Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof788019181919roya).pdf/190

 ministers, moved by popular clamour, warn their master; and he rejecting the warning is expelled from his country, peaceably in the Indian version and taking his sword and cook with him, ignominiously in the Malay story after a desperate onslaught on the palace, whence he escapes by a private door.

In the Indian story, the king after a number of adventures in the jungle is converted from cannibalism by Sutasonia, an incarnation of the Buddha in a previous existence—for the "Jatakas" purport to be stories of the Buddha's earlier births: he is brought to Benares a changed man, and is welcomed by the son who reigns in his stead. In the Kedah version, the king mates with a girl of good family in a remote part of the country and, after once more escaping his enraged pursuers, is lost sight of; but the son of that union is restored to reign in the capital by virtue of the magical sagacity of an elephant in detecting the royal infant and by virtue of the king of Siam's warrant.

When it is remembered that in Buddhist countries the "Jatakas" are known not only to the literate but in popular folk-lore, it becomes reasonable to infer that the Kedah tale has been borrowed from a Siamese source. Man-eating ogres are usual enough; but in the two tales considered, coincidence of small detail seems to demand explanation more particular than the common uniformity of the human mind in the invention of folk-tales.

For a parallel in Sinhalese legendary history those interested may consult p. 234 of my "Catalogue of European Manuscripts in the India Office Library, vol. I, part I."