Tale XVIII.
[1.] Shanggasba is possibly a Tibetian word, bsang, grags, pa = “of good fame,” but more probably it is compounded from the Mongolian sSang, “treasure.” (Jülg.)
[2.] Garudâ: see [note 2, Tale I]. The allusion in this place is to an image of him over a shrine.
[3.] Silk was cultivated in India at a very early date, probably much earlier than any records that remain to us can show; there are twelve indigenous species of silkworm. That of China was not introduced into India before the year 419 of our era (Ritter, vol. vi. pt. 1, 698). The indigenous silkworms fed upon other trees besides the mulberry and notably on the ficus religiosa. The Greeks would seem to have learnt the use of silk from the Indians, or at least from the Persians. Nearchos is the first Greek writer in whom mention of it is found; he describes it as like the finest weft of cotton-stuff, and says it was made from fibre scraped from the bark of a tree; an error in which he was followed by other writers; others again wrote that the fibres were combed off the leaf of a tree; yet Pausanias had mentioned the worm as the intermediary of its production (C. Müller, Pref. to his Edition of Strabo, and notes). The Romans also carried on a considerable trade in silk with India, and Pliny, vi. 20, 2, mentions one kind of Indian silk texture that was so fine and light, you could see through it, “ut in publico matrona transluceat.” Horace also alludes to the same, Sat. i. 2, 101. Pliny also complains of the luxury whereby this costly stuff was used, not only for dresses, but for coverings of cushions.[65] Vopiscus, in his life of the Emperor Aurelian, tells us that at that time a pound weight of silk was worth a pound weight of gold. In India itself the luxurious use of silk has restrictions put upon it in the Manu. It was also prescribed that when men devoted themselves to the hermit life in the jungle, they should lay aside their silken clothing; and we find Râma (Râmajana, ii. 37, 14) putting on a penitential habit over his silken robe. The Mâha Bhârata (ii. cap. 50) contains a passage in which among the objects brought in tribute to Judhishthira is kîtaga, or the “insect-product,” a word used to designate both silk and cochineal.
[4.] A similar episode occurs in a tale collected in the neighbourhood of Schwaz in North Tirol which I have given under the name of “Prince Radpot” in “Household Stories from the Land of Hofer.” The rest of the story recalls that called “The three Black Dogs” in the same collection, but there is much more grace and pathos about the Tirolean version.