A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s4.7

c18.s4.7

‘The world shows affection from self-interest. But thou, noblest of apes, art loving without such cause.’ But verses such as these are very few, and, apart from the title-verses, the poet’s effort has been devoted to finding or writing effective maxims. How far these were original we cannot possibly say in those cases in which we have no other early authority for them; but when they do not occur outside of the *Pañcatantra* we can fairly credit him with them. Some unquestionably he derived from the epic, and he may have taken thence¹ the hint for the construction of Book iii as a reminiscence of the omen, given to the defeated Kauravas by the crows who attack and destroy the owls by night, of the victory which they can win over the Pāṇḍavas by a night onslaught on their camp, and the idea of the doves carrying off the net of their captor. We are, however, in these matters of originality reduced to conjectures.