The Katha Sarit Sagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story Part 100

[683] The Sanskrit College MS. reads nyayam for praptam "hear my suit against Gunasarman." This makes a far better sense.

[684] Daridryo is probably a misprint for daridro.

[685] Cp. Thiselton Dyer's English Folk-lore, p. 280. He remarks: "A belief was formerly current throughout the country in the significance of moles on the human body. When one of these appeared on the upper side of the right temple above the eye, to a woman it signified good and happy fortune by marriage. This superst.i.tion was especially believed in in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, as we learn from the following lines, which, says Mr. Briscoe, (author of 'Nottinghams.h.i.+re Facts and Fictions') were often repeated by a poor girl at Bunny:--

'I have a mole above my right eye, And shall be a lady before I die.

As things may happen, as things may fall Who knows but that I may be Lady of Bunny Hall?'

The poor girl's hopes, it is stated, were ultimately realized, and she became 'Lady of Bunny Hall.' See Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III, pp. 252-255.

[686] I read dehatyagam and vanchasi.

[687] I. e. "beautiful." There is a pun here.

[688] Patala = Hades, i. e., the world below, vasati = dwelling.

[689] Here Brockhaus supposes a hiatus.

[690] Savara should probably be saraka.

[691] Here Brockhaus supposes a hiatus.

[692] The G.o.d of Death.

[693] i. e. Destruction (a G.o.ddess of death and corruption).

[694] i. e. the G.o.d of the wind.

[695] The G.o.d of wealth.

[696] Cp. Homer's Iliad, Book XV, 113-141.

[697] For anyonyais I read anye' anyais.

[698] Or perhaps--with arrows having ten million points.

[699] Cp. Thiselton Dyer's English Folk-lore, p. 203.

[700] Probably some kind of sparkling gem.

[701] Said to mean, planets or demons unfavourable to children.

[702] Cp. Odyssey VII, 117. The same is a.s.serted by Palladius of the trees in the island of Taprobane, where the Makrobioi live. The fragment of Palladius, to which I refer, begins at the 7th Chapter of the IIIrd book of the History of the Pseudo-Callisthenes edited by Carolus Mueller.

[703] i. e., connected in some way with Buddha. See Bohtlingk and Roth s. v.

[704] i. e., the Himalaya.

[705] This seems to agree with the story as told in the Bhagavata Purana. For various forms of the Rama legend, see the translation of the Uttara Rama Charita by M. Felix Neve.

[706] The story of Genovefa in Simrock's Deutsche Volksbucher, Vol. I, p. 371, bears a striking resemblance to that of Sita. The way in which Schmerzensreich and his father retire to the forest at the end of the story is quite Indian. In the Greek novel of Hysminias and Hysmine the innocence of the heroine is tested by the fountain of Diana (Scriptores Erotici, p. 595). For parallels to the story of Genoveva or Genovefa see Prym und Socin, Syrische Marchen, LII, and the Introduction, p. xxii.

[707] One of the five trees of Paradise. For the golden lotuses, see Chapter XXV. In Ch. LII we find trees with trunks of gold and leaves and fruit of jewels. A similar tree is found in the mediaeval romance of king Alexander. Dunlop compares the golden vine carried away by Pompey. Liebrecht remarks that there was also a golden vine over the gate of the temple at Jerusalem, and compares the golden lotus made by the Chinese emperor Tunghwan. He refers also to Huon of Bordeaux, Ysaie le Triste, and Grimm's Kindermarchen 130 and 133. (Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 184). See also Milton's Paradise Lost, IV. 220 and 256. Cp. Thalaba the Destroyer, Book I, 30. The pa.s.sage in the Pseudo-Callisthenes will be found in III, 28, Karl Mueller's Edition.

[708] See page 445.

[709] Cp. the story of Seyf ul Mulk in the Persian Tales, and the Bahar-Da.n.u.sh, c. 35 (Dunlop, Vol. II, p. 208, Liebrecht's translation, p. 335) see also Dunlop's remarks upon the Polexandre of Gomberville. In this romance Abdelmelec, son of the emperor of Morocco, falls in love with Alcidiana by seeing her portrait (Vol. II, p. 276, Liebrecht's translation, p 372.) A similar incident is found in the romanco of Agesilaus of Colchos, (Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 157.) See Prym und Socin, Syrische Marchen, p. 3; Rohde, Der Griechische Roman, p. 49; Coelho, Contos Populares Portuguezes, p. 109.

[710] For the vidruteshu of Brockhaus's edition I read nihateshu, which I find in the Sanskrit College MS.

[711] An elaborate pun. Rasika also means "full of (poetical) flavour."

[712] Dim traditions of this mountain seem to have penetrated to Greece and Rome. Aristophanes (Acharnians v. 82) speaks of the king of Persia as engaged for 8 months epi chryson oron. Clark tells us that Bergler quotes Plautus, Stichus 24, Neque ille mereat Persarum sibi montes qui esse perhibentur aurei. (Philological Journal, VIII. p. 192.) See also Ter. Phormio I, 2, 18, Pers. III, 65. Naravahanadatta's journey through the air may remind the reader of the air-voyage of Alexander in the Pseudo-Callisthenes, II, 41. He sees a serpent below him, and a halos in the middle of it. A divine being, whom he meets, tells him, that these objects are the earth and the sea.

[713] I. e. Siva.

[714] See note on page 488.

[715] i. e. city of heroes. See Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, p. 99.

[716] Cp. the properties of the magic ring given to Canace in the Squire's tale, and Grimm's story of "Die drei Sprachen," (No. 33, Kindermarchen). See also Tylor's Primitive Culture, Vol. I, pp. 18, 423. In the Edda, Sigurd learns to understand the language of birds by tasting the blood of Fafner. For other parallels see Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 184, and note 248.

[717] Cp. the 77th chapter of this work, the second in the Vetala Panchavinsati, and Ralston's exhaustive note, in his Russian Folk-tales, pp. 231, 232, 233. Cp. also Bernhard Schmidt's Griechische Marchen, p. 114, and Bartsch's Sagen, Marchen, und Gebrauche aus Meklenburg, Vol. I, p. 486. The Pseudo-Callisthenes (Book II, c. 40) mentions a fountain that restored to life a salt fish, and made one of Alexander's daughters immortal. This is perhaps the pa.s.sage that was in Dunlop's mind, when he said (page 129 of Liebrecht's translation) that such a fountain is described in the Greek romance of Ismenias and Ismene, for which Liebrecht takes him to task. See the parallels quoted by Dunlop and Liebrecht. Wheeler, in his Noted Names of Fiction, tells us that there was a tradition current among the natives of Puerto Rico, that such a fountain existed in the fabulous island of Bimini, said to belong to the Bahama group. This was an object of eager and long-continued quest to the celebrated Spanish navigator, Juan Ponce de Leon. By Ismenias and Ismene Dunlop probably means Hysminias and Hysmine. See also Birlinger, Aus Schwaben, p. 185. Kuhn in his "Herabkunft des Feuers" traces this story back to the Satapatha Brahmana.

[718] Here there is an elaborate pun. "King" may also mean "mountain,"

"race" may mean "wings," and the whole pa.s.sage refers to Indra's clipping the wings of the mountains.

[719] Compare the remarkable pa.s.sage which M. Leveque quotes from the works of Empedocles (Les Mythes et les Legendes de l'Inde, p. 90).

Estin anankes chrema, theon psephisma palaion, aidion, plateessi katesphregismenon horkois, eute tis amplakiesi phono phila gyia miene haimasin e epiorkon hamartesas epomosse daimon, hoi te makraionos lelachasi bioio, tris min myrias horas apo makaron alalesthai, phyomenon pantoia dia chronou eidea thneton, argaleas biotoio metalla.s.sonta keleuthous.

I have adopted the readings of Ritter and Preller, in their Historia Philosophiae, in preference to those of M. Leveque. It is clear that Empedocles supposed himself to be a Vidyadhara fallen from heaven in consequence of a curse. As I observed in an article in the Calcutta Review of 1875, "The Bhagavad Gita and Christianity," his personality is decidedly Indian.

[720] Cp. Odyssey IX. 27, 28.

[721] Comprising the modern provinces of Allahabad, Agra, Delhi and Oude.

[722] For anrityata I should like to read anartyata.

[723] i. e., one who has obtained a prize.

[724] Badarinatha is a place sacred to Vishnu in the Himalayas. The Badarinatha peaks, in British Gurwhal, form a group of six summits, from 22,000 to 23,400 feet above the sea. The town of Badarinatha is 55 miles north-east of Srinagar, on the right bank of the Vishnuganga, a feeder of the Alakananda. The temple is situated in the highest part of the town, and below it a tank, supplied by a sulphureous thermal spring, is frequented by thousands of pilgrims. The temple is 10,294 feet above the sea. (Akbar, an Eastern Romance, by Dr. Van Limburg-Brouwer, with an introduction by Clements Markham, p. 1, note.)

[725] Praja means subjects and also offspring.