Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c13.70

c13.70

A few brief words on the remaining question of the influence of India upon Western literature must be added in conclusion. Here, again, we must beware of unwarranted assumptions, based upon coincidence. There is, however, good evidence for the steady migration of folk-tales from East to West, from the time of the *Jātaka* stories. Many Eastern legends have found their way into Europe, and may be found in the *Gesta Romanorum*, the *Decameron*, and other medieval collections. This was very largely due to the Arabs of Damascus, who translated much Sanskrit literature and transmitted it in this way to Europe. A typical instance are the famous fables of Bidpai or Pilpay². They were translated from the Sanskrit *Pañcha Tantra* into Persian by Barzuyeh, in the time of Nushirvan, King of Persia. From Persian they were turned into Arabic by Abdalla ibn Mokaffa, at the court of Ibn Jāfar Almansūr at Bagdad. About the same time, at the neighbouring court of Damascus, St John of Damascus also wrote *Barlaam and Josaphat*, which, as we have seen, contains numerous Buddhist stories and apologues. Thus the well-known story of the Three Caskets found its way into the *Merchant of Venice*. Thus, too, Chaucer was enabled to embody in his *Pardoner's Tale*, a Buddhist parable taken from the *Vedabbha Jātaka*¹. On the whole subject, however, the words of a recent writer are worth remembering: "All these parallels prove nothing. In the first place, a large number of them can be considered parallels only by straining the sense of the term: and in the second place, they are the results of obviously independent though partially similar processes in the development of Greek and Sanskrit literature, and should be treated accordingly²."