So much for a short sketch of Indian folk-tales so far as they have been reduced to writing in the native literature. [2] The Jatakas are probably the oldest collection of such tales in literature, and the greater part of the rest are demonstrably more than a thousand years old. It is certain that much (perhaps one-fifth) of the popular literature of modern Europe is derived from those portions of this large bulk which came west with the Crusades through the medium of Arabs and Jews. In his elaborate Einleitung to the Pantschatantra, the Indian version of the Fables of Bidpai, Prof. Benfey contended with enormous erudition that the majority of folk-tale incidents were to be found in the Bidpai literature. His introduction consisted of over 200 monographs on the spread of Indian tales to Europe. He wrote in 1859, before the great outburst of folk-tale collection in Europe, and he had not thus adequate materials to go about in determining the extent of Indian influence on the popular mind of Europe. But he made it clear that for beast-tales and for drolls, the majority of those current in the mouths of occidental people were derived from Eastern and mainly Indian sources. He was not successful, in my opinion, in tracing the serious fairy tale to India. Few of the tales in the Indian literary collections could be dignified by the name of fairy tales, and it was clear that if these were to be traced to India, an examination of the contemporary folk-tales of the peninsula would have to be attempted.
The collection of current Indian folk-tales has been the work of the last quarter of a century, a work, even after what has been achieved, still in its initial stages. The credit of having begun the process is due to Miss Frere, who, while her father was Governor of the Bombay Presidency, took down from the lips of her ayah, Anna de Souza, one of a Lingaet family from Goa who had been Christian for three generations, the tales she afterwards published with Mr. Murray in 1868, under the title, "Old Deccan Days, or, Indian Fairy Legends current in Southern India, collected from oral tradition by M. Frere, with an introduction and notes by Sir Bartle Frere." Her example was followed by Miss Stokes in her Indian Fairy Tales (London, Ellis & White, 1880), who took down her tales from two ayahs and a Khitmatgar, all of them Bengalese—the ayahs Hindus, and the man a Mohammedan. Mr. Ralston introduced the volume with some remarks which dealt too much with sun-myths for present-day taste. Another collection from Bengal was that of Lal Behari Day, a Hindu gentleman, in his Folk-Tales of Bengal (London, Macmillan, 1883). The Panjab and the Kashmir then had their turn: Mrs. Steel collected, and Captain (now Major) Temple edited and annotated, their Wideawake Stories (London, Trübner, 1884), stories capitally told and admirably annotated. Captain Temple increased the value of this collection by a remarkable analysis of all the incidents contained in the two hundred Indian folk-tales collected up to this date. It is not too much to say that this analysis marks an onward step in the scientific study of the folk-tale: there is such a thing, derided as it may be. I have throughout the Notes been able to draw attention to Indian parallels by a simple reference to Major Temple's Analysis.
Major Temple has not alone himself collected: he has been the cause that many others have collected. In the pages of the Indian Antiquary, edited by him, there have appeared from time to time folk-tales collected from all parts of India. Some of these have been issued separately. Sets of tales from Southern India, collected by the Pandit Natesa Sastri, have been issued under the title Folk-Lore of Southern India, three fascicules of which have been recently re- issued by Mrs. Kingscote under the title, Tales of the Sun (W. H. Allen, 1891): it would have been well if the identity of the two works had been clearly explained. The largest addition to our knowledge of the Indian folk-tale that has been made since Wideawake Stories is that contained in Mr. Knowles' Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Trübner's Oriental Library, 1887), sixty-three stories, some of great length. These, with Mr. Campbell's Santal Tales (1892); Ramaswami Raju's Indian Fables (London, Sonnenschein, n. d.); M. Thornhill, Indian Fairy Tales (London, 1889); and E. J. Robinson, Tales of S. India (1885), together with those contained in books of travel like Thornton's Bannu or Smeaton's Karens of Burmah bring up the list of printed Indian folk-tales to over 350—a respectable total indeed, but a mere drop in the ocean of the stream of stories that must exist in such a huge population as that of India: the Central Provinces in particular are practically unexplored. There are doubtless many collections still unpublished. Col. Lewin has large numbers, besides the few published in his Lushai Grammar; and Mr. M. L. Dames has a number of Baluchi tales which I have been privileged to use. Altogether, India now ranks among the best represented countries for printed folk-tales, coming only after Russia (1500), Germany (1200), Italy and France (1000 each.) [3] Counting the ancient with the modern, India has probably some 600 to 700 folk-tales printed and translated in accessible form. There should be enough material to determine the vexed question of the relations between the European and the Indian collections.
This question has taken a new departure with the researches of M. Emanuel Cosquin in his Contes populaires de Lorraine (Paris, 1886, 2° tirage, 1890), undoubtedly the most important contribution to the scientific study of the folk-tale since the Grimms. M. Cosquin gives in the annotations to the eighty-four tales which he has collected in Lorraine a mass of information as to the various forms which the tales take in other countries of Europe and in the East. In my opinion, the work he has done for the European folk-tale is even more valuable than the conclusions he draws from it as to the relations with India. He has taken up the work which Wilhelm Grimm dropped in 1859, and shown from the huge accumulations of folk-tales that have appeared during the last thirty years that there is a common fund of folk-tales which every country of Europe without exception possesses, though this does not of course preclude them from possessing others that are not shared by the rest. M. Cosquin further contends that the whole of these have come from the East, ultimately from India, not by literary transmission, as Benfey contended, but by oral transmission. He has certainly shown that very many of the most striking incidents common to European folk-tales are also to be found in Eastern mährchen. What, however, he has failed to show is that some of these may not have been carried out to the Eastern world by Europeans. Borrowing tales is a mutual process, and when Indian meets European, European meets Indian; which borrowed from which, is a question which we have very few criteria to decide. It should be added that Mr W. A. Clouston has in England collected with exemplary industry a large number of parallels between Indian and European folk-tale incidents in his Popular Tales and Fictions (Edinburgh, 2 vols., 1887) and Book of Noodles (London, 1888). Mr Clouston has not openly expressed his conviction that all folk-tales are Indian in origin: he prefers to convince us non vi sed saepe cadendo. He has certainly made out a good case for tracing all European drolls, or comic folk- tales, from the East.
With the fairy tale strictly so called—i.e., the serious folk- tale of romantic adventure—I am more doubtful. It is mainly a modern product in India as in Europe, so far as literary evidence goes. The vast bulk of the Jatakas does not contain a single example worthy the name, nor does the Bidpai literature. Some of Somadeva's tales, however, approach the nature of fairy tales, but there are several Celtic tales which can be traced to an earlier date than his (1200 A.D.) and are equally near to fairy tales. Yet it is dangerous to trust to mere non-appearance in literature as proof of non-existence among the folk. To take our own tales here in England, there is not a single instance of a reference to Jack and the Beanstalk for the last three hundred years, yet it is undoubtedly a true folk-tale. And it is indeed remarkable how many of the formulae of fairy tales have been found of recent years in India. Thus, the Magic Fiddle, found among the Santals by Mr. Campbell in two variants (see Notes on vi.), contains the germ idea of the wide-spread story represented in Great Britain by the ballad of Binnorie (see English Fairy Tales, No. ix.). Similarly, Mr. Knowles' collection has added considerably to the number of Indian variants of European "formulae" beyond those noted by M. Cosquin.
It is still more striking as regards in
cidents. In a paper read before the Folk-Lore Congress of 1891, and reprinted in the Transactions, pp. 76 seq., I have drawn up a list of some 630 incidents found in common among European folk-tales (including drolls). Of these, I reckon that about 250 have been already found among Indian folk-tales, and the number is increased by each new collection that is made or printed. The moral of this is, that India belongs to a group of peoples who have a common store of stories; India belongs to Europe for purposes of comparative folk-tales.
Can we go further and say that India is the source of all the incidents that are held in common by European children? I think we may answer "Yes" as regards droll incidents, the travels of many of which we can trace, and we have the curious result that European children owe their earliest laughter to Hindu wags. As regards the serious incidents further inquiry is needed. Thus, we find the incident of an "external soul" (Life Index, Captain Temple very appropriately named it) in Asbjörnsen's Norse Tales and in Miss Frere's Old Deccan Days (see Notes on Punchkin). Yet the latter is a very suspicious source, since Miss Frere derived her tales from a Christian ayah whose family had been in Portuguese Goa for a hundred years. May they not have got the story of the giant with his soul outside his body from some European sailor touching at Goa? This is to a certain extent negatived by the fact of the frequent occurrence of the incident in Indian folk-tales (Captain Temple gave a large number of instances in Wideawake Stories, pp. 404-5). On the other hand, Mr. Frazer in his Golden Bough has shown the wide spread of the idea among all savage or semi-savage tribes. (See Note on No. iv.)
In this particular case we may be doubtful; but in others, again—as the incident of the rat's tail up nose (see Notes on The Charmed Ring)—there can be little doubt of the Indian origin. And generally, so far as the incidents are marvellous and of true fairy- tale character, the presumption is in favour of India, because of the vitality of animism or metempsychosis in India throughout all historic time. No Hindu would doubt the fact of animals speaking or of men transformed into plants and animals. The European may once have had these beliefs, and may still hold them implicitly as "survivals"; but in the "survival" stage they cannot afford material for artistic creation, and the fact that the higher minds of Europe for the last thousand years have discountenanced these beliefs has not been entirely without influence. Of one thing there is practical certainty: the fairy tales that are common to the Indo-European world were invented once for all in a certain locality; and thence spread to all the countries in culture contact with the original source. The mere fact that contiguous countries have more similarities in their story store than distant ones is sufficient to prove this: indeed, the fact that any single country has spread throughout it a definite set of folk-tales as distinctive as its flora and fauna, is sufficient to prove it. It is equally certain that not all folk-tales have come from one source, for each country has tales peculiar to itself. The question is as to the source of the tales that are common to all European children, and increasing evidence seems to show that this common nucleus is derived from India and India alone. The Hindus have been more successful than others, because of two facts: they have had the appropriate "atmosphere" of metempsychosis, and they have also had spread among the people sufficient literary training and mental grip to invent plots. The Hindu tales have ousted the native European, which undoubtedly existed independently; indeed, many still survive, especially in Celtic lands. Exactly in the same way, Perrault's tales have ousted the older English folk-tales, and it is with the utmost difficulty that one can get true English fairy tales because Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Blue Beard, Puss in Boots and the rest, have survived in the struggle for existence among English folk-tales. So far as Europe has a common store of fairy tales, it owes this to India.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not hold with Benfey that all European folk-tales are derived from the Bidpai literature and similar literary products, nor with M. Cosquin that they are all derived from India. The latter scholar has proved that there is a nucleus of stories in every European land which is common to all. I calculate that this includes from 30 to 50 per cent. of the whole, and it is this common stock of Europe that I regard as coming from India mainly at the time of the Crusades, and chiefly by oral transmission. It includes all the beast tales and most of the drolls, but evidence is still lacking about the more serious fairy tales, though it is increasing with every fresh collection of folk-tales in India, the great importance of which is obvious from the above considerations.
In the following Notes I give, as on the two previous occasions, the source whence I derived the tale, then parallels, and finally remarks. For Indian parallels I have been able to refer to Major Temple's remarkable Analysis of Indian Folk-tale incidents at the end of Wide-awake Stories (pp. 386-436), for European ones to my alphabetical List of Incidents, with bibliographical references, in Transactions of Folk-Lore Congress, 1892, pp. 87-98. My remarks have been mainly devoted to tracing the relation between the Indian and the European tales, with the object of showing that the latter have been derived from the former. I have, however, to some extent handicapped myself, as I have avoided giving again the Indian versions of stories already given in English Fairy Tales or Celtic Fairy Tales.
I. THE LION AND THE CRANE.
Source.—V. Fausböll, Five Jatakas; Copenhagen, 1861, pp. 35-8, text and translation of the Javasakuna Jataka. I have ventured to English Prof. Fausböll's version, which was only intended as a "crib" to the Pali. For the omitted Introduction, see supra.
Parallels.—I have given a rather full collection of parallels, running to about a hundred numbers, in my Aesop, pp. 232-4. The chief of these are: (i) for the East, the Midrashic version ("Lion and Egyptian Partridge"), in the great Rabbinic commentary on Genesis (Bereshith-rabba, c. 64); (2) in classical antiquity, Phaedrus, i. 8 ("Wolf and Crane"), and Babrius, 94 ("Wolf and Heron"), and the Greek proverb Suidas, ii. 248 ("Out of the Wolf's Mouth"); (3) in the Middle Ages, the so-called Greek Aesop, ed. Halm, 276 b, really prose versions of Babrius and "Romulus," or prose of Phaedrus, i. 8, also the Romulus of Ademar (fl. 1030), 64; it occurs also on the Bayeux Tapestry, in Marie de France, 7, and in Benedict of Oxford's Mishle Shualim (Heb.), 8; (4) Stainhöwel took it from the "Romulus" into his German Aesop (1480), whence all the modern European Aesops are derived.
Remarks.—I have selected The Wolf and the Crane as my typical example in my "History of the Aesopic Fable," and can only give here a rough summary of the results I there arrived at concerning the fable, merely premising that these results are at present no more than hypotheses. The similarity of the Jataka form with that familiar to us, and derived by us in the last resort from Phaedrus, is so striking that few will deny some historical relation between them. I conjecture that the Fable originated in India, and came West by two different routes. First, it came by oral tradition to Egypt, as one of the Libyan Fables which the ancients themselves distinguished from the Aesopic Fables. It was, however, included by Demetrius Phalereus, tyrant of Athens, and founder of the Alexandrian library c. 300 B.C., in his Assemblies of Aesopic Fables, which I have shown to be the source of Phaedrus' Fables c. 30 A.D. Besides this, it came from Ceylon in the Fables of Kybises—i.e., Kasyapa the Buddha—c. 50 A.D., was adapted into Hebrew, and used for political purposes, by Rabbi Joshua ben Chananyah in a harangue to the Jews c. 120 A.D., begging them to be patient while within the jaws of Rome. The Hebrew form uses the lion, not the wolf, as the ingrate, which enables us to decide on the Indian provenance of the Midrashic version. It may be remarked that the use of the lion in this and other Jatakas is indirectly a testimony to their great age, as the lion has become rarer and rarer in India during historic times, and is now confined to the Gir forest of Kathiáwar, where only a dozen specimens exist, and are strictly preserved.
The verses at the end are the earliest parts of the Jataka, being in more archaic Pali than the rest: the story is told by the commentator (c. 400 A.D.) to illustrate them. It is probable that they were brought over
on the first introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon, c. 241 B.C. This would give them an age of over two thousand years, nearly three hundred years earlier than Phaedrus, from whom comes our Wolf and Crane.
II. PRINCESS LABAM.
Source.—Miss Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, No. xxii. pp. 153-63, told by Múniyá, one of the ayahs. I have left it unaltered, except that I have replaced "God" by "Khuda," the word originally used (see Notes l. c., p 237).
Parallels.—The tabu, as to a particular direction, occurs in other Indian stories as well as in European folk-tales (see notes on Stokes, p. 286). The grateful animals theme occurs in "The Soothsayer's Son" (infra, No. x.), and frequently in Indian folk-tales (see Temple's Analysis, III. i. 5-7; Wideawake Stories, pp. 412-3). The thorn in the tiger's foot is especially common (Temple, l. c., 6, 9), and recalls the story of Androclus, which occurs in the derivates of Phaedrus, and may thus be Indian in origin (see Benfey, Panschatantra, i. 211, and the parallels given in my Aesop, Ro. iii. 1. p. 243). The theme is, however, equally frequent in European folk-tales: see my List of Incidents, Proc. Folk-Lore Congress, p. 91, s.v. "Grateful Animals" and "Gifts by Grateful Animals." Similarly, the "Bride Wager" incident at the end is common to a large number of Indian and European folk-tales (Temple, Analysis, p. 430; my List, l. c. sub voce). The tasks are also equally common (cf. "Battle of the Birds" in Celtic Fairy Tales), though the exact forms as given in "Princess Labam" are not known in Europe.
Remarks.—We have here a concrete instance of the relation of Indian and European fairy-tales. The human mind may be the same everywhere, but it is not likely to hit upon the sequence of incidents, Direction tabu—Grateful Animals—Bride-wager—Tasks, by accident, or independently: Europe must have borrowed from India, or India from Europe. As this must have occurred within historic times, indeed within the last thousand years, when even European peasants are not likely to have invented, even if they believed, in the incident of the grateful animals, the probability is in favour of borrowing from India, possibly through the intermediation of Arabs at the time of the Crusades. It is only a probability, but we cannot in any case reach more than probability in this matter, just at present.
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