l02 Analytical Account of the Pamlia Tantra. 



inercliant incurs the displeasure of tlie sweeper of the palace ; who in re- 

 venge, mutters insinuations against his character, for the king to overhear. 

 When questioned farther, he pretends not to know what he has uttered, and 

 to have talked in his sleep : the insinuations, however, produce their effect. 

 When the merchant has discovered the cause of his disgrace, and reconciled 

 the menial Gorabha, the latter takes an opportunity of venting an insinua- 

 tion against the king himself, so wholly absurd, that the prince is convinced, 

 his servant prattles unmeaningly, and he acknowledges the merchant's inno- 

 cence. The object of this story is to shew, tliat the meanest individuals, about 

 the person of a prince, are not to be offended with impunity. 



The story of " the goblin, Ghanlakarna," is peculiar to the HMpadesa. 

 That of " Kandarpaketu," agrees in the general course, although not in the 

 first part, with the adventures of "Dcva Sanna," in the Pancha Tantra, which 

 latter is precisely followed in the story of the Nasika, or religious man, in the 

 Kalila Damana ; and Tahid, in the Anvari Soheili. One of the incidents of 

 this story has attracted extraordinary admiration, if we may judge by the 

 endlessly varied copies, and modifications of it, which have appeared in the 

 East, and in the AVest: the loss of her nose by ihe confidante, and its 

 supposed recovery by the intriguante, for whom she had been substituted, 

 affording a miraculous proof of tiie wife's innocence, imposing upon her 

 husband, has been retold in a vast number of ways. It is repeated, with 

 different degrees of modification, in the " Roman and Turkish Tales," in 

 the " Decameron of Boccacio," " The Novelk of Malespini," " The Cent 

 Nouvelks," " The Cheveiur Coi/pt's," a fablieau, by Guerin, in the " Contes of 

 La Fontaine," in the " Women pleased, of Beaumont and Fletcher," and in 

 " The Guardian of Massinger." The story itself, as told in the Hilopadeso, 

 has been versified by Hoppner ; and, as narrated in the Anvari Soheili, it 

 has been rendered into English verse, by Atkinson. 



The next story, in the Puncliu Tantra, is omitted in all the works, derived 

 from this original. It is, however, a well known story, being the same as 

 Malak and Shirin in the Persian Tales, and the Labourer and Flying Car in 

 the additional stories from the Arabian Nights. It is also narrated, with 

 some variation, in the Vrihat Kathd. The Muhammedan contrivance of a 

 box, and the personification of Muhammed, are rather clumsy substitutes 

 for the fiction of the original, in which the adventurer, in love with a 

 princess, personates Vishnu, and rides on a wooden representation of Garuda 



