Indian Fairy Tales (24 page)

Major Temple has not alone himself collected: he has been the cause
that many others have collected. In the pages of the
Indian
Antiquary
, edited by him, there have appeared from time to time
folk-tales collected from all parts of India. Some of these have been
issued separately. Sets of tales from Southern India, collected by the
Pandit Natesa Sastri, have been issued under the title
Folk-Lore of
Southern India
, three fascicules of which have been recently re-
issued by Mrs. Kingscote under the title,
Tales of the Sun
(W.
H. Allen, 1891): it would have been well if the identity of the two
works had been clearly explained. The largest addition to our knowledge
of the Indian folk-tale that has been made since
Wideawake
Stories
is that contained in Mr. Knowles'
Folk-Tales of
Kashmir
(Trübner's Oriental Library, 1887), sixty-three stories,
some of great length. These, with Mr. Campbell's
Santal Tales
(1892); Ramaswami Raju's
Indian Fables
(London, Sonnenschein,
n. d.); M. Thornhill,
Indian Fairy Tales
(London, 1889); and E.
J. Robinson,
Tales of S. India
(1885), together with those
contained in books of travel like Thornton's
Bannu
or Smeaton's
Karens of Burmah
bring up the list of printed Indian folk-tales
to over 350—a respectable total indeed, but a mere drop in the
ocean of the stream of stories that must exist in such a huge
population as that of India: the Central Provinces in particular are
practically unexplored. There are doubtless many collections still
unpublished. Col. Lewin has large numbers, besides the few published in
his
Lushai Grammar
; and Mr. M. L. Dames has a number of Baluchi
tales which I have been privileged to use. Altogether, India now ranks
among the best represented countries for printed folk-tales, coming
only after Russia (1500), Germany (1200), Italy and France (1000 each.)
[3]
Counting the
ancient with the modern, India has probably some 600 to 700 folk-tales
printed and translated in accessible form. There should be enough
material to determine the vexed question of the relations between the
European and the Indian collections.

This question has taken a new departure with the researches of M.
Emanuel Cosquin in his
Contes populaires de Lorraine
(Paris,
1886, 2° tirage, 1890), undoubtedly the most important contribution
to the scientific study of the folk-tale since the Grimms. M. Cosquin
gives in the annotations to the eighty-four tales which he has
collected in Lorraine a mass of information as to the various forms
which the tales take in other countries of Europe and in the East. In
my opinion, the work he has done for the European folk-tale is even
more valuable than the conclusions he draws from it as to the relations
with India. He has taken up the work which Wilhelm Grimm dropped in
1859, and shown from the huge accumulations of folk-tales that have
appeared during the last thirty years that there is a common fund of
folk-tales which every country of Europe without exception possesses,
though this does not of course preclude them from possessing others
that are not shared by the rest. M. Cosquin further contends that the
whole of these have come from the East, ultimately from India, not by
literary transmission, as Benfey contended, but by oral transmission.
He has certainly shown that very many of the most striking incidents
common to European folk-tales are also to be found in Eastern
mährchen
. What, however, he has failed to show is that some of
these may not have been carried out to the Eastern world by Europeans.
Borrowing tales is a mutual process, and when Indian meets European,
European meets Indian; which borrowed from which, is a question which
we have very few criteria to decide. It should be added that Mr W. A.
Clouston has in England collected with exemplary industry a large
number of parallels between Indian and European folk-tale incidents in
his
Popular Tales and Fictions
(Edinburgh, 2 vols., 1887) and
Book of Noodles
(London, 1888). Mr Clouston has not openly
expressed his conviction that all folk-tales are Indian in origin: he
prefers to convince us
non vi sed saepe cadendo
. He has certainly
made out a good case for tracing all European drolls, or comic folk-
tales, from the East.

With the fairy tale strictly so called—
i.e.
, the serious folk-
tale of romantic adventure—I am more doubtful. It is mainly a modern
product in India as in Europe, so far as literary evidence goes. The
vast bulk of the Jatakas does not contain a single example worthy the
name, nor does the Bidpai literature. Some of Somadeva's tales,
however, approach the nature of fairy tales, but there are several
Celtic tales which can be traced to an earlier date than his (1200
A.D.) and are equally near to fairy tales. Yet it is dangerous to trust
to mere non-appearance in literature as proof of non-existence among
the folk. To take our own tales here in England, there is not a single
instance of a reference to
Jack and the Beanstalk
for the last
three hundred years, yet it is undoubtedly a true folk-tale. And it is
indeed remarkable how many of the
formulae
of fairy tales have
been found of recent years in India. Thus, the
Magic Fiddle
,
found among the Santals by Mr. Campbell in two variants (see Notes on
vi.), contains the germ idea of the wide-spread story represented in
Great Britain by the ballad of
Binnorie
(see
English Fairy
Tales
, No. ix.). Similarly, Mr. Knowles' collection has added
considerably to the number of Indian variants of European "formulae"
beyond those noted by M. Cosquin.

It is still more striking as regards
incidents
. In a paper read
before the Folk-Lore Congress of 1891, and reprinted in the
Transactions
, pp. 76
seq.
, I have drawn up a list of some
630 incidents found in common among European folk-tales (including
drolls). Of these, I reckon that about 250 have been already found
among Indian folk-tales, and the number is increased by each new
collection that is made or printed. The moral of this is, that India
belongs to a group of peoples who have a common store of stories; India
belongs to Europe for purposes of comparative folk-tales.

Can we go further and say that India is the source of all the incidents
that are held in common by European children? I think we may answer
"Yes" as regards droll incidents, the travels of many of which we can
trace, and we have the curious result that European children owe their
earliest laughter to Hindu wags. As regards the serious incidents
further inquiry is needed. Thus, we find the incident of an "external
soul" (Life Index, Captain Temple very appropriately named it) in
Asbjörnsen's
Norse Tales
and in Miss Frere's
Old Deccan
Days
(see Notes on
Punchkin
). Yet the latter is a very
suspicious source, since Miss Frere derived her tales from a Christian
ayah
whose family had been in Portuguese Goa for a hundred
years. May they not have got the story of the giant with his soul
outside his body from some European sailor touching at Goa? This is to
a certain extent negatived by the fact of the frequent occurrence of
the incident in Indian folk-tales (Captain Temple gave a large number
of instances in
Wideawake Stories
, pp. 404-5). On the other
hand, Mr. Frazer in his
Golden Bough
has shown the wide spread
of the idea among all savage or semi-savage tribes. (See Note on No.
iv.)

In this particular case we may be doubtful; but in others, again—as
the incident of the rat's tail up nose (see Notes on
The Charmed
Ring
)—there can be little doubt of the Indian origin. And
generally, so far as the incidents are marvellous and of true fairy-
tale character, the presumption is in favour of India, because of the
vitality of animism or metempsychosis in India throughout all historic
time. No Hindu would doubt the fact of animals speaking or of men
transformed into plants and animals. The European may once have had
these beliefs, and may still hold them implicitly as "survivals"; but
in the "survival" stage they cannot afford material for artistic
creation, and the fact that the higher minds of Europe for the last
thousand years have discountenanced these beliefs has not been entirely
without influence. Of one thing there is practical certainty: the fairy
tales that are common to the Indo-European world were invented once for
all in a certain locality; and thence spread to all the countries in
culture contact with the original source. The mere fact that contiguous
countries have more similarities in their story store than distant ones
is sufficient to prove this: indeed, the fact that any single country
has spread throughout it a definite set of folk-tales as distinctive as
its flora and fauna, is sufficient to prove it. It is equally certain
that not all folk-tales have come from one source, for each country has
tales peculiar to itself. The question is as to the source of the tales
that are common to all European children, and increasing evidence seems
to show that this common nucleus is derived from India and India alone.
The Hindus have been more successful than others, because of two facts:
they have had the appropriate "atmosphere" of metempsychosis, and they
have also had spread among the people sufficient literary training and
mental grip to invent plots. The Hindu tales have ousted the native
European, which undoubtedly existed independently; indeed, many still
survive, especially in Celtic lands. Exactly in the same way,
Perrault's tales have ousted the older English folk-tales, and it is
with the utmost difficulty that one can get true English fairy tales
because
Red Riding Hood
,
Cinderella
,
Blue Beard
,
Puss in
Boots
and the rest, have survived in the struggle for existence
among English folk-tales. So far as Europe has a common store of fairy
tales, it owes this to India.

I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not hold with Benfey that all
European folk-tales are derived from the Bidpai literature and similar
literary products, nor with M. Cosquin that they are all derived from
India. The latter scholar has proved that there is a nucleus of stories
in every European land which is common to all. I calculate that this
includes from 30 to 50 per cent. of the whole, and it is this common
stock of Europe that I regard as coming from India mainly at the time
of the Crusades, and chiefly by oral transmission. It includes all the
beast tales and most of the drolls, but evidence is still lacking about
the more serious fairy tales, though it is increasing with every fresh
collection of folk-tales in India, the great importance of which is
obvious from the above considerations.

In the following Notes I give, as on the two previous occasions, the
source
whence I derived the tale, then
parallels
, and finally
remarks
. For Indian
parallels
I have been able to refer to
Major Temple's remarkable Analysis of Indian Folk-tale incidents at the
end of
Wide-awake Stories
(pp. 386-436), for European ones to
my alphabetical List of Incidents, with bibliographical references, in
Transactions of Folk-Lore Congress
, 1892, pp. 87-98. My
remarks
have been mainly devoted to tracing the relation between the Indian
and the European tales, with the object of showing that the latter
have been derived from the former. I have, however, to some extent
handicapped myself, as I have avoided giving again the Indian versions
of stories already given in
English Fairy Tales
or
Celtic Fairy Tales
.

I. THE LION AND THE CRANE.

Source
.—V. Fausböll,
Five Jatakas
; Copenhagen, 1861, pp.
35-8, text and translation of the
Javasakuna Jataka
. I have
ventured to English Prof. Fausböll's version, which was only intended as
a "crib" to the Pali. For the omitted Introduction, see
supra
.

Parallels
.—I have given a rather full collection of parallels,
running to about a hundred numbers, in my
Aesop
, pp. 232-4. The
chief of these are: (i) for the East, the Midrashic version ("Lion and
Egyptian Partridge"), in the great Rabbinic commentary on Genesis
(
Bereshith-rabba
, c. 64); (2) in classical antiquity, Phaedrus,
i. 8 ("Wolf and Crane"), and Babrius, 94 ("Wolf and Heron"), and the
Greek proverb Suidas, ii. 248 ("Out of the Wolf's Mouth"); (3) in the
Middle Ages, the so-called Greek Aesop, ed. Halm, 276
b
, really
prose versions of Babrius and "Romulus," or prose of Phaedrus, i. 8,
also the Romulus of Ademar (fl. 1030), 64; it occurs also on the Bayeux
Tapestry, in Marie de France, 7, and in Benedict of Oxford's
Mishle
Shualim
(Heb.), 8; (4) Stainhöwel took it from the "Romulus" into
his German Aesop (1480), whence all the modern European Aesops are
derived.

Remarks
.—I have selected
The Wolf and the Crane
as my
typical example in my "History of the Aesopic Fable," and can only give
here a rough summary of the results I there arrived at concerning the
fable, merely premising that these results are at present no more than
hypotheses. The similarity of the Jataka form with that familiar to us,
and derived by us in the last resort from Phaedrus, is so striking that
few will deny some historical relation between them. I conjecture that
the Fable originated in India, and came West by two different routes.
First, it came by oral tradition to Egypt, as one of the Libyan Fables
which the ancients themselves distinguished from the Aesopic Fables. It
was, however, included by Demetrius Phalereus, tyrant of Athens, and
founder of the Alexandrian library c. 300 B.C., in his
Assemblies of
Aesopic Fables
, which I have shown to be the source of Phaedrus'
Fables c. 30 A.D. Besides this, it came from Ceylon in the Fables of
Kybises—i.e., Kasyapa the Buddha—c. 50 A.D., was adapted into Hebrew,
and used for political purposes, by Rabbi Joshua ben Chananyah in a
harangue to the Jews c. 120 A.D., begging them to be patient while
within the jaws of Rome. The Hebrew form uses the lion, not the wolf,
as the ingrate, which enables us to decide on the Indian
provenance
of the Midrashic version. It may be remarked that the use of the lion
in this and other Jatakas is indirectly a testimony to their great age,
as the lion has become rarer and rarer in India during historic times,
and is now confined to the Gir forest of Kathiáwar, where only a dozen
specimens exist, and are strictly preserved.