The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1882-12-15
The Fables Of India.

Max Muller, in The Contemporary
ReVieo, says; The study of fables owes
its new life TO India, from whence the
various migrations of fables have been
traced atvarious times and through vari-
Gus channels from east TO West. Budd-
hism is now known to have been the
principal source of our legends and
parallels. But here. too, many problems
still wait for their solution. Think, for
instance, OF the allusion to the fable Of
the donkey in the lions skin, which oc-
ours in PlatO's "Cratylus" Was that
borrowed from the east? Or take the fable
of the weasel changed by Aphrodite in
to a woman who, when she saw a
mouse, could not refrain from making
a spring at it. This, too, is very like
Sanskrit fable; but how, then, should it
have been brought into Greece early
enough to appear in one of the come
dies of Straits, about 400 b. C.P Here,
too, there is plenty to do We may 90
back even further into antiquity, and
still find strange condolences between
the legends Of India and the legends of
the west, without as yet being able to say
how they travelled, whether from east to
west or from west TO east That at the
time OF Solomon there was q 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 articles of export from
Ophir, articles such as ivory, apes, pea
cocks, and sandal-wood, which taken to-
gether, could not have been exported
from any country but India Nor is
there any reason to suppose that the
commercial intercourse between India,
the Persian gulf, the Red sea, and the
Mediterranean was ever completely in
terrupted, even at the time when the
Book Of Kings is supposed to have been
written. Now, you must remember in
the Book Of Kings the judgment of Sol
onion, which has always been admired
as proof of great legal wisdom among
the Jews, ! must confess that. not hav-
ing a legal mind, never could suppress
a certain shudder when reading the de-
cision Of solomon: divide the living
child in two, and give half to the one
and hall 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 transla-
ton OF the Buddhist Tripitaka we like
wise read of two women who claimed
each TO be the mother of the same child.
The king, after listening to their quar-
reIs for a long time, gave it up as hope
less to settle who was the real mother.
Upon this yisakha stepped forward and
said: What is the use OF examining
aud cross-examining these womenp Let
them take the boy and settle it among
themselves Thereupon both women
fell on the child, and when the fight
became violent the child was hurt and
began to cry. Then one of them let him
60, because she could not bear TO hear
the child cry. That settled the question.
The king gave the child to the true
mother and had the other beaten with a
rod. This seems to me, If not the more
primitive, yet the more natural form of
the story, showing deeper knowledge
OF human nature and more wisdom
than even the wisdom of solomon.