A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.227

v2.c19.s3.t2.227

Although so many fairy tales have found their way from India to the West, yet there can scarcely be any doubt that conversely, many a foreign fairy tale has wandered to India. That is possibly so, for instance, in the case of the mariners' fairy tales, which tell of shipwrecks and all kinds of strange sea-adventures. The female demons (Yakkhinīs), who lure the shipwrecked men and delight them with their love, in order to kill and devour them later, at once recall the Sirens and beings like Circe and Calypso.³ A weird mixture of popular fairy tale and moral narrative is the Jātaka of Mittavindaka, who experiences wonderful adventures at sea, enjoys himself with ghostly women in magnificent palaces on islands in the middle of the ocean, and finally, because of his insatiable desire, or, according to a second version, because he ill-treated his mother, goes to a hell, where a wheel with sharp knives unceasingly revolves on his head.¹