Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/283

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solve the question how the Jdtaka story got to Moscow. I have a suggestion to make which may possibly throw some light upon this curious incident in the travels of stories. This particular Jataka is represented in Talmudic literature by practically the same story (see Gaster, Beitraege, c. ix.). Now if Mr. Shnurman, the gentle man in question, is of Jewish origin, it would be quite within the range of possibility that the story came to him from Jewish sources, and that the seeming evidence for a Russian parallel was illusive. It would be interesting to ascertain whether Mr. Shnurman's nurse was a Jewess. Under any circumstances we have here an interest- ing example of how a piece of folklore might be transmitted from Russia to England.

Now that we have before us a sufificient account of ihe Jataka to judge of its general character, the question may fairly be raised whether the folktales contained in it are so early in form as has been represented. To my mind, whenever we can compare the Jataka form with that given in the Pantchatantra, the latter almost invariably shows more signs of primitiveness than the Jataka form of the same story. In the very form in which the Jataka is written down, it is clear that what tradition preserved is not so much the story as the gatha or moral, and in many instances the story itself has become vague and indefinite in the minds of the tellers, so that when Bhuddaghosa or his disciples wrote down the Com- mentary on the gatha, which now forms the Jataka, the outline of the tale had become exceedingly vague. In short, in the Jataka the moral pill had caused the story jam to become musty. We must not forget that the object of the Jataka is to adorn a moral rather than to tell a tale. With the Pajitchatantra, on the other hand, the story interest is the main one ; and we therefore find the tales told better, with more point, and in greater fulness than in t\\Q Jataka. It will be a work of some delicacy to determine also how far the stories in the. Jataka have been modified in order to subserve a moral purpose. One may be certain, for example, that in No. 398 the young man did not convert the gobhn in the original form of the story.

But all these questions may be safely left for further investiga- tion when this translation of ihe Jataka reaches its conclusion. The mass of materials which is now being placed before the student of folklore will require and reward most careful study and research into the relations between ihe Jataka and other Indian

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