The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
to marry, unless a bridegroom can be found for her with a head and
teeth of gold.
[300] The wife of Siva, called also Párvatí and Durgá.
[301] The word sukláyám, which is found in the Sanskrit College MS.,
is omitted by Professor Brockhaus.
[302] So in the Hero and Leander of Musæus the two lovers meet in the
temple of Venus at Sestos, and in the Æthiopica 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 classes of Greek
society to meet in any other way, (Der Griechische Roman, p. 146 and
note). See also pp. 385 and 486.
[303] For tayá in sl. 10. b, the Sanskrit College MS. reads tathá.
[304] Prasnayah in Professor Brockhaus's text should be prasvayah.
[305] An allusion to the Ardhanárísa, (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 Märchen,
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 Glücksvogel, Waldau's
Böhmische Märchen, 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 kárpatika. Cp. the story in the 53rd Chapter.
[309] Hridayáni should of course be hridyáni, 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 Märchen, p. 192, and La Motto Fouqué's
story of Undine. The present story resembles in many points "Der
rothe Hund" in Gaal's Märchen der Magyaren. There is a similar castle
in the sea in Prym und Socin, Syrische Märchen, 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 fashion to
season extracts from that scholar's useful works. Ruad, son of Rigdonn,
a king's son, crossing over to North-land with three ships and thirty
men in each found his vessel held fast in mid-sea. [Compare the tale
of Vidúshaka 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 shore, 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-Märchen, 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 Æthiopica 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 Rákshasí
type and was saved from his fate by Apollonius.
"Hê chrêstê nymphê mia tôn Empousôn estin has Lamias te kai Mormolykias
hoi polloi hêgountai ......... sarkôn de, kai malista anthrôpeiôn,
erôsi, kai palleuousi (is. sphallousi) tois aphrodisiois, hous an
ethelôsi daisasthai."
[311] Cp. the 26th Taranga of this work, and the parallels referred
to there. See also the Losakajátaka, the 41st in Fausböll's
edition. Oesterley refers us to Benfey's Panchatantra, 151 and
following pages. See Waldau, Böhmische Märchen, 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, Böhmische Märchen, 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 illustrative of a
passage 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 Hanumán, in the Rámáyana, brings medicinal herbs from
the Himálaya.
[320] The word vajra also means thunderbolt.
[321] Or "to protect the realm of Anga;" a shameless pun! The god 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
wishing-tree was moved by some magical or mechanical contrivance.
[326] The Sanskrit College MS. reads anáyattá, 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 Volksbücher,
Vol. VI. It bears a certain resemblance to that of the Knight of
Stauffenberg (Simrock's Deutsche Volksbücher, 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 (Baitál Pachísí, 201) compares the 12th chapter of
the Vikramacharitam in which Vikramáditya delivers a woman, who was
afflicted every night by a Rákshasa in consequence of her husband's
curse.
[330] I follow the reading of a MS. in the Sanskrit College
yantradváravápiká.
[331] In the original sinsapá, which Professor Monier Williams renders
thus; "the tree Dalbergia Sisu; the Asoka tree." Dr. King informs me
that these two trees are altogether different. The translation which I
have given of the word sinsapá, throughout these tales of the Vetála,
is, therefore, incorrect. The tree to which the Vetála so persistently
returns, is a Dalbergia Sisu.
[332] Dveshá must be a misprint for dveshát.
[333] For arudanniva the Sanskrit College MS. reads abhavanniva.
[334] Böhtlingk and Roth s. v. say that chíra in Taranga 73, sloka 240,
is perhaps a mistake for chírí, grasshopper; the same may perhaps be
the case in this passage.
[335] For virúpa the Sanskrit College MS. gives virúksha.
[336] Oesterley refers to Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 362,
for stories in which snakes spit venom into food. Benfey gives
at length a fable found in the Latin translation of John of Capua
and compares a story in the Sindibád-námah, Asiatic Journal, 1841,
XXXVI, 17; Syntipas, p. 149; Scott's Tales of the Seven Vizirs, 196;
The 1001 Nights (Breslau) XV, 241; Seven Wise Masters in Grässe,
Gesta Romanorum II, 195; Bahár Dánush 1, second and third stories;
Keller, Romans des Sept Sages, CL; Dyocletian, Einleitung, 49;
Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, Essai, 119, 1.
[337] I.e., Dharmarája, possibly the officer established by Asoka
in his fifth edict; (see Senart, Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi,
p. 125.) The term Dharmarája is applied to Yudhishthira and Yama. It
means literally king of righteousness or religion. There is a Dharm
Raja in Bhútán. Böhtlingk and Roth seem to take it to mean Yama in
this passage.
[338] I prefer the reading of the Sanskrit College MS. túryakulaih.
[339] See note on page 13. Rohde, (Der Griechische Roman, p. 111,)
points out that there are traces of this practice in the mythology
of Ancient Greece. Evadne is said to have burnt herself with the
body of her husband Capaneus. So OEnone, according to one account,
leapt into the pyre on which the body of Paris was burning. See also
Zimmer, Alt-Indisches Leben, pp. 329-331. So Brynhild burns herself
with the body of Sigurd, (Hagen's Helden-Sagen, Vol. III, p. 166).
[340] Cp. Mahábhárata, Vanaparvan, Adhyáya 297, sl. 39.
[341] His name Manahsvámin would imply that he ought to be.
[342] For gaja the Sanskrit College MS. reads mada.
[343] The word siddha also means a class of demigods who travel
through the sky: Sasin means moon.
[344] Cp. the shaving, by the help of which Preziosa, in the
Pentamerone, turns herself into a bear. (Liebrecht's translation of
the Pentamerone of Basile, Vol. I, p. 212.) As soon as she takes it