The Katha Sarit Sagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story Part 102

[773] Compare for the idea Richard II. Act III, Sc. 2. line 41 and ff.

[774] Here I have omitted a short story.

[775] He seems to correspond to the Junker Voland or Herr Urian of the Walpurgisnacht; (see Bayard Taylor's notes to his translation of Goethe's Faust). See also, for the a.s.sembly of witches and their 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 Avadana 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 Bohmische Marchen, p. 537, and the remarks of Preller in his Griechische Mythologie, Vol. II, p. 345.

[780] Perhaps we should read mrishyatam, forgive me, be patient.

[781] This character is probably taken from the Mahabharata (see Dowson's Cla.s.sical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, p. 90).

[782] I have followed the Sanskrit College MS. which gives adarsa.

[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, aethiopica, Lib. III, cap. XIII.

alla tois t' aphthalmois an gnostheien 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. Dvapara 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 pa.s.sage in "As you like it"

will occur to every one. Snakes' crowns are mentioned in Grossler, Sagen der Grafschaft Mansfeld, p. 178, in Veckenstedt's Wendische Marchen, pp. 403-405, and in Grohmann, Sagen aus Bohmen, 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 coc.o.o.ns 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 Marchen 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 din and his son,"

Hasan Badr ul din 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. Bhima disguises himself as a cook in the Virata parvan of the Mahabharata. Pausanias tells us, Book I, ch. 16, Seleuko gar, hos hormato ek Makedonias syn Alexandro, Thyonti en Pelle to Dii, ta xyla epi tou bomou keimena proube te automata pros to agalma, kai aneu pyros hephthe.

[796] The Petersburg lexicographers think that samvritti should be sadvritti.

NOTES TO VOLUME II

[1] I read mada for madya.

[2] Nrisinha, Vishnu a.s.sumed 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 Marchen, p. 343; Grimm, Irische Marchen, No. 9, "Die Flasche," p. 42. In the Bhadraghatajataka, No. 291 Sakko gives a pitcher, which is lost in the same way. Grimm in his Irische Elfenmarchen, Introduction, p. x.x.xvii, remarks that "if a man discloses any supernatural power which he possesses, it is at once lost."

[4] In Bartsch's Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche 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 Mahabharata. In this poem Srinjaya has a son named Suvarnashtivin. Some robbers treat him as the goose that laid the golden eggs was treated. There are also birds that spit gold in the Mahabharata. (See Leveque, Les Mythes et Legendes de l'Inde, pp. 289-294.) There is an a.s.s with the same gift in Sicilianische Marchen, No. 52. For the wis.h.i.+ng-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 wis.h.i.+ng-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 nicho 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 sakha.