Page:The Fables of Bidpai (Panchatantra).djvu/59

Rh a Buddhist centre] Thus, although we cannot trace all beast-fables to India, we may, I think, give Buddhism, as represented by the book before us, the credit of those that have a moral attached, which is the case with most forms of the Æsopic fable. And arrived at the end of our inquiry into the influence of the book, we may trace it all to the Buddhism latent in it. For we have seen its wide acceptance due to the moral interest in it, and its influence on the so-called Fables of Æsop also due to the "morals" attached to them, and these moralities are the special things in the book which are due to Buddhism. And still more curiously the peculiar literary form of the book, which, as we shall see, has been even wider in its influence, can be traced back directly to the person of the founder of the religion.