgatorio
Dante is much troubled at finding that Virgil, being a disembodied
spirit, casts no shadow.
[787] Kali is the side of the die marked with one point. Dvápara
is the side marked with two. They are personified here as demons of
gambling. They are also the present, i. e., the fourth and the third
Yugas or ages of the world.
[788] Cp. Milton's Comus, v. 421 and ff. The word "might" also means
"fire". This "fire" burnt up the hunter.
The pun in the previous sentence cannot be rendered in English.
[789] Here there is a pun. Ambara also means the sky.
[790] Preller in his Griechische Mythologie, Vol. II, p. 475, refers
to a Servian story, in which a shepherd saves the life of a snake in
a forest fire. In return for this service, the snake's father gives
him endless treasures, and teaches him the language of birds.
[791] For the jewels in the heads of reptiles see the long note in
Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 214. The passage in "As you like it"
will occur to every one. Snakes' crowns are mentioned in Grössler,
Sagen der Grafschaft Mansfeld, p. 178, in Veckenstedt's Wendische
Märchen, pp. 403-405, and in Grohmann, Sagen aus Böhmen, pp. 219
and 223.
[792] Dasa means "ten," and also "bite."
[793] In Prester John's letter quoted by Baring Gould, Curious Myths
of the Middle Ages, New Edition, p. 43, we find, "In one of our lands,
hight Zone, are worms called in our tongue Salamanders. These worms
can only live in fire, and they build cocoons like silkworms, which
are unwound by the ladies of our palace, and spun into cloth and
dresses, which are worn by our Exaltedness. These dresses, in order
to be cleansed and washed, are cast into flames."
[794] Or robe. The pun is obvious.
[795] Cp. the 28th story in the 1st Part of Sicilianische Märchen by
Laura Gonzenbach, "Von der Tochter der Sonne." Here Lattughina says
"Fire, be lighted," and immediately a clear fire burned upon the
hearth. Then she said "Come along, pan," and a golden pan came and
placed itself upon the fire. "Come along oil," and the oil came and
poured itself into the pan. In "The story of Shams ul dín and his son,"
Hasan Badr ul dín is discovered by his skill in cooking (Lane's Arabian
Nights, Vol. I, p. 266.) De Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, Vol. I,
p. 158,) remarks that service in the kitchen is especially dear to
the young hero. Bhíma disguises himself as a cook in the Viráta parvan
of the Mahábhárata. Pausanias tells us, Book I, ch. 16, Seleukô gar,
hos hôrmato ek Makedonias syn Alexandrô, Thyonti en Pellê tô Dii,
ta xyla epi tou bômou keimena proubê te automata pros to agalma,
kai aneu pyros hêphthê.
[796] The Petersburg lexicographers think that samvritti should
be sadvritti.
NOTES TO VOLUME II
[1] I read mada for madya.
[2] Nrisinha, Vishnu assumed this form for the destruction of
Hiranyukasipu.
[3] See the note on page 14 of this work. Parallels will be found also
in the notes to No. 52 of the Sicilian Tales, collected by Laura von
Gonzenbach. I have referred, in the Addenda to the 1st Fasciculus,
to Ralston's Russian Folk-tales, p. 230, and Veckenstedt's Wendische
Sagen, p. 152. The Mongolian form of the story is found in Sagas from
the Far East, p. 148. See also Corrigenda and Addenda to Vol. I,
and Dasent's Norse Tales, pp. 12, 264, and 293-295, and xcv of the
Introduction. The first parallel is very close, as the hero of the
tale lets out his secret, when warmed with wine. For the most ancient
example of this kind of tale, see Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories,
Introduction, pp. xvi-xxi. Cp. Prym und Socin Syrische Märchen,
p. 343; Grimm, Irische Märchen, No. 9, "Die Flasche," p. 42. In
the Bhadraghatajátaka, No. 291 Sakko gives a pitcher, which is lost
in the same way. Grimm in his Irische Elfenmärchen, Introduction,
p. xxxvii, remarks that "if a man discloses any supernatural power
which he possesses, it is at once lost."
[4] In Bartsch's Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg, Vol. I,
p. 41, a man possesses himself of an inexhaustible beer-can. But as
soon as he told how he got it, the beer disappeared. Another (page 84)
spoils the charm by looking into the vessel, at the bottom of which
he sees a loathsome toad. This he had been expressly forbidden to do.
[5] Wealth in her case, salvation in that of the hermit.
[6] Cp. Winter's Tale, Act VI, Scene 4, line 140.
[7] i. e., beautiful.
[8] I find in the Sanskrit College MS. kimmuchyate for vimuchyate.
[9] In La Fontaine's Contes et Nouvelles III, 13, there is a little
dog qui secoue de l'argent et des pierreries. The idea probably
comes from the Mahábhárata. In this poem Srinjaya has a son named
Suvarnashtívin. Some robbers treat him as the goose that laid the
golden eggs was treated. There are also birds that spit gold in
the Mahábhárata. (See Lévêque, Les Mythes et Légendes de l'Inde,
pp. 289-294.) There is an ass with the same gift in Sicilianische
Märchen, No. 52. For the wishing-stone see Dasent's Norse Tales,
Introduction, p. xcv. He remarks that the stone in his tale No. LIX,
which tells the prince all the secrets of his brides, "is plainly
the old Okastein or wishing-stone."
[10] The reading should be Makarakatyevam.
[11] There is a certain resemblance between this story and the
Xth Novel of the VIIIth day in Boccacio's Decameron. Dunlop traces
Boccacio's story to the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus
(c. 16). It is also found in the Arabian Nights (story of Ali Khoja,
the merchant of Baghdad) in the Gesta Romanorum (c. 118), and in the
Cento Novelle Antiche (No. 74), see also Fletcher's Rule a Wife and
have a Wife. (Dunlop's History of Fiction, p. 56, Liebrecht's German
translation, p. 247).
[12] An elaborate pun.
[13] Ralston remarks (Songs of the Russian people, p. 327.) "The fact
that in Slavonic lands, a thousand years ago, widows used to destroy
themselves, in order to accompany their dead husbands to the world
of spirits, seems to rest upon incontestable evidence, and there
can be no doubt that 'a rite of suttee, like that of modern India'
prevailed among the heathen Slavonians, the descendant, perhaps as
Mr. Tylor remarks (Primitive Culture, I, 421) of 'widow-sacrifice'
among many of the European nations, of 'an ancient Aryan rite belonging
originally to a period even earlier then the Veda'". See also Zimmer,
Alt-Indisches Leben, pp. 329-331.
[14] i. e., of bad character.
[15] The Sanskrit College MS. inserts nícho after kritam.
[16] Cp. the falcon in Chaucer's Squire's Tale and the parallels
quoted by Skeat in his Introduction to Chaucer's Prioresses Tale &c.,
p. xlvii.
[17] An elaborate pun on dvija and sákhá.
[18] For the conception of the sun as an eye see Kuhn, Die Herabkunft
des Feuers und des Göttertranks, pp. 52, 53. The idea is common in
English poetry. See for instance Milton, P. L. V. 171, Spenser's
Faery Queene, I, 3, 4. For instances in classical poetry, see Ovid,
Met. IV, 228, Ar. Nub. 286, Soph. Tr. 101.
[19] I read tvadvákyam with the Sanskrit College MS. and ahitásanki
tachcha in sl. 141 with the same MS.
[20] Cp. Aristophanes, Aves, pp. 169, 170.
anthrôpos ornis astathmêtos, petomenos
atekmartos, ouden oudepot' en tautô menôn
[21] This is also found in the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa. See
Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, (Einleitung), p. 100. In fact the
present chapter corresponds to the 2nd book of the Hitopadesa, "The
separation of friends," Johnson's Translation, p. 40, and to the 1st
book of the Panchatantra. In sl. 15, I read, with Dr. Kern, sashpán.
[22] Weber supposes that the Indians borrowed all the fables
representing the jackal as a wise animal, as he is not particularly
cunning. He thinks that they took the Western stories about the fox,
and substituted for that animal the jackal. Benfey argues that this
does not prove that these fables are not of Indian origin. German
stories represent the lion as king of beasts, though it is not a
German animal. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, pp. 102, 103). See
also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, p. 122.
[23] This story is found in the Hitopadesa, the Panchatantra,
the Kalilah and Dimnah, Anvár-i-Suhaili, Livre des Lumières,
p. 61, Cabinet des Fées, XVII. 152, and other collections (Benfey's
Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 105.) For the version of the Panchatantra,
see Benfey, Vol. II, p. 9, for that of the Hitopadesa, Johnson's
Translation, p. 44. For that of the Kalíla and Dimna Benfey refers us
to Knatchbull's translation, p. 88, for that of the Anvár-i-Suhaili
to Eastwick's translation, p. 86. Benfey considers a fable of Æsop,
in which an ape tries to fish and is nearly drowned, an imitation of
this. It reminds one of the trick which the fox played the bear in
Reineke Fuchs, (Simrock's Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. I, p. 148.)
[24] Cp. Panchatantra, Vol. II, p. 21. In the 1st volume Benfey tells
us that in the old Greek version of the fables of Bidpai, the fox,
who represents the jackal, loses through fear his appetite for other
food, and for a hen in the Anvár-i-Suhaili, 99. The fable is also
found in Livre des Lumières, p. 72, Cabinet des Fées, p. XVII, 183,
and other collections. The Arabic version and those derived from
it leave out the point of the drum being found on a battle-field
(Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 132).
Cp. also Campbell's West Highland Tales, p. 268, "A fox being hungry
one day found a bagpipe, and proceeded to eat the bag, which is
generally made of hide. There was still a remnant of breath in the
bag, and when the fox bit it, the drone gave a groan, when the fox,
surprised but not frightened, said--'Here is meat and music.'"
[25] I follow the reading of the Sanskrit College MS. múdhabuddih