The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-06 00:00:00

THE MIGRATION OF FABLES.

The eminent Professor Max Muller delivered a high-
class lecture on Friday evening at the Royal Institution
on " The Migration of Fables "—tracing the history of
some examples of this class of literature until they were
lost in the mists of antiquity, The Dean of Westminster
was amongst the numerous audience which warmly ap-

Lauded this fine lecture. The Profess* commenced his
fine discourse with the familiar adage, " Count not your
chickens before they are hatched," and expressed his be-
lief that most hearers, if asked for its origin, would, with-
out hesitation, refer it to Lafontaine, and to his milkmaid,
Perrette. But about the year 550 of the Christian era, it
was told to Khosru Nushirvan, King of Persia, that there
existed in India books of great worth and wisdom, capable
of instaucting mankind in matters important to their
welfare. The King desired that his own subjects should
share in the benefits to be obtained from these books
and he instructed his Vizier to employ a proper person
to obtain and translate them. The royal physician,
Barzilyeh, was selected for the work, and succeeded in
accomplishing it. Barztlyeh refused all reward beyond a
dress of honour, but stipulated that a notice of his
own life and opinions, probably written by himself,
should be appended to the work. Of this notice Professsor
Max Miller said that it was a Religio Medici of the
sixth century, and that it exhibited the thoughts of a
man who turned away from formalities in search of truth
and who, like many such seekers before and since, found
his best refuge from the uncertainties of life in his en-
deavours to alleviate the sufferings of his fellow men.
Among the Indian writings thus translated was a collec-
tion of fables known as the Panka Tantra, or
five books ; and they were rendered into Peh-
levi, the ancient language of Persia. The original
version by Barzayeh is lost, but between the years 754 and
775 it was translated from Pehlevi into Arabic by Abdallah
iba Almokaffa, who held high office at the Court of Alinan-
sur, Khaliff of Bagdad, the contemporary of Justinian
This second rendering of the Panka Tantra has been pre-
served, and an edition of it was published by de Sacy in
1816. It contains, among other fables, the story of a
Brahmin, who collected rice by begging, and put the sur-
plus into a pot, which he suspended over his couch. It
occurred to him that there might be a famine, in which case
he would sell his rice for a hundred rupees, and would buy
two goats. The goats would multiply and become a herd
and he would sell them and buy cows. The cows would
calve, and increase in value, and he would then buy buf-
faloes and cultivate land. With the produce he would
buy mares, and would sell their foals for gold, with which
he would buy a fine house. Then a Brahmin would bring
him his daughter in marriage, with a rich dowry, and they
would have a son, who would be called Somo-Sala, and
end should run to sit upon his father's kneee. The child
should so run when his father was sitting reading, and
would be in danger of being kicked by one of the mares.
The father would call out to his wife Take the baby !
Take the baby 1" but she, intent on household cares, would
neglect the call. Then her enraged husband would spring
up and give her a violent kick, and the Brahmin kicked
out so vigorously that he kicked his pot and broke it,
and the rice ran out and made him white all over, so that
people said of those who formed foolish plans that they
should be made white, like the father of Somo Sala. The
Professor then began to trace this fable in its course
towards modern times, and gave an account of some of
the modifieations that it had undergone. In one of
these the dreamer was a holy man who had collected
butter and honey, and the immediate cause of the final
catastrophe, the breakage of the jar, so that the butter and
honey ran down upon his beard, was the flourish given
to his stick as an expression of his determination to chas-
tise the son who was to crown his prosperity, if that son
proved a negligent or backward student, and failed to
profit by the masters that would be obtained for him. The
version of Abdallah iba Almokaffa was itself translated
into Greek by Symon Seth, and from his Greek into
Italian and Latin. It was also translated, directly or
indirectly, into -Hebrew, Latin, German, Spanish,
French, and English, but the version from which
Lafontaine appears to have taken some of his stories
came through two successive Persian translations,
of which the second, a modernized one, was long
a Haileybury textbook, and which appeared in French
as the fables of the Indian sage Pilpay. Lafontaine
did not obtain Perrette from this source, as the
original fable was not included in the collection, and
Professor Max Muller briefly traced the translations of
the story of the Castle Builder, and shewed when the
milkmaid was introduced as the heroine. Leaving
this part of the subject, and after some remarks on the
vitality and the widely-spread influence of Eastern
fable, the Professor spoke of one Sergius, a Christian, who
held a position of trust under Almansur, and whose son,
under the name of Johannes Damascenus, because a famous
theologian and controversial writer. Among other works,
he 'wrote a treatise on Christian morals, in the form of a
kind of religious novel, the history of Balaam and Josa-
phat. The latter was a young Prince, of whom it had
been predicted that he would embrace Christianity,
and become a devotee. His father endeavoured to
seclude him from all knowledge of human misery or
evil, and to attach him entirely to the pursuit of
pleasure. But at length the young Prince took three
drives, and saw old age, sickness, and death. He became
a hermit, and had been accepted as an actual person by
both the Eastern and Western Churches, and was cano
nised by both. In the Greek Church the festival of St.
Josaphat is celebrated on the 16th of August ; in the
Church of Rome on the 27th of November. But the
Professor pointed out how certainly the son of a great
officer at the Court of Almansur would be acpainted
with the Indian literature that Abdallah iba Al-
mokaffa had translated from Pehlevi into Arabic ; and
then went on to shew that the history of Josaphat was
simply the history of Buddha, as given in the sacred books
of the Buddhist religion. He said it was strange, indeed,
if the founder of Buddhism—a religion that had endured
for 2,400 years, that even now numbered 455,000,000 adhe-
rents, and that taught a morality second only to that
of Christianity—had received the highest honour that
the Church of Rome could bestow ; and added that no
member of that Church who read the life of Buddha need
feel ashamed that this heathen saint had, been added to
the calendar

From a parliamentary return published this morn-
ing, we learn that from P 364 sums amounting to £206,589,
the property of deceased or discharged soldiers, has come
into the hands of the War Department. Of this, £181,029
have been paid to the soldiers' families' leaving a balance;
of £23,560. In 1869 the figures' were i Receipts, R 32,421 ;
disbursemento, 47;416; balance, £5,006.