A History of Sanskrit Literature c24.s5.12

c24.s5.12

There remains, therefore, the argument from form. Lacôte contends that the Kathā form was original in India, that there alone did it develop, and that it was borrowed by the Greek romances from India. Every part of the proof is defective. The Kathā manner in its simpler forms is the most natural¹ of all, and Lacôte admits that we have it in the *Odyssey*, but he holds that it was not developed in Greece. Of this there is no proof whatever; the dialogues of Plato, which are reported conversations, he admits to be exceptions to his rule, but holds that the manner was confined to philosophy, which borrowed it from the Mimes of Sophron. This is a very implausible assumption, and is further contradicted by the evidence. We know of the love of Greece for tales, the story-tellers of Sybaris and Ephesos were famous, there is the evidence of Apuleius, who refers to his *Metamorphoses* in the words *ut ego tibi sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conseram*.² It is a perfectly fair deduction to make from this definite statement that the Ephesian tales known to Apuleius—including doubtless Aristeides' *Ephesiaka* which were rendered by Sisenna,¹ already exhibited the form of a framework story with reports of experiences of the actors inserted. In Ovid’s *Metamorphoses* (v) Pallas’s adventures include meeting and hearing tales from the Muses, in whose account of Demeter and Proserpina are inserted two narratives by Arethusa; in xiv in Aeneas’ adventures we have Macareus’ narrative to Achaemenides, in which is inserted a tale by a maiden of Circe’s. We have, therefore, no conceivable need to seek in India for the prototype, especially as chronology is all against the suggestion. We know nothing that we can prove of the actual manner of the *Bṛhatkathā* and its date is utterly uncertain, assuredly not early enough to make dependence even possible,² while as regards the *Vāsavadattā* we know that it is later than any extant Greek romance of the period dealt with by Lacôte. A further insuperable difficulty would be the fact that Lacôte thinks of popular transmission, recognizing that no Greek could understand a real Indian romance in Sanskrit, while such transmission would certainly give only tales, not the elaborate construction which is the one point which could be used to prove derivation.