Note 317 — Chapter II · SĪLAVAGGA. (continued 2)

If Muṇika, the name of the Pig, is derived from the root MAR (B. R. No. 2)—as I think it must be, in spite of the single ṇ—it is a verbal noun derived from a past participle, meaning ‘cut into small pieces.’ The idea is doubtless of the small pieces of meat used for curry, as the Indians had no sausages. I could not dare to coin such a word as ‘Curry-bit-ling,’ and have therefore preserved the joke by using a word which will make it intelligible to European readers.

This well-told story is peculiarly interesting as being one of those Indian stories which have reached Europe independently of both the ‘Kalilag and Dimnag’ and the ‘Barlaam and Josaphat’ literature. Professor Benfey (pp. 228-229 of his Introduction to the Pañca Tantra) has traced stories somewhat analogous throughout European literature; but our story itself is, he says, found almost word for word in an unpublished Hebrew book by Berachia ben Natronai, only that two donkeys take the place of the two oxen. Berachia lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century, in Provence.

One of the analogous stories is where a falcon complains to a cock, that, while he (the falcon) is so grateful to men for the little they give him that he comes and hunts for them at their beck and call, the cock, though fed up to his eyes, tries to escape when they catch him. “Ah!” replies the cock, “I never yet saw a falcon brought to table, or frying in a pan!” (Anvar i Suhaili, p. 144; Livre des Lumières, p. 112; Cabinet des Fées, xvii. 277; Bidpai et Lokman, ii. 59; La Fontaine, viii. 21). Among the so-called Æsop’s Fables is also one where a calf laughs at a draught ox for bearing his drudgery so patiently. The ox says nothing. Soon after there is a feast, and the ox gets a holiday, while the calf is led off to the sacrifice (James’s Æsop, No. 150).

Jātaka No. 286 is the same story in almost the same words, save (1) that the pig’s name is there Sālūha, which means the edible root of the water-lily, and might be freely rendered ‘Turnips’; and (2) that there are three verses instead of one. As special stress is there laid on the fact that ‘Turnips’ was allowed to lie on the heṭṭhā-mañca, which I have above translated ‘sty,’ it is possible that the word means the platform or seat in front of the hut, and under the shade of the overhanging eaves,—a favourite resort of the people of the house.