Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 481

THE BRAHMIN KALA-SARMA
441
thought that he had inconsiderately sacrificed the
poor animal, to whom alone he was indebted for the pre-
servation of his beloved son \
The author of the Pancha-tantra has introduced into these
five principal fables a large number of minor fables which
are related by the respective characters to each other.
Some of these latter resemble those of Aesop, but are far
more prolix. The Pancha-tantra is so constructed that one
at the
fable, before
it
is
finished, suggests another,
which in
its
turn suggests a third, and so on. A great deal of ingenuity
but the continuous
is displayed in this plan of narration
dovetailing of one story into another is very wearisome to
the reader, who sometimes loses sight altogether of the
beginning of a story, which only ends later on in the work.
A literal translation of a few of these fables will give
my readers a fair idea of the rest of them. The following
are extracted from the first part of the Pancha-tantra
;
:
The Adventures of the Brahmin Kala-Sarma.
The Brahmin and
the Crab.
Soma-Puri, there lived
Once upon a
a Brahmin named Kala-Sarma, who, after existing for a
long time in penury, suddenly found himself raised to
opulence by a happy combination of circumstances. He
thereupon resolved to undertake a pilgrimage to the holy
city of Benares, there to obtain pardon for all his sins by
bathing in the waters of the sacred Ganges. On his way
thither, he one day reached the river Sarasvati, flowing
through a desert which he was crossing. He determined
and no sooner had he
to perform his usual ablutions in it
stepped into the water than he saw coming towards him
a crab, which asked him where he was going. Learning
that he was on a pilgrimage to the Ganges, the crab re-
quested the Brahmin to carry it with him to this sacred
river, promising in return for this service to remember his
kindness all its life, and to do all that lay in its power to
time, in the city of
;
1
A tale exactly similar to this has been long current in Europe. It
has been told both in story-books and pictures. The circumstances are
exactly the same, with the exception that the animal which fell a victim
Dubois.
to the rashness of its master is a dog instead of a mongoose.