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86
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1882.
him. The king gave his daughter in marriage to In the Latin, and other versions derived from it, this prince. When the minister saw him coring the moralisations are applied to the Christian, to his house riding an elephant with the princess, but in the PAli text to the Buddhist devotee he was distracted, and went to the temple in haste, (Yogt). We cull a few examples from the Pali where he saw his son cut to pieces. He then cut version. his own throat. The son-in-law Ohandra- The ascetic, or meditative priest, is to observe hasya then went to the temple on hearing of and imitate the one special quality of the this horrible catastrophe. He saw there both his Asso (ghorassara, an epithet for gadrabha). This father-in-law and brother in-law lying dead. He animal has not much of a bed, but sleeps on a there pleased the goddess, restored both of them dust-heap, at the meeting of four roads, at the to life, and lived in peace ever after."
entrance of a village, on a heap of chaff. So the N. B. GODABOLE, ascetic is to be contented with scanty beddingSanskrit Teacher, Elphinstone High School, with a strip of skin spread wherever he intends to
Bombay. sleep, whether it be on a layer of grass or leaves,
or sticks, or on the ground. AN ORIBNTAL BESTIARY.
The SQUIRREL (p. 868) has one quality to be In the Middle Ages we meet with curious noted and imitated. When it is attacked by a moralisations on animals. The Exeter-book (a foe it vzes its tail as a cudgel, and with lusty collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry, edited by B. blows puts the enemy to flight. So the Yogi, when Thorpe, 1842) contains two specimens of ancient he is attacked by his spiritual enemies (i.c., the evil liber phisiologue, one on the panther, and the passions), should put them to fight with the staff other on the whale (pp. 355-60).
of " earnest meditation." Mr. Thomas Wright published a French trans- The WHITE ANT (p. 992) has one noteworthy lation, by Philippe de Thaun, of the Latin Bestiary quality. Out of a leaf it makes itself a covering of Thetbaldus in Popular Treatises on Science to go all over it, wherein it envelope itself; and, (London, 1841) ; and the present writer, in An Old thus sheltered, goes about seeking for food. English Miscellany (Early-English Text Society), Even so should the contemplative mendicant go edited an Early English version (pp. 1-28), together on his begging rounds, with the restraint of moral with the Latin original by Thetbaldus (pp. 210-60). conduct as a covering (sflasanvara-chhadanan),
In the introduction to Popular Treatisos Mr. without fear, and unpolluted by the world. Wright called attention to the curious Oriental | The SCORPION (p. 394) has one quality that tales that often accompanied these "moralisa- should be imitated. It carries its weapon, or tions," but offered no opinion as to the probable sting, in its tail, and goes about with tail uplifted. or possible source of the stories. It is not at So the "religious" should possess the sword of all improbable that the "moralisations," like knowledge, and in his life should prominently the fable, may be traced back, through some display it. Thus living, he is freed from all fear, source or other, to India. In the Milinda-panha and invincible :- work which the editor thinks was translated "Nanakhaggam gahetodna viharanto vipassako from Sanskrit-there is a curious series of | Parimuchchati sabbabhayd, duppasaho cha 80 similes, metaphors, and "moralisations" on bhave ti." animate and inanimate objects, not imlike those The Hot (p. 397) has two qualities to be noted. we find in our western Bestiaries. They are (1) In the hot and scorching time of summer he contained in the Issatthassa-panha' section (pp. betakes himself to a pond. Just so should the 363-419 of the PAltext; pp. 536-624 of the Yogt, when his mind is scorehed, inflamed, and Siwhalese translation, ed. 1878), the matika, or troubled by the evil feelings of anger or hatred, index, to which contains many more subjects have recourse to the cool, ambrosial, and pleasant for moralisation than are noticed in the text. exercise of universal kindliness (mettabhdvand). The PAli collection, however, is much more ex- (2) The hog, having gone to a marsh or swamp, tensive than our Western ones. The beginnings makes a trough in the earth by digging away of some of the sentences in the P&li remind us of with his enout, and lies therein. So the contemsimilar ones in the Early English Bestiary. plative priest, burying his body in the trough of Thus, "the hert haveth kindes two" (1. 307), the mind, should be plunged in profound medimay be compared with "migassa thai angdni tation (drammanantare). gahetabbani," the term angam corresponding to The Owl's (p. 403) two qualities are a pattern for the Old English kinde (or lage), Latin natura. the ascetic. (1) This creature is hostile to the The Academy, Dec. 24, 1881.
corresponds to Sanskrit ishvastra. Insattho, not in Childers, means an "archer," and Milinda-partha, p. 865.
