Indian Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs [universal ebook reader .txt] 📗

Some of the Jatakas bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the most familiar Fables of Aesop. So close is the resemblance, indeed, that it is impossible not to surmise an historical relation between the two. What this relation is I have discussed at considerable length in the “History of the Aesopic Fable,” which forms the introductory volume to my edition of Caxton’s Esope (London, D. Nutt, “Bibliothèque de Carabas,” 1889). In this place I can only roughly summarise my results. I conjecture that a collection of fables existed in India before Buddha and independently of the Jatakas, and connected with the name of Kasyapa, who was afterwards made by the Buddhists into the latest of the twenty-seven pre-incarnations of the Buddha. This collection of the Fables of Kasyapa was brought to Europe with a deputation from the Cingalese King Chandra Muka Siwa (obiit 52 AD) to the Emperor Claudius about 50 AD, and was done into Greek as the Λὁγοι Λυβικοἱ of “Kybises.” These were utilised by Babrius (from whom the Greek Aesop is derived) and Avian, and so came into the European Aesop. I have discussed all those that are to be found in the Jatakas in the “History” before mentioned, I pp. 54⁠–⁠72 (see Notes I XV XX). In these Notes henceforth I refer to this “History” as my Aesop.

There were probably other Buddhist collections of a similar nature to the Jatakas with a framework. When the Hindu reaction against Buddhism came, the Brahmins adapted these, with the omission of Buddha as the central figure. There is scarcely any doubt that the so-called Fables of Bidpai were thus derived from Buddhistic sources. In its Indian form this is now extant as a Panchatantra or Pentateuch, five books of tales connected by a Frame. This collection is of special interest to us in the present connection, as it has come to Europe in various forms and shapes. I have edited Sir Thomas North’s English version of an Italian adaptation of a Spanish translation of a Latin version of a Hebrew translation of an Arabic adaptation of the Pehlevi version of the Indian original (Fables of Bidpai, London, D. Nutt, “Bibliothèque de Carabas,” 1888). In this I give a genealogical table of the various versions, from which I calculate that the tales have been translated into thirty-eight languages in 112 different versions, twenty different ones in English alone. Their influence on European folktales has been very great: it is probable that nearly one-tenth of these can be traced to the Bidpai literature. (See Notes V IX X XIII XV.)

Other collections of a similar character, arranged in a frame, and derived ultimately from Buddhistic sources, also reached Europe and formed popular reading in the Middle Ages. Among these may be mentioned The Tales of Sindibad, known to Europe as The Seven Sages of Rome: from this we get the Gellert story (cf. Celtic Fairy Tales), though it also occurs in the Bidpai. Another popular collection was that associated with the life of St. Buddha, who has been canonised as St. Josaphat: Barlaam and Josaphat tells of his conversion and much else besides, including the tale of the Three Caskets, used by Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice.

Some of the Indian tales reached Europe at the time of the Crusades, either orally or in collections no longer extant. The earliest selection of these was the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsi, a Spanish Jew converted about 1106: his tales were to be used as seasoning for sermons, and strong seasoning they must have proved. Another Spanish collection of considerably later date was entitled El Conde Lucanor (Eng. trans. by W. York): this contains the fable of “The Man, his Son, and their Ass,” which they ride or carry as the popular voice decides. But the most famous collection of this kind was that known as Gesta Romanorum, much of which was certainly derived from Oriental and ultimately Indian sources, and so might more appropriately be termed Gesta Indorum.

All these collections, which reached Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, became very popular, and were used by monks and friars to enliven their sermons as Exempla. Prof. Crane has given a full account of this very curious phenomenon in his erudite edition of the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry (Folk Lore Society, 1890). The Indian stories were also used by the Italian Novellieri, much of Boccaccio and his school being derived from this source. As these again gave material for the Elizabethan Drama, chiefly in W. Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, a collection of translated Novelle which I have edited (Lond., 3 vols. 1890), it is not surprising that we can at times trace portions of Shakespeare back to India. It should also be mentioned that one-half of La Fontaine’s Fables (Bks. VII⁠–⁠XII) are derived from Indian sources. (See Note on No. V.)

In India itself the collection of stories in frames went on and still goes on. Besides those already mentioned there are the stories of Vikram and the Vampire (Vetala), translated among others by the late Sir Richard Burton, and the seventy stories of a parrot (Suka Saptati). The whole of this literature was summed up by Somadeva, c. 1200 AD in a huge compilation entitled Katha Sarit Sagara (“Ocean of the Stream of Stories”). Of this work, written in very florid style, Mr. Tawney has produced a translation in two volumes in the Bibliotheca Indica. Unfortunately, there is a Divorce Court atmosphere about the whole book, and my selections from it have been accordingly restricted. (Notes, No. XI.)

So much for a short sketch of Indian folktales so far as they have been reduced to writing in the native literature.2 The Jatakas are probably the oldest collection of such tales in literature, and