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The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story

active 11th century Somadeva Bhatta

onou pokai and ornithôn gala. It must be admitted that some critics doubt Lucian's authorship of the Demonax. Professor Aufrecht in his Beiträge zur Kenntniss Indischer Dichter quotes a Strophe of Amarasinha in which the following line occurs, Dugdhá seyam achetanena jaratí dugdhásayát súkarí. Professor Aufrecht proposes to read gardabhí for súkarí. [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; Anvár-i-Suhaili, 404; Cabinet des Fées, XVIII, 22; Baldo fab. XVI, (in Edéléstand du Méril 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 passage, 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; Grässe, Gesta Romanorum II, 176; Keller, Romans, CLXXVIII; Le Grand d' Aussy, 1779, II, 303; Grimm's Märchen, 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 Volksbücher, 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, Dyocletianus 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. Köhler in Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 303. He gives many parallels to Campbell's Gaelic Story of "the Shifty 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 Dhattúra. See also Cox's Mythology of the Aryan Nations, I, p. 111 and ff. and Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 34. A similar stratagem is described in Grössler'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 Syámá Charan Mukhopádhyáya, to whom I am indebted for many kind hints. [129] I read áhritendhanah. 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 Volksbücher, Vol. II, p. 131.) [131] The Sanskrit College MS. has mama for the mayá of Dr. Brockhaus. [132] Mr. Gough has kindly pointed out to me a passage in the Sarvadarsana Sangraha which explains this. The following is Mr. Gough's translation of the passage; "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 Dhúminí in the Dasakumára 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. Köppen, Religion des Buddha, p. 374. This story is also found in the Forty Vazírs, 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 Hausmärchen, No. 16. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, pp. 436 and ff.) This story is simply the Cullapadumajátaka, No. 193 in Fausböll'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 Satyamanjarí, a tale extracted by Professor Nilmani Mookerjee from the Kathá Kosa, a collection of Jaina stories, the heroine carries her leprous husband on her back. [136] This story is found, with the substitution 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; Anvár-i-Suhaili, p. 596 Cabinet des Fées, XVIII, 189. It is imitated by Baldo, 18th fable, (Poesics Inédites du Moyen Age by Edéléstand du Méril, p. 244.) Benfey pronounces it Buddhistic in origin, though apparently not acquainted with its form in the Kathá Sarit Ságara. Cp. Rasaváhini, chap. 3. (Spiegel's Anecdota Paliea). It is also found in the Karma Sataka. Cp. also Matthæus 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 Schwäbische Volksmärchen. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 192 and ff.) Cp. also for the gratitude 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 illustration of the gratitude of animals in Grimm's No. 62, and in Bartsch's Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche 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 Afanassief. 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 Märchen der Magyaren, p. 175, and Der Rothe Hund, p. 339. In the Saccamkirajatátaka No. 73, Fausböll, 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 Märchen, 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. Gijjhajátaka, Fausböll, Vol. II, p. 51. [139] Cp. the 46th story in Sicilianische Märchen 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 niggardly, miserly. General Cunningham (Ancient Geography of India, p. 152) says that the Takkas were once the undisputed lords of the Panjáb, and still subsist as a numerous agricultural race in the lower hills between the Jhelum and the Rávi. [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 Kambugríva 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, Märchen und Gebräuche 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 avikritânanâ. [144] In the Sicilianische Märchen, 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. Köhler's notes to No. 12. He compares the commencement of the Pentamerone of Basile. [145] Cp. the Yaksha to whom Phalabhúti 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-worship 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 suhitasyápy 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 Saturday 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 Novellæ 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.) [150] I follow the Sanskrit College MS. which reads vidyábhih saha samsmritá. [151] An allusion to the custom of choosing a husband in the Svayamvara ceremony, by throwing a garland on the neck of the favoured suitor. [152] Dr. Kern would read ásata. [153] Compare Book III of the novel of Achilles Tatius, c. 5. [154] Cp. Enmathius' novel of Hysminias and Hysmine, Book IX, ch. 4.