Note 11 — Note to Chapter VII.
C. H. (Charles Henry) Tawney translation
Benfey considers this story as Buddhistic in its origin. In the “Memoires Sur les Contrées Occidentales traduits du Sanscrit par Hiouen Thsang et du Chinois par Stanislas Julien” we are expressly told that Gautama Buddha gave his flesh to the hawk as Śivi in a former state of existence. It is told of many other persons, see Benfey’s Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 388, cp. also Campbell’s West Highland Tales, p. 239, Vol. I, Tale XVI. M. Lévêque (Les Mythes et Légendes de L’Inde p. 327) connects this story with that of Philemon and Baucis. He lays particular stress upon the following lines of Ovid: