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night. Moreover we read that she kept up her story telling for six months, with 180 stories, though only a few are given by Devendra and a subcommentator by way of exainple. This suggests a connection with the same tradition which gave rise to the Thai reference to 360 or 4 X 90 stories. Evidently this narrative in the Jaipa commentaries was adapted from the original Tantropākhyāna. Devendra (12th century A.D.) took over his narratives from earlier Jaina commentaries, in which Kanakamañjari's story might be traced back at least to the 8th century and probably earlier. Here it is emboxed in the story of the fourth Praty e kabuddha, Nagnajit. Thus the criginal story can be seen to have been in existence early enough to have been translated into Pahlavi in the Sāsādian period, like the Pañcatantra.
The Sukasaptati on the other hand contains a version of the Fish Laugh story, the exposure of an unfaitbful and hypocritical queen, which further incorporates an episode of a minister's daughter, Bālapan ditā or Bälasa. rasvall, saving her father by telling stories to the king, here for the purpose of gaining time and meanwhile getting the king himself to help in the solution of the mystery. Ultimately he does this by agreeing to the release of another minister, Puspahāsa, Laughing Flowers, who knew the queen's secret bui had been unjustly imprisoned for failing to laugh at the right time (having been depressed over his wife's misconduct). In Puşpahāsa, Rajoa saw the original of Shahzemān (brother of Shahriyār, Sbirāzād's king) and further of Ariosto's Giocondo in Orlando Furioso Canto XXVIII. It is most rea arkable that Rajna should have connected the Fish Laugh story with Shirāzād without having any idea of its presence in the Tamil text of the Tantropākhyāna.
This Tamil version of the story comes after a jumble of fragments from the broken Prologue cor cerning Tanturu, which bave been inserted into the previous emboxed story (numbered II. 10 by Venkatasubbiab). The Fish Laugh story is then emboxed as II. 11, apparently with a gap at its beginning. A fisherman brought a female fish to the King of Avanti. The King asked him whether this fish thought about males, whereupon the fish laughed loudly and died. The King then gave his minister 8 days to fiod out why the fish laughed. Thinking this impo. ssible the minister abstained from food, but his son persuaded the King to spare his father, instead allowing the boy 15 days to find the explanation. The boy then left the country to avoid being put to death. Being clever, he obtained Madanamchini, the equally clever daughter of a merchant, as his wife, then returned home with her. The King summoned
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