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Prakrit and Apabhramsa Studies:
demanding fee from a merchant's son for dream enjoyment occurs in the Punyavanta-jātaka which is given in the Mahāvastu (ed. Senart, 1897, third part, p. 33-41). That story occurs elsewhere also in Buddhist and later non-Buddhist literatures. In the Jātaka version the courtesan's claim is more plausible in that is was made on the basis of the dream of the merchant's son and not of the courtesan herself. The dispute is resolved by a similar stratagem15.
• The motif of accusation of theft due to a stolen costly article found in possession of the innocent hero (Sūdravatsa accused of theft of the jewelled bodice), is found in the story of Śrīdatta and Mrgānkavati in the eighth taranga of the Kathāsaritsägara, wherein Sridatta has to face execution for possessing a stolen necklace which he had found tied at the end of an upper garment he accidently got from a lake, where it was thrown by some thieves.
The episode of undertaking to burn a dead hody and a witch caught while she was deceitfully gobbling lumps of flesh torn from a hanging man occurs in the interesting tale of Bhāvațţikā, in the emboxed story of Amaradatta and Mitrānanda that was narrated by Bhāvattikā in the third watch of the night16.
Corresponding to the four incidents that occur during the four watehes of the night to each of the four friends keeping a guard on the dead body in the SVP narrative, we have in the story of Amaradatta and Mitrānanda four fabricated episodes connected with the four watches of the night (attack from a hoard of jackals, from a band of Piśācas, from a group of Dākinis and from the goddess of pestilence, narrated by Mitrānanda. The last of these latter episodes presents a close parallel to the incident of the fourth watch in SVP)17.
The earliest known version of that motif is found in the story of Nitambavati occurring in the sixth Ucchvāsa of Dandin's Dašakumāracarita. We get another version in the first tale of the Vetālapañcavimśati included in the Kashmirian version of thə BThai kathā and existing also as an independent collection in Sans
