A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.205

v2.c19.s3.t2.205

In the first sections, which contain the shorter Jātakas, we find most of the fables. Here again we meet with the hypocritical cat, which devours the mice, while pretending to be a pious ascetic.² Here we also find numerous fables, which recur in other Indian narrative works, Tantrākhyāyika, Pañcatantra, etc., and not a few of those fables of the world's literature whose home is difficult to determine, because they have become equally at home in the East and in the West. How the lion and the bull, the two friends, are separated by the jackal and kill each other, is told in Jātaka No. 349, in agreement with the frame narrative of Book I of the Tantrākhyāyika. The Jātaka book has several variants of the delightful story of the monkey which outwits the crocodile, which forms the frame story of Book IV of the Tantrākhyāyika.³ As in Æsop's fable, the ass in Jātaka No. 189 has clothed himself in a lion's skin, while the Tantrākhyāyika gives him a panther's skin, and the Pañcatantra and Hitopadeśa a tiger's skin. Other well-known fables are those of the jackal which praises the crow's beautiful voice, and thereby gains some nice fruit;[^1) of the ox, which envies the pig on account of its good food, until he hears that the pig is being fattened only for the slaughter;[^2) of the cunning crane or ibis which pretends to lead the fishes into pleasant waters, but devours them all, until at last he receives his well merited punishment from the crab;[^3) of the parrot which is to watch over the chastity of a frivolous wife, and is killed by her for its indiscretion.[^4) The fable of the dancing peacock which, by its impudent dance, forfeits its bride, the daughter of the bird-king,[^5) is an ancient one. As the fable was already represented on a relief of the Stūpa of Bharhut in the 3rd century B.C., it must already at that time have been a Jātaka. Another relief on the same Stūpa is an