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JOURNAL

ОР

THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.

ART. XIII.-The Tantrakhyāna, a Collection of Indian Folklore, from a unique Sanskrit MS. discovered in Nepal. By Prof. CECIL BENDALL.

CONTENTS.

I. Introductory Essay

II. (a) Index of Tales, with Comparative Notes ....

(b) Special Index to Tales corresponding to the Pañca-tantra

III. Notes on Variations from the Pañca-tantra in Tales generally corre

sponding to portions of that work................

IV. Abstract of Tales not in the Pañca-tantra........

V. Extracts from the Sanskrit Text

VI. Translations of Selected Tales

PAGE

465

470

473

474

478

485

497

I. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

THE first notice of the work that forms the subject of the present paper was given in Dr. Daniel Wright's "History of Nepal," where, at p. 322, the title of the book occurs in the list of Sanskrit MSS. procured for the University of Cambridge. In examining this collection in the years 1880–3, I noted the work as related to the Pañca-tantra. As, however, this MS. was (with the exception of some verses as to which I shall speak presently) entirely in Newari, and as I decided to issue at first only the catalogue of the Buddhist Sanskrit MSS., I have hitherto never published any further details, but only gave a passing mention of my discovery in my paper read at the Berlin Congress of Orientalists in 1881 VOL. XX.- -[NEW SERIES.]

32

(Verhandlungen, Theil II. Hälfte ii. p. 204). When, however, I visited Nepal in 1884, I obtained the small palm-leaf MS., which I now exhibit, containing the work entirely in Sanskrit. The MS.1 is dated Nepal Samvat 604, or A.D. 1484, and was copied by one 'Jasavarman' svārthahetunā, by which, I suppose, is meant that his real name was Yaçovarman, and that he copied it for his own use. Perhaps this last intimation may account for the bad spelling, poor sandhi, and general corruptness of text that prevail throughout. There are also several perplexing lacunæ. For this reason I do not propose at present to publish the text in full, but, pending at all events the possible acquisition of another MS., I now offer such an account of the tales as may prove serviceable to the student of Indian, and of general, folklore, and subjoin (Pt. V. VI.) selections from the text.

Like most other Indian story-books, from the oldest known collection, the Pali Jātakas, downwards, each tale begins with a moral or text in verse. These texts are preserved in Sanskrit even in the Newari version; and this being so, I have collated for the present essay the MS. at Cambridge already cited (which I call 'A' below), as well as another ('B') in the same collection (Add. 1594 and 1613). Through the kind negotiations of my friend Professor Minaev, I have also been favoured with the loan of a third Newari MS. (which I call 'C'), belonging to the Imperial Academy of S. Petersburg, a body which I have found on a previous occasion most liberal in lending, and to which I desire to record my hearty thanks.

The general literary character of the stories is somewhat bald, mostly lacking the racy sense of humour that makes the Jātakas so delightful and exceptional in Oriental literature. Indeed many of the stories here seem to me to be mere notes for the riva voce telling of a story already more or less familiar to the speaker at least, if not also to the hearers. This theory seems confirmed by the very abrupt way in which many of the stories terminate; not by a leisurely ato

1 Called S in the critical notes to § IV. below.

'ham bravīmi,1 as in the Hitopadeça, followed by a repetition of part of the verse text, but a curt phrase like evam buddhihinasya doshaḥ, so the fault lay with the witless wight,' where the story has been told in illustration of the advantage of buddhi or vous. Conversely in one or two cases the positive moral is pointed out by a compound ending in guṇa. The separate stories, moreover, are styled not ākhyāna, but ākhyānaka, a diminutive form.

Having thus explained the general character of the work, I may now approach what is in fact the most important question of the present paper: namely, what is the exact position of this collection in the general chain of Indian folklore, to which the poetry and fiction of our own middle ages are so largely indebted?

I am pleased to be able to exemplify this indebtedness by a small contribution to Chaucer-literature.2

3

The book is, as I have already stated, closely allied to the Pañca-tantra. Of its 47 stories, about 25 may be regarded as founded on tales in that collection. And what is important to note is, that several of them were put into their present shape from a recension of that work differing from any of those now extant. Thus, for example, Tale 38 in the present collection, that of the mouse and the cat, corresponds to chapter 5 of the Old Syriac version, which was made about 570 A.D., but does not occur in the Sanskrit Pañca-tantra. Another tale, No. 16, the well-known story of the elephant freed by the mice, occurs only in the 'schmuckreichere Recension,' represented by the Berlin MS. used by Kosegarten in his unfinished text of the editio ornatior,' and likewise in the Tamil Pañca-tantra accessible to European readers in the translation by the Abbé Dubois. It is, however, quite an old story, familiar to all in the Æsopic fable of the lion and the mouse. On the other hand, Tale 24, the bird and the ape, belongs to the latest stage of stories in the Pañca-tantra, as it is not included in the Arabic nor even

1 The expression Tenāham in the introductory verse to Tale 21 cited below points to a very similar usage. Tale 28 ends "evam 'anyatha cintitam' iti." See the full verse below.

2 See Tale 42.

3 Keith Falconer, Bidpai, Intr. pp. xiv, xlvi.

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