A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.232

v2.c19.s3.t2.232

Superhuman beings of all kinds, snake and bird deities (Nāgas and Garuḍas), Yakkhas, Kinnaras¹ and so on, play a large part in the fairy tales. Some of these Jātakas have been elaborated into long fairy-tale compositions. Jātakas like No. 504, of the pair of Kinnaras who are in deep mourning, because they have been separated for one single night, or No. 485, of the Kinnara woman, who weeps so long for her beloved, who was shot by a king, until, through an elixir of life, he comes to life again, are really lyrico-dramatic fairy-tale compositions, in which the lyrical element prevails. A longer fairy-tale composition in prose and verse with inserted narratives is Jātaka No. 432, where the Bodhisatta is reborn as the son of a horse-headed man-eating Yakkha woman. Jātaka No. 543, which betrays itself as having been originally an independent work by its being divided into 8 sections (Khaṇḍas), is a long composition, of a mixture of prose and verse, dealing with the world of the Nāgas and Garuḍas, a strange mixture of popular fairy tale motifs and Buddhist dogmatics. The Vidhurapaṇḍita Jātaka,² the hero of which is the wise Vidhura, the minister of the Kuru king, is a real epic in 6 sections (Khaṇḍas) This Vidhura, who recurs several times in the Jātaka book, is none other than Vidura, known to us from the Mahābhārata, the half-brother and wise counsellor of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, who already in the epic appears as a knower of fables, parables and wise sayings.³ Through this name, as well as the lifelike description of a game of dice, this Jātaka is in some way related to the Mahābhārata, and is therefore of especial interest. Even taken on its own merits, however, it is an epic fairy tale composition of no slight poetic value.