Page:The Fables of Bidpai (Panchatantra).djvu/57

Rh Æschylus' Myrmidons, which by the way does something to confirm the African origin, since the poet adds (Schol. in Arist. Aves, 808). Aristophanes again has several references to Æsopean fables, and as we all know, Socrates in his last days occupied his leisure with "tagging" Æsop. All this was before any Indian influence could come in, and Benfey accordingly goes so far as to trace the Indian fables of an Æsopic type (i.e., where the animals do not act as men, but in propriâ personâ) to Greek or Western influence. But the reasoning on which he bases this somewhat startling result (I. p. §§ xxi. 58, 130, 162) does not give one as much respect for his judgment as for his erudition. And at anyrate it is now generally recognised that our Æsop, the mediæval collection passing under that name, is strongly impregnated with Indian elements from the Bidpai literature.

Whether Phædrus, and Babrius from whom he borrows, can be traced back to the influence of the Jatakas, and so to the original of our present work, has not been thoroughly threshed out. But