Page:The Fables of Bidpai (Panchatantra).djvu/47

Rh we may say that the onus probandi falls upon those who assert the Oriental origin of folk-tales, and in their proof we cannot be content with the assertion of a common "formula," which can only show that some rural wit in Germany had observed the fickleness of woman or the vanity of man in somewhat the same form as a brother sage in India had done some hundreds of years before. We have an exact analogy in the case of novels: one of these days we may obtain a scientific scheme of "formulæ" for the huge mass of novels, yet it would be hasty to assume that every novel which might come under the formula of "the lost heir" or "the innocent accused," had been derived from the same original.

There is still another reason why it is improbable that the Bidpai literature should have had such influence on European folk-tales as has been attributed to it. Incredible as it may seem, the Fables were translated in the first period of their spontaneous spread, not for the story-interest of them, but on account of their moral interest—their "moral philosophy" as the title of the Italian and English versions testifies. They were regarded as homilies, and the tales were