Hikayat Abu Nawas. 
By R. 0. Winstedt, D. Litt., (Oxox.) 
In Journal No. 81, pp. 15-21 I gave an outline of the two 
Malay recensions of the Hikayat Abu Nawas. In the present paper 
I propose to give further parallels for some of the tales in the 
second version, my references being to pages in the former Journal. 
(a) “ p. 18, Tale IV. Harun A’r-Rashid orders Abu Nawas 
to tell him the number of the stars of heaven and to 
determine the centre of the world.” 
This story with the same solution to the two pro- 
blems occurs in Sinhalese folk-lore (Parker’s “ Village 
Folk-Tales of Ceylon,” vol. I. p. 152) : — 
“ The king asked, ‘ Dost thou know the centre of 
the country and the number of the stars?’ 
The youth fixed a stick in the ground, and showed 
it. ‘ Behold ! Here is the centre of one’s country. 
Measure from the four quarters, and after you have 
looked at the account if it should not be correct, be 
good enough to behead me.’ The king lost over that. 
Then he told him to say the number of the stars 
in the sky. Throwing down on the ground the goat- 
skin that he was wearing, ‘ Count these hairs and count 
the stars in the sky. Should they not be equal, be good 
enough to behead me.’ The king lost over that also.” 
The two stories are identical. Parker adds variant 
versions, one collected in Colombo, one in Cairo. 
(b) p. 20, Tale XIV. The episode of a clever brother taking 
service under a cruel master, who has mutilated a 
foolish brother by cutting off his nose, a hand or an 
ear or pludking out an eye, and then retaliating on the 
master in kind is a common plot in Indian stories e.g. 
“ Folktales of the Santal Parganas” (Bodding) pp. 124 
and 258 and 497; “Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles) 
2nd ed., p. 98 ; “ Indian Nights’ Entertainments ” 
(Swynnerton) p. 106; “The Orientalist,” vol. I, p. 131. 
(c) p. 21, Tale XXII. In “The Indian Antiquary” vol. I, 
p. 345, in a Bengal story, a shepherd discriminates a 
demon from a man whose form he has taken, — living 
with his wife during the man’s absence, — -by boring 
through a reed and saying that the true person must be 
one who could pass through it. In the South-Indian 
“Tales of Mariyada Raman” (P. Rainachandra Rao) 
Jour. Straits Branch 
