[690] The same analogy presents itself in the Sanskṛit word arbhakas, which means little and foolish.
[691] Cfr. the root gad, from which we might perhaps deduce an imaginary intermediate form, gadarbhas, besides the known gardabhas and gandharbas or gandharvas.
[692] Cfr. arvan with the roots arv, arb, arp, ṛiph, riph, riv, ṛinv.
[693] x. 10, 5.
[694] Gandharva itthâ padam asya rakshati.; Ṛigv. ix. 83, 4.
[695] Strîkâmâḥ vâi gandharvâḥ; i. 27.
[696] Professor Kuhn (Die Herabkunft, d. f. &c.) has already compared to this the Zend Gandhrawa, who, in the Lake Vôuru-Kasha, keeps guard over the tree hom (the Vedic Somas). Kuhn and Weber, moreover, have identified the Vedic gandharvas, Kṛiçânus, who wounds the ravisher of the Somas, with the Zend Kereçâni, who endeavours to destroy riches; here the gandharvas would appear to be a monstrous and demoniacal being.
[697] ... ut omittam eos, quos libidinis ac fœdæ voluptatis causa, coluisse nomen illud atque imposuisse suis, a scriptoribus notatur, qualis olim Onos ille Commodi; qualis exsecrandus Marci Verotrasinus, qualis et alterius Onobelos, quales, quos matronis in deliciis fuisse scimus. Unde illud atque alium bipedem sibi quærit asellum, ejus nempe membri causa, quod, in asino, clava, a Nicandro dicitur; Laus Asini, Lugd. Batavorum, ex officina Elzeviriana, p. 194.
[698] To this flight into Egypt upon the ass can be referred the Piedmontese custom among children in the middle of Lent—that is, near the festival of St Joseph—of attaching to their companions now a saw, now a devil's head, now an ass's head, pronouncing the words, "L'asu cariá che gnün lu sa" (the ass burdened, and no one knows it). Moreover, it seems to me that to the Christian tradition of Joseph, and of the child Jesus carried upon the ass, can be referred the well-known European fable of the old man, the boy, and the ass, of which numerous varieties may be read in the article upon the asinus vulgi in the Orient und Occident of Benfey.
[699] Professor Benfey, in his learned Einleitung to the Pańćatantram, p. 268, says that the disguise by means of the skin of an ass is found in a Latin poem of the fifteenth century.