A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s1.8

c18.s1.8

The form of the fable is essentially dictated by its origin. The story is naturally related in prose, but the moral is fixed in the memory by being put in verse form, and it is natural that other didactic verses should be strewn in the tales; such an employment of gnomic stanzas is found in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*.¹ The maxim embodying the truth or point of the tale naturally stands in a different position from the more general didactic stanza; it must be capable of serving as an identification label, or Kathāsaṁgrahaçloka, a verse that sums up the tale. It must, however, have been natural on the basis of such stanzas to insert in the narrative itself stanzas which are not maxims, but, like the label, refer definitely to the tale itself, and thus we achieve the use of Ākhyāna or narrative verses, but primarily at any rate as a minor feature. It is only slowly and late that the didactic fable comes to be written wholly or largely in verse.