Page:The Fables of Bidpai (Panchatantra).djvu/49

Rh Jews, and Christians. Perhaps we may account for this universal acceptance of its doctrines because they seemed to come from the mouths of those who could not be suspected of heresy—from our dumb brethren, the beasts.

And this leads me to discuss the claim of our book, or its original, to be the source of all beast-fables—a claim for which a somewhat better case has been made out. For India is the home of metempsychosis, and there, if anywhere, the idea of animals talking and willing like men might seem most natural. Accordingly, Benfey would trace all stories in which animals act in this way back to India, though, curiously enough, he claims a Western (Greek) origin for beast-tales in which animals act "as sich." Against this a claim has recently been set up for South Africa by Professor Sayce, who points to the existence of such fables quite independent of Indian influence (Bleek, Reynard the Fox in South Africa, 1872). He connects with beast-fables, by some link of association which is not too evident, the existence in the South- African languages of special "clicks" which accompany each animal in the narration (Science of Language, ii. 280-3).