A History of Sanskrit Literature c24.s1.12

c24.s1.12

In many cases chronology is decisive against Indian influence on Greece being plausible. Thus a Corinthian vase² shows us the existence of the fable of the fox and the raven in the sixth century B.C., while in India we have the story of the fox and the crow only in the Jātaka and, therefore, of uncertain date. A painting by Polygnotos in the Lesche at Delphi of Oknos and his ass affords better evidence than the Jātaka tale of the ropemaker and the female jackal who undoes his work unperceived, both accusations of man’s industry and woman’s waste.³ Demokritos knew the story of the eagle who dropped the tortoise, which in India appears as the swans who let the same animal fall. The goat which swallowed a razor was the subject of a Greek proverb,⁴ and occurs in a Jātaka. The mice which eat iron in the *Pañcatantra* and a Jātaka are known already to Seneca and Herondas. The fable related of Daidalos in Sophokles’ *Kami-* *kioi*¹ is far better attested for Greece than for India in a late *Jātaka*. The claim that the account in Herodotos and Sophokles alike of a sister’s preference for a brother’s life to that of a husband, since she cannot have another brother, need certainly not be traced to a *Jātaka*, and the attempt to derive the delightful story of how Hippokleides lost his marriage by reason of his dance from the similar tale of the peacock in the *Jātaka* is curiously absurd. In these cases we have to do with ideas which would naturally enough develop themselves in men’s minds independently. Nor does there seem any conclusive ground for holding that the tale of the ass in the lion’s skin is older in either country. In the version in Greece the ass itself assumes a lion’s skin and is betrayed by the wind blowing it away; the Indian versions are more prosaic; the ass is given a skin by its owner to allow it to steal corn, and betrays itself by its cry.