________________
190
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1881.
souls, and all who are mere existing beings,- verily may all of them be happy, and all be free from illness ! May (the goddess) Tárå, --who is anxiously busied with her exercise of tender ness entailed by preserving (persons possessed of) souls who are distressed by the notorious
fear of water and kings and volumes of fire and wind; who takes away the dread of bold thieves and oceans and elephants and lions and snakes, &c.; and who quickly confers the rewards that are desired, -always preserve Samgama !"
A FOLKLORE PARALLEL.
BY PROF. C. H. TAWXEY, M.A., CALCUTTA. Professor Nilmani Mukhopadhyâya, M.A., of The lady immediately concluded that she the Presidency College, Calcutta, has, in a Sans- herself (Visha) was to be given to the handsome krit Chrestomathy, recently published by him, youth, and that her father had in his hurry given two tales from the Kathákosa, "a collection made a slight mistake in orthography. She of stories, written by Jaina authors in a propa- accordingly, by the help of some añjana, makes gandist spirit," the MS. of which was lent to the necessary correction and replaces the letter. him by Babu Umesa Chandra Gupta, the Samudradatta carries out his father's orders, Librarian of the Sanskrit College. One of and Sagarapota returns to Rajagriha to find the these tales, entitled by him in his translation hated Dámannaka' married to his daughter "A Story of Tenderness to Animals," contains Visha. a remarkable parallel to an incident in the In the Norse story Peter the Rich Pedlar story of “Rich Peter the Pedlar" in Dasent's corresponds to the merchant Sagarapota, and Norse Talus. The incident in the Jaina story Damannaka is represented by a miller's son. runs as follows:
Peter the Pedlar hears from “the Stargazers" A merchant named Sågarapota, of the town that this miller's son is to marry his daughter. of Rajagriha, hears it prophesied that a young He accordingly buys him from his parents, puts beggar, named Damaunaka, would inherit all his him in a box, and throws him into the river. property. Accordingly he makes Dâmannaka But the boy is found and adopted by a miller, over to a Chandala to be killed. The Chandala, who lives lower down the river. Peter finds instead of killing him, cuts off his little finger, this out from the Stargazers and procures the and Damannaka, having thus escaped death, is youth as his apprentice by giving the second adopted by Sagarapota's cowherd. In course miller six hundred dollars. of time the merchant Ságarapota comes to in- "Then the two travelled about far and wide, spect his farm, and recognizes Damannaka. with their packs and wares, till they came to In order to ensure his being put out of the way, an inn, which lay by the edge of a great wood. he sends him with a letter to his son Samudra- From this Peter the Pedlar sent the lad home datta. But when Damannaka reaches the out- with a letter to his wife, for the way was not so skirts of the town of Rajagriha, he feels fatigued long if you took the short cut across the wood, and falls asleep in a temple.
and told him to tell her she was to be sure to do Meanwhile the daughter of that very merchant, | what was written in the letter as quickly as she named Vishả, came to the temple to worship the could. But it was written in the letter that she divinity. “She beheld Damannaka with the was to have a great pile made then and there, fire large eyes and the broad chest." Her father's it, and cast the miller's son into it. If she didn't handwriting then caught her eye, and she do that, he'd burn her alive himself when he proceeded to read the letter. In it she found the came back. So the lad set off with the letter following distich:
across the wood, and when evening came on, Before this man has washed his feet, do thou he reached a house far, far away in the wood, with speed
into which he went; but inside he found no Give him poison (visham) and free my heart one. In one of the rooms was a bed ready from anxiety.
made, so he flung himself across it and fell » See Rep. Arch. Sur. W. India, vol. III, pp. 75, 76. Literature, with notes and an English translation.
15 i. e., the Setti Samgavayya of the body of the It is only fair to mention that Dimanaka we really inscription.
the son of a merchant who had died of the plague. sahityaparichaya, Part I, an Introduction to Sanskrit
