A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s1.1

c18.s1.1

WE may safely assume that from the earliest times of the life of the Vedic Indians in India tales of all sorts passed current among the people, however useless it may be to discriminate them as fairy tales, Märchen, or myths or fables in the earlier stages of their development. It was, however, a distinct and important step when the mere story became used for a definite purpose, and when the didactic fable became a definite mode of inculcating useful knowledge. We do not know at what date this took place; we could not expect to find fables in the *Ṛgveda*, but we have there something which reminds us how easy it was for Indian thought to transfer to men's neighbours the habits of men. Whatever be the purpose of a famous hymn in the *Ṛgveda*¹ in which Brahmins are compared to croaking frogs as they sing at their sacrifice, it is clear that we have a recognition of a certain kinship between men and animals, which comes out clearly in the Upaniṣads,² where we have the allegory or satire of the dogs who search out a leader to howl food for them, the talk of two flamingoes whose remarks call attention to Raikva, and the instruction of the young Satyakāma first by a bull, then by a flamingo, then by an aquatic bird. Granting that we have not here the didactic fable, in which the actions of beasts are made the means of advising men, still we can realize how easy it was to pass to this form of instruction, and in fact we find in the epic³ clear recognition of fables, and that not merely in the late didactic book xii but elsewhere. Not only do we hear of the bird that provided the equivalent of the golden eggs, but of the naughty cat which deceived the little mice by an appearance of virtue so that they delivered themselves into her power, and we have a *motif* which certainly is strongly suggestive of the material whence developed the *Pañcatantra*. The Pāṇḍavas, it is suggested, are to be treated as the intelligent jackal treated his allies the tiger, the mouse, the ichneumon, and the wolf, when he smartly cheated them out of any share in the booty he had won with their aid. About the same time,¹ as the monumental evidence at Bharhut proves, the Buddhists were already making another use of the common belief in the close relationship of animals and man, now accentuated by the adoption by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains alike of the doctrine of transmigration into animal as well as human forms. They chose by relating beast stories to illustrate the deeds and greatness of the Buddha and his contemporaries in past births.