[1] The word in the original is kárpaṭika. Böhtlingk and Roth explain it in this passage as “ein im Dienste eines Fürsten stehender Bettler.” It appears from Taranga 81, that a poor man became a kárpaṭika by tearing a karpaṭa, a ragged garment, in a king’s presence. The business of a kárpaṭika seems to have been to do service without getting anything for it.
[2] Cp. the 1st Novel in the 10th Day of the Decameron and Ralston’s Russian Folk Tales, p. 197.
[3] There is a pun here. The word paláśa also means “cruel, unmerciful.”
[4] The word used shews that he was probably a Buddhist mendicant.
[5] Cp. Miss Frere’s Old Deccan days, p. 171, and Giles’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, p. 430, where the young lady says to Ma; “You have often asked me for money, but on account of your weak luck I have hitherto refrained from giving you any.”
[6] This story is found in the Hitopadeśa, p. 89 of Johnson’s translation.
[7] These two lines are an elaborate pun—ku = evil, and also earth, guṇa = virtue, and also string, avichára = injustice, also the movement of sheep.
[8] I follow the MS. in the Sanskrit College which reads rodorandhre.
[9] Here with the Sanskrit College MS. I read ruditam for the unmetrical kranditam.
[10] I read dhṛishyan, i. e., rejoicing, from hṛish.