?co CO 305 Ay iHBiB a . A7 GEORGE T. ARTOLA THE OLDEST SANSKRIT FABLES In his detailed analysis of the contents of Bhoja's Srngaraprakasa, Professor Raghavan discusses the defini- tion ofnidarsana in the Madras MS.1 He observes that nidarsana refers not only to didactic story (such as a fable, allegory or parable) but also to the literary works which contain them. In other words, nidarsana is bothfabula and fabularium, exemplum and exemplarium. Bhoja emphasizes the didactic nature of a nidarsana by the expression karyakdryanirupanaparam. Professor Raghavan, augmenting the list of literary nidarsana-s mentioned by Bhoja, alludes also to the Mahdbharata as a source offables, each one of which may be called, according to Bhoja's description, a nidarsana. However, it is noteworthy that when a fable is introduced into the expository sections of the Mahabharata the usual terms employed are either samvdda, i.e. dialogue, when the fable itself is presented as a dialogue, or purdtana itihdsa, i.e. old story. In one instance the term nidarsana is actually used: it introduces the fable of the hanisa and the crow with these words, atas tvdm kathaye. karna, nidarsanam idam punah (VIII. 28. 8b). In the history ofnidarsana-s at least three successive periods of development are observable, each of them conditioned by the function which the fables perform 1V.Raghavan,Bhoja'sSrngara Prakdsa, Madras, 1963, pp.620-1 282 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN in the literary works where they are found.1 In the earliest period, the age of the oldest parts of the Mahabharata, they are told only incidentally and with reference to a specific situation. It is in this way that the nidarsana finds a place in literature, within the framework of a literary text. In the second period they are gathered together by compilators for the sake of religious propaganda. To this period belong the jataka-s and other texts of stories of the Buddhists and Jaina-s and also the akhyayikadhydya of the Brahmanic sects teaching Samkhya. Perhaps to this period should be assigned the two nidarsana-s, Mayiira and Marjara, which are quoted only by Bhoja and of which we have no further knowledge. It was not until the third period that fable-writers came to regard their works as literature in their own right, as something to be read by the general public for instruction and entertainment. The fabulist of this period succeeded in transforming a series ofseparate fables into a unified and artistic work. The production of such a work was only possible after the fable attained status as literature. It is to this period that Bhoja refers when he mentions Pancatantra, etc. [pancatantradi), by which he probably means the Pancatantra, the Hitopadesa and the Tantropakhyana . The other works he quotes, namely Dhurtavita and 1 In the history of Sanskrit fable literature, with the possible doubtful exception of the Jdtakamald of Aryasura, there are no anthologies of separate fables comparable to the compilations (such as those of Aesop, Pha^drus and Babrius) that we find in the ancient literatures ofGreece and Rome. : THE OLDEST SANSKRIT FABLES 283 Kuttanimata, show that he has extended the meaning of nidarsana beyond that of the didactic fable which concerns us here. The oldest nidarsana-s of Sanskrit literature are found, as we have indicated, in the earliest Parvan-s of the Mahdbhdrata, in the epic narrative proper, and doubtlessly they are of sufficient interest to warrant special treatment here because of the important role they have in the development of this type of literature. Moreover, among the many stories which are narrated throughout the vast Mahdbhdrata, a distinction should be made between those which are truly nidarsana-s in Bhoja's definition and those which are merely dkhydna-s or updkhydna-s. Heretofore no such distinction has been made, with the result that several illustrative tales in the Mahdbhdrata have been categorically designated as fables, whether or not they are fables. As Professor Raghavan correctly remarks, all A animal stories are not nidarsana-s. tale must fulfil certain requirements in order to be considered a fable. The salient features of a literary fable have been noted by Professor Stith Thompson,1 and more recently and in greater detail by Professor Ben Edwin Perry.2 The fables of the oldest portion of the Mahdbhdrata which are cited and analyzed below in their relation to a specific context are characterized by the following traits 1 Stith Thompson, TheFolktale, New York, 1946, pp. 10; 218 2Ben Edwin Perry, 'Fable', in Studium Generate, 12 (1959). pp. 17-37. 384 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN A 1. Structural pattern. single story relating a particular action or series of actions that took place in the past through the agency ofpartic- ular characters. 2. Ethico-didactic nature. It is narrated for the obvious purpose of teaching an ethical truth, worldly wisdom or shrewdness. 3. Flexible structuralform. The narrative may be contained in one short sentence or in many sentences. It may be in verse or in prose, or a combination of both. All of the fables in the Mahabharata are in verse. 4. Additions to the narrative itself. It may be accom- panied by a promythium or an epimythium, or both. In the case of the Mahabharata fables, the generalized or particularized moral is expressed in prefaced promythia and in recapi- tulating epimythia.1 It should be noted here that the fables ofthe Pancatantra and of the Sanskrit texts which are based on it have these same characteristics and they do not become, as Ben Perry suggests, animal tales, novelle and Mdrchen.2 1 On the origin of the epimythium according to Perry, see TAPA, 71 (1940), pp. 391-419. 2Unless he means that certain fables from the Pancatantra entered the oral tradition of the Indian people as Mdrchen; cf. W. Norman Brown, ' The Pancatantra in Modern Indian Folk- lore JAOS, 39 (1919), pp. 1-54. In the Sanskrit texts of the ', known recensions of the Pancatantra^ excepting the story of King THE OLDEST SANSKRIT FABLES 285 The publication ofthe critical edition of the Maha- bharata makes available now for the major Parvan-s, especially for the earlier ones, reliable texts of the nidarsana-s so that they may be studied in their most We correct form. are thus able to distinguish between those fables which always formed an integral part of the epic and those which were added at a later date to one or more of the recensions. Fables which once appeared in the Adiparvan and in the Udyogaparvan are considered later insertions and are relegated to the appendices of the BORI edition. Consequently, it is now possible to ascertain exactly which were the oldest literary fables in Sanskrit. It is also possible to assign an approximate date to several of them, a date which indicates more or less the terminus ad quern for the earliest inclusion ofthem in the epic. Four animal tales are narrated in the Sabhaparvan and they have all of the features which designate them as fables. Two of them are told by Sisupala, and the other pair by the wise Vidura by way of opposing the civil war in which the Kuru leaders wish to engage. These nidarsana-s represent the oldest literary fables in the corpus of Sanskrit literature. Franklin Edgerton, editor ofthe BORI Sabhaparvan, was fortunate enough to discover a valuable clue to the dating of the text. In II. 28. 49 is found the Sanskrit equivalent of the name of the city of Roma (Roma) as well as a word Amarasakti and his wayward sons in the Kathamukha, each of the stories, including the lengthy frame-stories, is a bonafide fable according to Perry's own definition ofa fable. : 286 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN which could easily indicate the name of the city of Antioch. According to him, these must be recognized as the earliest mention in India of these names and therefore the text of the Sabhaparvan could not have been composed before these names became known in India, that is, not before the first century b.c.1 From this we may conclude that the four nidarsana-s of the Sabhaparvan were already current by this period. The Fables Told by Sisupala The Case ofthe Hypocritical Hamsa (II. 38. 30-7) In the Sisupalavadha episode is found a series of verbal attacks on Bhisma by Sisupala, the raja of Cedi. The latter accuses the warrior of being an expounder of false dharma and he warns him that he will be killed by his own kinsmen just as the old hamsa was killed by the other birds who trusted him. This warning is expressed in the promythium (verse 28b) The same admonition is similarly stated in the epi- mythium (verse 38), where andaja (egg-born) refers to the hamsa: 1 Cf.JAOS, 58 (1938), pp. 262-5.