This well-told story is peculiarly interesting as being one of those Indian stories which have reached Europe independently of both the ‘Kalilag and Dimnag’ and the ‘Barlaam and Josaphat’ literature. Professor Benfey (pp. 228-229 of his Introduction to the Pañca Tantra) has traced stories somewhat analogous throughout European literature; but our story itself is, he says, found almost word for word in an unpublished Hebrew book by Berachia ben Natronai, only that two donkeys take the place of the two oxen. Berachia lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century, in Provence.
One of the analogous stories is where a falcon complains to a cock, that, while he (the falcon) is so grateful to men for the little they give him that he comes and hunts for them at their beck and call, the cock, though fed up to his eyes, tries to escape when they catch him. “Ah!” replies the cock, “I never yet saw a falcon brought to table, or frying in a pan!” (Anvar i Suhaili, p. 144; Livre des Lumières, p. 112; Cabinet des Fées, xvii. 277; Bidpai et Lokman, ii. 59; La Fontaine, viii. 21). Among the so-called Æsop’s Fables is also one where a calf laughs at a draught ox for bearing his drudgery so patiently. The ox says nothing. Soon after there is a feast, and the ox gets a holiday, while the calf is led off to the sacrifice (James’s Æsop, No. 150).
Jātaka No. 286 is the same story in almost the same words, save (1) that the pig’s name is there Sālūha, which means the edible root of the water-lily, and might be freely rendered ‘Turnips’; and (2) that there are three verses instead of one. As special stress is there laid on the fact that ‘Turnips’ was allowed to lie on the heṭṭhā-mañca, which I have above translated ‘sty,’ it is possible that the word means the platform or seat in front of the hut, and under the shade of the overhanging eaves,—a favourite resort of the people of the house.
[318] The following tale is told, with some variations, in the course of the commentary on verse 30 of the Dhammapada (pp. 186 and foll.); but the Introductory Story is there different.
[319] The commentator on the “Scripture Verses” adds an interesting point—that there was an inscription on the pinnacle, and that the Bodisat put up a stone seat under a tree outside, that all who went in might read the letters, and say, “This hall is called the Hall of Piety.”
[320] The “Scripture Verses” commentator (p. 189) avoids the curious abruptness of this rather unkind remark by adding that the reason for this was that Well-born’s being the Bodisat’s niece and servant, she thought she would share in the merit of his part in the work.
[321] Vejayanta. Compare what is said above, p. 97, of Māra’s vāhana, Giri-mekhala.
[322] That is, his own angels and those of the archangel Brahma.
[323] In this story we have a good example of the way in which the current legends, when adopted by the Buddhists, were often so modified as to teach lessons of an effect exactly contrary to those they had taught before. It is with a touch of irony that Sakka is made to conquer the Titans, not by might, but through his kindness to animals.
[324] See above, p. 178.