[7] Vaiśvánara is an epithet of Agni or Fire.
[8] Śiva.
[9] Cp. the 1st story in the Vetála Panchavinśati, [Chapter 75] of this work. See also Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p. 241, where Prince Ivan by the help of his tutor Katoma propounds to the Princess Anna the fair, a riddle which enables him to win her as his wife.
[10] The god of justice.
[11] Benfey considers this story as Buddhistic in its origin. In the “Memoires Sur les Contrées Occidentales traduits du Sanscrit par Hiouen Thsang et du Chinois par Stanislas Julien” we are expressly told that Gautama Buddha gave his flesh to the hawk as Śivi in a former state of existence. It is told of many other persons, see Benfey’s Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 388, cp. also Campbell’s West Highland Tales, p. 239, Vol. I, Tale XVI. M. Lévêque (Les Mythes et Légendes de L’Inde p. 327) connects this story with that of Philemon and Baucis. He lays particular stress upon the following lines of Ovid:
Unicus anser erat, minimæ custodia villæ
Quem Dîs hospitibus domini mactare parabant:
Ille celer penna tardos ætate fatigat,
Eluditque diu, tandemquo est visus ad ipsos
Confugisse deos. Superi vetuere necari.