पृष्ठम्:Sanskrit Literature.djvu/३९३

OTHER CASES OF CONTACT BETWEEN EAST AND WEST 361 have usually Indian parallels ; that of the ichneumon is taken from the Pancatantra, and the others are often specimens of women's tricks to cover their infidelities, which are common in India, forming as it were a supplement of the Pancatantra. The Greek Syntipas contains various'passages which can only be read successfully by recognizing that they are merely corruptions of a Sanskrit original, and everything supports the conclusion that we have here another case of an Arabic original rendered from a Pahlavi translation of a Sanskrit text. It is natural to extend the doctrine and to find the original of the Arabian Thousand and One Nights in India, 1 and something substantial has been done in this direction by proving that the prologue and setting of the tales are a contamination of motifs which are quite well known in India. Thus we have the Jain legend of Kanakamanjari, who retains for six months the un- divided love of the king by the device of beginning a tale each night but not finishing it. Again, we have in a Chinese render- ing of a Buddhist tale (a.d. 251), in the Kathasaritsagara, and in Hemacandra, variations of the theme of the man who is utterly depressed by finding out that his wife is unfaithful, but recovers happiness because he discovers that the king himself is equally being made a mock of. The further adventure of Shahriar and Shahzeman has a parallel in the K athasaritsagara. There are other traces of Indian influence in the tales, and it is clear that it is impossible to ascribe them to borrowing from Persia ; trans- lations from Persian into Sanskrit are normally late, as in Crlvara's Kathakautuka 2 written on the theme of Yusuf and Zuleikha under Zainu-l-'Abidln in the fifteenth century. The only matter that can be in doubt is the extent of the influence ; certainly there is nothing in this case to prove the taking over of a whole cycle of stories from an Indian work, now lost. In Europe, apart from the translations enumerated, traces of real Indian origin are hard to prove. 3 A Carolingian poem of the 1 Cosquin, op. cit., pp. 365 ff. ; Przyluski, JA. ccv. 101 ff., who finds in the Svayarhvara of India a relic of the Austroasiatic festival dance at which young people were mated. Cf. Macdonald, JRAS. 1924, pp. 353 ff. a Ed. and trans. R. Schmidt (Kiel, 1898). 3 Giinter, Buddha, pp. 99 ff. The famous tale of the poison maiden in Indian literature and in the west — told of Aristotle and Alexander in the Secretum Secretcrum (cf. Hawthorne, Rappaccin? s Daughter), is discussed by Penzer, Ocean of Story, ii. 31 1 ff.