67 
1892.] V. A. Smith— On the Civilization of Ancient India. 
possible independent origin) gives, when compared with the Indian, a 
more distinct impression of simplicity and originality. 
The beasts who take special parts in the beast stories either do not 
belong distinctively to the Indian fauna, or do not exhibit the charac¬ 
teristics which the Hindus attribute to them. 
There is reason to suppose that two words borrowed from Greek 
fables occur in Sanskrit, viz., lopdka , ‘ jackal,’ from dAohn^, (the old 
Indian form being lopasa); and Jcramelaka, ‘ camel,’ from ; both 
forms being based on a meaning obtained by popular etymology. Lassen 
is inclined to seek a Semitic origin for hramelaha, but the termination 
ela is decisive against this supposition. 
[The word is, however, said to occur in all Semitic languages. 
Prof. Weber’s position is hardly intelligible without further explana¬ 
tion. He refers to his Ind. Stud. 8, 336, Monatsber. d. Berl. Akad. 1871, 
p. 619. V. A. £.] 
In this case also the Buddhists have been the chief carriers of 
Western materials to India, especially in their Jataka stories. 
So far we have dealt with essentially popular materials, and with 
appropriations made, so to speak, by word of mouth. 
There is, however, an artistic form of Greek literature, the Greek 
romance, which appears to have found direct entrance into India. 
Peterson, in his preface to his edition of Bana’s Kadambari (1883, 
p. 101) compares the style of the author directly with that of the 
Alexandrian, Achilles Tatius (A. D. 450). 
I have already in my remarks on that work ( D. L. Zeitung, 1884, 
p. 120) pointed out that it was very natural that the “ good looking 
girls,” the Yavana maidens, at the courts of the Indian kings should 
have formed a means of communication for Milesian love stories. 
Material resemblances, moreover, exist between the Vasavadatta of 
Subandhu, a predecessor of Bana, and a tale of Athenseus (13, 35), 
( flor . circa A. D. 230) and both Indian authors describe the bringing to 
life of a stone statue by an embrace, so as to recall the story of Pygma¬ 
lion. 
In this connection the fact is of special interest that in one of the 
tirades in the bombastic style usual in the Vasavadatta the word ‘ink ’ 
is expressed by meld , i. e., /xe\av The passage (Vasav. p. 239) is to the 
following effect:—“ Though the heaven became the page, the sea the 
ink-bottle (gneldnanda) , and the writer a Brahman, yet could he not 
describe in many thousand ages the agonies of love which she has suf¬ 
fered on his account.” The same conceit is still popular in modern 
Greek love songs, and, according to Hall, is found also in the Quran. 
(18, 109). It probably goes back to the Milesian literature. 
