Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-11-13
The FABLES OF IHp1A.

The study of fables owes its new life to
India, from whence the various migrations
OF fables have been traced at various times
and through various channels from East to
West. Buddhism is not known to have bsen
the principal source of our legends and
PARALLELS. But here, too, many problems
still wait for their solution. Think, for
instance, OF the allusien to the fable of the
donkey in the lions skin, which occurs in
Piato's "Cratylus. Was that borrowed
from the East? Or take the fable Of the
weasel changed by Aphrodite into
woman, who, when she saw mouse,
could not refrain from making spring
at 1T. This, too, is very like Sans.
knit fable, but how, then, should it
have been brought into Greece early
enough to appear in one of the comedies
OF Strattis, about 400 B. c.. Here, too,
there is still plenty of work to do. We
may go back even further into antiquity,
and stili find strange condolences between
the legends of India and the legends of the
west, without az yet being able to say
how they travelled, whether from eaat to
west or from west to east. That at the
time of Solomon there was channel of
communication open between India and
Syria and Palestine is established beyond
doubt, believe, by certain Sanskrit words
which occur in the Bible as names of ar
ticles of export from Ophir, articles such
"a ivory, apes, peacocks and sandalwood,
which, taken together, could not have
been exported from any country but
India. Nor is there any reason to
suppose that the commercial inter
course between India, the Persian Call, !.
the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean wa1
ever completely interrupted, even at thd
time when the Book of Kings is supposed
to have been written. Now you remembeE
in the Book of Kings the Judgment Of Sd
ONION, which has always been admired az
proof of great legal wisdom among {
Jews. l must confess shat, not having
legal mind, l never could suppress csl.
tain shudder when reading the decision OF
Solomon" Divide the living child in two,
and gave half TO the one and half to the
other" Let me now tell you the same
story as it is told by the Buddhists. whose
sacred Canon is full of such legends and
parallels. In the Kanjur, which is the
Tibethan translation of the Buddhist
Tripitaka, we likewise read of two
women who claimed each to be the
mother ct the same child. The King,
after listening TO their quarrels Tor
long time, gave it up as hopeless to settle
who was the real mother. Upon this Wis.
akha stepped forward and said, "What is
the use Of examining and cross-examiaing
these women? Let them take the boy and
settle it among themselves. Thereupon
both women fell on the child, and when
sl.e fight became violent the child was hart
a,ld began to cry. Then one of them let
him go, because she could not bear to hear
tle child cry. That settled the question.
The King gave the child to the true
mother, and had the other beaten Nith
rod. This seems to me, if not the more
primitive, yet the more natural form Of the
story, showing deeper knowledge of hu-
raan nature and more wisdom than even
the wisdom of Solomon.-[Max Muller, in
Contemporary Review.