bottom of the pit an enormous serpent, which opened its cavernous jaws, making ready to swallow him as soon as he fell down. On the four walls of the pit he beheld four snakes, which were trying to bite him. In the meanwhile two mice, one white, the other black, were gnawing at the pendent root, so that he could distinctly hear the nibbling of their teeth. And as the elephant could not reach the man, he struck with his trunk the bough, from which the root hung down, as if he would tear up the banyan-tree.

"While the elephant was shaking the bough with its trunk, bees flew out from it, and stung the man all over. But from the supply of honey in the banyan-tree drops fell on him from time to time, and rolled down his forehead into his mouth, and he relished their sweetness, and thought that an exquisite enjoyment had fallen to his lot."

The Jain teacher goes on to point the moral of the apologue. The man is a being in this transmigratory existence represented by a forest. The elephant is death; the pit is birth as a man; the gigantic serpent is hell; the other snakes are anger, pride, deceit, and greed. The banyan-tree is human life; the white and dark mice denote the light and dark fortnights which eat it away. The bees are diseases; the drops of honey are the pleasures of sense. "What wise men could take delight in them?”

Professor Ernst Kuhn is of opinion that this parable, "which has edified Brahmans, Jains, Muhammadans, Christians, and Jews," filtered into Western literature through the translations of "Kalilah and Dimnah," and of "Barlaam and Joasaph." His view, that its original home is India, will, I think, meet with universal acceptance.

The account given in this poem (Canto VI.) of the founding of Pataliputra differs slightly from that found in other works. According to this form of the legend, Pațaliputra was so named from a Pățali tree (Bignonia Suaveolens), which was covered with a mass of red flowers, and displayed such an expanse of shade, that "it looked like the umbrella of the earth." On this tree was seated a blue jay into whose beak insects flew of their own An astrologer, more knowing than his fellows, was

of a Jain saint called Annika's son, whose story is narrated at full length. This circumstance and the auspicious omen of the blue jay determined the party of wise men, who had been commissioned by Udayin, king of Champã, to find a lucky site for a town, to select this spot on the banks of the Ganges. In marking out the boundaries of the future city, the following principle was kept in view: "All astrologers are agreed that in the founding of a city, the measuring line should be drawn until the cry of a jackal resounds." The king gave orders that this rule was to be followed. "Accordingly they left the Pațali tree behind them, and went first to the west, then to the north, then again to the east, then to the south, and continued till they heard the cry of a jackal; then they let the measuring line fall. So the outline of the city was of a square form." The city of Pațaliputra became famous in Indian history and legend. It occupied the site of the modern Patna.

In Canto VIII. of Hemachandra's poem (page 186 of Dr. Hertel's translation), we are introduced to historical personages, Chandragupta (Sandrocottus), the conqueror and subsequent ally of Seleucus Nikator, who sent, as ambassador to his court at Pataliputra, Megasthenes, of whose work, unfortunately, we possess only fragments, and Chaṇakya, his famous minister, the Machiavelli of India. Having been offended by Nanda, king of Pataliputra, Chanakya took a vow to destroy him together with his servants, friends, sons, and army. In looking about for a fitting instrument, he came upon a boy, who, like the infant Cyrus, was in the habit of playing the king, and distributing offices and estates to his youthful companions. He took this child away with him, promising him a kingdom. By means of the wealth, which Chanakya had acquired by the black art, he provided himself with a considerable army. In the first attempt, however, he was unsuccessful, and he had to flee with Chandragupta, whose life he managed by his wiles to save from his pursuers. In the course of their wanderings they arrived at a village. In this village Chanakya set out on a begging round. came to a cottage in which a child was eating a dish of warm porridge placed before it by its mother. The child, being

burnt its fingers. Its mother said to it, "You are as ignorant as the childish Chanakya." Thereupon Chanakya rushed into the cottage to inquire the meaning of this comparison. The old woman said, "The stupid Chāṇakya made a blunder in trying to capture Nanda's capital before securing a hold on the surrounding country. In the same way this child has burnt its fingers with the hot porridge, because it thrust its hands immediately into the middle of the dish, instead of beginning at the edge." Then Chanakya said to himself, "How clever this woman is, and yet she is only a woman!" He laid the lesson to heart, and associating with himself a king named Parvata, he gradually conquered the territory of king Nanda, and took his capital city Pataliputra.1

Another instance of Chanakya'a sagacity, recorded in Hemachandra's poem, throws a curious light upon Indian ideas. A terrible twelve years' famine (the second of this duration mentioned in Dr. Hertel's volume) broke out in Chandragupta's kingdom. At this time a teacher of the name of Susthita was living in the capital. As he could not feed his pupils, he sent them into foreign lands, but two insisted on remaining with him. Finding the pangs of hunger intolerable, they determined to make use of a collyrium, the secret of which they had learned from their teacher, which rendered them invisible. They then repaired to Chandragupta's palace at meal-times, and ate out of his plate, "as if they were two blood-relations, whom he loved as his own life." Chanakya was much grieved at finding his monarch growing thinner every day, and questioned him on the subject. The king replied that as much food as usual was served up to him, but some one, like the spirit of a dead man, seemed to consume half of it. The resourceful Chanakya strewed powder, finer than barley-meal, all round the place where the king sat to take his food. After the meal was over, the footmarks of the two pupils were clearly discernible in the powder. It was now established for certain that

Another account of the victory of Chandragupta over king Nanda will be found in a well-known Indian drama, entitled "The Ring and the Minister," which has been translated by the late Professor H. H. Wilson, in his Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus. To this reference is

the creatures who, invisible themselves, shared the king's food, were not gods or demons, but human beings. Having ascertained so much, Chanakya caused the king's dining-room to be filled with smoke so thick "that one might stick a needle in it." Accordingly, when the two pupils began, as before, their depredations on the king's food, their eyes streamed with water on account of the overpowering smoke. The collyrium was, in consequence, washed away, and the two delinquents became visible to the servants in attendance on the king, who knit their brows in wrath, but did not dare to speak harshly to them for fear of Chāṇakya. He, for his part, abstained from reproaching the pupils, but said to them: "Worthy fathers, it appears from your ascetic equipment, that you are mighty lords. Have mercy on us, and go home to your own house." He afterwards explained to the king that he had really gained merit by sharing his food with pious hermits.

We regret that space does not permit us to give other examples, but enough has been said to show that the tales extracted by Dr. Hertel from Hemachandra's poem are closely connected with many current in Europe. It might be objected to the system followed by Dr. Hertel, that a brief abstract would have answered all the requirements of the folk-lore student. But it is difficult to make abstracts that do not omit something essential, and under the most favourable circumstances, much of the local colouring, and of the Indian aroma, so to speak, of the legends is lost. Those who desire a shorter version of the tales can consult the skilfully constructed outline prefixed to

Jacobi's edition of the Sanskrit text. For the Indologist, Dr. Hertel's volume will have a special interest, as it presents legends, which were obviously current for a long time in the mouths of the people, edited from the point of view of a Jain theologian, who, though he was, no doubt, as Dr. Hertel says, liberal and tolerant, was, nevertheless, a zealous propagator of the doctrines of his sect, and was able, by means of the ascendancy which he gained over Kumārapāla, to transform Gujarat for a time into a model Jain kingdom.

GUDMUND SCHÜTTE: OLDSAGN OM GODTJOD. BIDRAG TIL ETNISK KILDEFORSKNINGS METODE, ETC. Copenhagen: H. Hagerup, 1907.

We have in Dr. Schütte's work concerning the ethnic traditions the result of great originality of thought. One of the most striking chapters is devoted to the study of the name-lists, whether of gods, heroes, or lands, so prominent in the mythicoheroic literature of the Teutons. Dr. Schütte's examination has

led him to formulate the law of initial- and terminal-stress which may be stated thus: the first member of the list is the one of greatest general importance; the last, the one in which the framers of the tradition have most special interest. This law, here formulated with precision for the first time, especially as regards the importance of terminal-stress, will be recognised by those familiar with mythico-heroic literature as a valuable test in cases which have hitherto perplexed the student. E.g. the Widsith list beginning with Attila, the outstanding figure of the migration-period, and closing with the Anglian Offa, the poet's countryman. Indeed, the author does not himself realise how far-reaching and precise in its operation is the law he has formulated; my own investigations induce me to believe that it obtains in the folk literature of many barbaric as well as in that of European peoples, and that "Schütte's law" may prove as efficient in folk-lore analysis as has "Verner's law" in phonetic analysis.

Dr. Schütte further notes that the geographical-ethnographical lists follow an "" East to West course." Huns and Goths always occupy the first place. But this, it may be urged, is simply

an instance of the law formulated above: the Huns and Goths were the most powerful and famous peoples known to the framers of the tradition, and this assumed its present shape in the western districts of Teutondom. Thus Schütte's law seems sufficient to account for the many examples of East to West lists found among Angles, Franks, Icelanders, etc. An apparent exception is the Danish five-kings series preserved by Saxo, in which the order (from Scania to Jutland) seems independent of initial- or terminal-stress. But even here close scrutiny reveals an obscured terminal-stress: the apparently insignificant King Rorik, is, according to older traditions, the father of the great