There is another reason why tales and fables continue so popular in the East; we observe how pleasing and useful they are as a medium of conveying instruction in childhood: a great proportion of the men and women of the countries of which we speak are, in point of general knowledge, but children; and while they learn, through allegories and apologues, interspersed with maxims, to appreciate the merits of their superiors, the latter are, in their turn, taught by the same means lessons of humanity, generosity, and justice.
"Have you no laws," said I one day to Aga Meer, "but the Koran, and the traditions upon that volume?" "We have," said he, gravely, "the maxims of Sâdee." Were I to judge from my own observations, I should say, that these stories and maxims, which are known to all, from the king to the peasant, have fully as great an effect, in restraining the arbitrary and unjust exercise of power as the laws of the Prophet.
It is through allegories and fables that we receive the earliest accounts we have of all nations, but particularly those of the Eastern hemisphere. We may, in these days in which exactness is so much valued, deplore this medium as liable to mislead; but must recollect, that if we had not their ancient records in this form we should have them in none. One of the wisest men in the West, Francis Bacon, has truly said, "Fiction gives to mankind what history denies, and in some measure satisfies the mind with shadows when it cannot enjoy the substance."
Those who rank highest amongst the Eastern nations for genius have employed their talents in works of fiction; and they have added to the moral lessons they desired to convey so much of grace and ornament, that their volumes have found currency in every nation of the world. The great influx of them into Europe may be dated from the crusades; and if that quarter of the globe derived no other benefits from these holy wars, the enthusiastic admirers of such narrations may consider the tales of Boccaccio and similar works as sufficient to compensate all the blood and treasure expended in that memorable contest!
England has benefited largely from these tales of the East. Amongst other boons from that land of imagination, we have the groundwork on which Shakspeare has founded his inimitable play of the Merchant of Venice.
The story of the Mahomedan and the Jew has been found in several books of Eastern Tales. In one Persian version love is made to mix with avarice in the breast of the Israelite, who had cast the eye of desire upon the wife of the Mahomedan, and expected, when he came to exact his bond, the lady would make any sacrifice to save her husband.
At the close of this tale, when the parties come before the judge, the Jew puts forth his claim to the forfeited security of a pound of flesh. "How answerest thou?" said the judge, turning to the Mahomedan. "It is so," replied the latter; "the money is due by me, but I am unable to pay it." "Then," continued the judge, "since thou hast failed in payment, thou must give the pledge; go, bring a sharp knife." When that was brought, the judge turned to the Jew, and said, "Arise, and separate one pound of flesh from his body, so that there be not a grain more or less; for if there is, the governor shall be informed, and thou shalt be put to death." "I cannot," said the Jew, "cut off one pound exactly; there will be a little more or less." But the judge persisted that it should be the precise weight. On this the Jew said he would give up his claim and depart. This was not allowed, and the Jew being compelled to take his bond with all its hazards, or pay a fine for a vexatious prosecution, he preferred the latter, and returned home a disappointed usurer.
Admitting that the inhabitants of Europe received these tales and apologues from the Saracens, the next question is, where did they get them? Mahomed and his immediate successors, while they proscribed all such false and wicked lies and inventions, accuse the Persians of being the possessors and propagators of those delusive tales, which were, according to them, preferred by many of their followers to the Koran. But in the course of time Caliphs became less rigid. The taste for poetry and fiction revived, and Persian stories and Arabian tales deluged the land.
For some centuries the above countries were the supposed sources of this branch of literature, but, since the sacred language of the Hindus has become more generally known, the Persians are discovered to have been not only the plunderers of their real goods and chattels, but also of their works of imagination. These we, in our ignorance, long believed to belong to the nations from whom we obtained them; but now that Orientalists abound, who are deeply read in Sanscrit, Pràcrit, Marhatta, Guzerattee, Canarese, Syamese, Chinese, Talingana, Tamil, and a hundred other languages, unknown to our ignorant ancestors, the said Persians and Arabians have been tried and convicted, not only of robbing the poor Hindus of their tales and fables, but of an attempt to disguise their plagiarisms, by the alteration of names, and by introducing, in place of the gods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon, the magi, and all the spirits of the Heaven and the Earth, which peculiarly belong to the followers of Zoroaster.
Nothing, however, can impose upon the present enlightened age, and our antiquaries have long been and are still occupied in detecting thefts committed twenty centuries ago. In spite of the Persian and Arabian cloaks in which tales and fables have been enveloped, the trace of their Hindu origin has been discovered in the various customs and usages referred to, and it has been decided that almost all the ancient tales are taken from the Hitôpadêsa, and that still more famous work, the Pancha-Tantra, or more properly the Panchôpâkhyân, or Five Tales; while many of the more modern are stolen from the Kathâ-Sarit-Sâgar, or Ocean of the Stream of Narration, a well-known work, which was compiled about the middle of the twelfth century by order of that equally well-known Prince Sree Hertha of Cashmere!