17 



^aiva tales, as was to be expected from ihe supposed first narra- 

 tor being no other than the Supreme God giva himself" \ Next 

 to legends of the Buddhists even mythological narrations from 

 the Vedic age are to be found in this work, smaller collections 

 being incorporated into it 2. Among the great number of interesting 

 legends, contained in the Kathasaritsagara, translated by Tawney 

 (1880 — 188i), there are several in which the Nagas play a more 

 or less important part. 



The first thing which strikes us is the total absence of passages 

 devoted to their capacity of giving rain. Combining this with 

 the same observation made above with regard to the jatakas 

 of Cowell's edition, we feel inclined to believe that this part of 

 the Nagas' nature has been particularly developed by the Northern 

 Buddhists, The original conceptions regarding these semidivine 

 serpents, living in the water or under ihe earth, seem to have 

 attributed to them the power of raising clouds and thunder, and 

 of appearing as clouds themselves, but not as rain giving beings. 

 It is, of course, a very obvious conclusion that cloud gods pro- 

 duce rain, but it. seems that this idea, which made them the 

 benefactors of mankind, first rose in the minds of the adherents 

 of the Mahayana school. According to the original ideas, on the 

 contrary, they seem to have only given vent to their anger in 

 terrifying mankind by means of dense clouds, thunder and earth- 

 quakes. Highly interesting in this respect is the following story, 

 to be found in the Kathasaritsagara ^ 



In the Vindhya forest in the northern quarter there was a 

 solitary aQoka tree, and under it, in a lake, stood the great 

 palace of a mighty Naga king, Paravataksha by name, who obtained 

 a matchless sword from the war of the gods and the Asuras. 

 In order to get this sword an ascetic, assisted by a prince and 

 his followers, threw enchanted mustard-seed upon the water, 

 thus clearing it from the dust which concealed it, and began to 

 offer an oblation with snake-subduing spells. "And he conquered 

 by the power' of his spells the impediments, such as earthquakes, 

 clouds, and so on. Then there came out from that acjoka tree a 

 heavenly nymph, as it were, murmuring spells with the tinkling 

 of her jewelled ornaments, and approaching the ascetic she pierced 

 his soul with a sidelong glance of love. And then the ascetic 

 lost his self-comraand and forgot his spells; and the shapely fair 

 one, embracing him, flung from his hand the vessel of oblation. 



1 Ibidem. 2 Ibidem. 



3 Ch. LXX, Vol. II, p. 149 sq. 

 Verb. Kon. Akad. v. Wetenseh. (Afd. letterk.) N. R. Dl XIII, N° 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



