Story of the physician who tried to cure a hunchback.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Somadeva Bhatta, active 11th century and Tawney, C. H. (Charles Henry)
And a certain Bráhman said to a foolish physician; “Drive in the hump on the back of my son who is deformed.” When the physician heard that, he said; “Give me ten paṇas, I will give you ten times as many, if I do not succeed in this.” Having thus made a bet, and having taken the ten paṇas from the Bráhman, the physician only tortured the hunchback with sweating and other remedies. But he was not able to remove the hump; so he paid down the hundred paṇas; for who in this world would be able to make straight a hunchbacked man?
“So the boastful fashion of promising to accomplish impossibilities only makes a man ridiculous. Therefore a discreet person should not walk in these ways of fools.” When the wise prince Naraváhanadatta had heard, at night, these tales of fools from his auspicious-mouthed minister, named Gomukha, he was exceedingly pleased with him.
And though he was pining for Śaktiyaśas, yet, owing to the pleasure he derived from the stories that Gomukha told him, he was enabled to get to sleep, when he went to bed, and slept surrounded by his ministers who had grown up with him.
Source notes
1 See Benfey’s Panchatantra, IIIrd book, page 213, Vol. II. Benfey points out that in the Mahábhárata, Droṇa’s son, one of the few Kauravas that had survived the battle, was lying under a sacred fig-tree, on which crows were sleeping. Then he sees one owl come and kill many of the crows. This suggests to him the idea of attacking the camp of the Páṇḍavas. In the Arabic text the hostile birds are ravens and owls. So in the Greek and the Hebrew translation. John of Capua has “sturni,” misunderstanding the Hebrew. (Benfey, Vol. I, 335). Rhys Davids states in his Buddhist Birth Stories (p. 292 note,) that the story of the lasting feud between the crows and the owls is told at length in Játaka, No. 270.
2 For Praḍívin the Petersburg lexicographers would read Prajívin, as in the Panchatantra.
3 Benfey remarks that this fable was known to Plato; Cratylus, 411, A, (but the passage might refer to some story of Bacchus personating Hercules, as in the Ranæ,) and he concludes that the fable came from Greece to India. He compares Æsop, (Furia, 141, Coraes, 113,) Lucianus, Piscator, 32, Erasmus, “Asinus apud Cumanos,” Robert, Fables Inédites, I, 360. (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 463.) I cannot find the fable in Phædrus or Babrius. The skin is that of a tiger in Benfey’s translation, and also in Johnson’s translation of the Hitopadeśa, p. 74 in the original (Johnson’s edition). See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 119. It is No. 189 in Fausböll’s edition of the Játakas, and will be found translated in Rhys Davids’ Introduction to his Buddhist Birth Stories, p. v.
4 Benfey compares Grimm’s Märchen, Vol. III, 246, where parallels to story No. 171 are given; Thousand and one Nights (Weil, III, 923). In a fable of Æsop’s the birds choose a peacock king. (Æsop, Furia, 183, Coraes, 53). (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 347.) See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 110, Veckenstedt’s Wendische Märchen, p. 424, De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 206. See also p. 246 for an apologue in which the owl prevents the crow’s being made king. See also Rhys Davids’ Buddhist Birth Stories, p. 292. See also Brand’s Popular Antiquities, Vol. III, pp. 196, 197. The story of the crow dissuading the birds from making the owl king is Játaka, No. 270. In the Kosiya Játaka, No. 226, an army of crows attacks an owl.
5 Cp. Hitopadeśa, 75, Wolff, I, 192; Knatchbull, 223, Symeon Seth, 58, John of Capua, h., 5, b., German translation (Ulm 1483) O., II, Spanish translation, XXXVI, a.; Doni, 36, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 315, Livre des Lumières, 246; Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 437. This fable is evidently of Indian origin. For the deceiving of the elephant with the reflexion of the moon, Benfey compares Disciplina Clericalis XXIV. (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 348, 349.) See also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 76.
6i. e. moon-lake.
7 Common epithets of the moon. The Hindus find a hare in the moon where we find a “man, his dog, and his bush.”
8 This story is found in Wolff, I, 197, Knatchbull, 226, Symeon Seth, 60, John of Capua, h., 6, b, German translation (Ulm 1483) O., IV, 6, Spanish translation, 36, b, Doni, 38, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 322, Livre des Lumières, 251, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 442, Baldo Fab. XX, in Edéléstand du Méril, Poesies Inédites, p. 249. Benfey finds three “moments” in the Fable; the first is, the “hypocritical cat”; this conception he considers to be “allgemein menschlich” and compares Furia, 14, Coraes, 152, Furia, 15, Coraes, 6, Furia, 67, Coraes, 28, Robert, Fables Inédites, I, 216; also Mahábhárata V. (II, 283) 5421 and ff., where the cat manages to get herself taken to the river, to die, by the rats and mice, and there eats them. The second moment is the folly of litigiousness: here he compares a passage in Dubois’s Panchatantra. The third is the object of contention, the nest, for which he compares Phædrus, I, 21. (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 350–354). I should compare, for the 1st moment, Phædrus, Lib. II, Fabula, IV, (recognovit Lucianus Mueller) Aquila, Feles et Aper, La Fontaine, VII, 16. See also for the “hypocritical cat” Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 121. The cat’s tactics are much the same as those of the fox in Reineke Fuchs (Simrock, Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. I, p. 138.) See also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 54. The story is No. CXXV in the Avadánas. From De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, pp. 227–228 it appears that kapinjala means a heath-cock, or a cuckoo. Here the word appears to be used as a proper name.
There is a very hypocritical cat in Prym und Socin, Syrische Märchen, p. lx. See especially p. 242, and cp. p. 319.
9 This is the 3rd story in Benfey’s translation of the third book of the Panchatantra. See Johnson’s translation of the Hitopadeśa, p. 110. Wolff, I. 205, Knatchbull, 233. Symeon Seth, 62, John of Capua, i., 1, b., German translation O., VI, 6, Spanish, XXXVII, a., Doni, 42, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 331, Livre des Lumières, 254, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 444. Benfey translates a reference to it in Páṇini. He shews that there is an imitation of this story in the Gesta Romanorum, 132. In Forlini, Novel VIII, a peasant is persuaded that his kids are capons. Cp. also Straparola, I, 3; Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai, 47, 2. Liebrecht’s translation of Dunlop, note 356, Lancereau on the Hitopadeśa, 252. (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 355–357.) See also Till Eulenspiegel, c. 66, in Simrock’s Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. X, p. 452. In the XXth tale of the English Gesta Romanorum (Ed. Herrtage) three “lechis” persuade Averoys that he is a “lepre;” and he becomes one from “drede,” but is cured by a bath of goat’s blood. The 69th tale in Coelho’s Contos Populares, Os Dois Mentíroses, bears a strong resemblance to this. One brother confirms the other’s lies.
10 Benfey compares this with the story of Zopyrus. He thinks that the Indians learned the story from the Greeks. See also Avadánas. No. V, Vol. I, p. 31.
11 Benfey compares Wolff, I, 210, Knatchbull, 237, Symeon Seth, p. 64, John of Capua i., 2, German translation (Ulm., 1483) No. VIII, 6, Spanish translation, XXXVIII, a., Doni, 44, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 336, Livre des Lumières, 259, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 449. (Benfey’s Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 366.) See also La Fontaine, IX, p. 15.
12 Dr. Kern suggests vyatíta-pushpa-kálatvád. The Sanskrit College MS. has the reading of Dr. Brockhaus’s text.
13 Cp. Wolff, I, 212, Knatchbull, 238, Symeon Seth, p. 64, John of Capua i., 2, b., German translation (Ulm, 1483) P., I, b., Spanish translation, XXXVIII, a., Doni, 45, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 338, Livre des Lumières, 261, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 451. (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 368.)
14 See Chapter VII of this work.
15 Benfey compares the Arabic version, Wolff, I, 214, Knatchbull, 240, Symeon Seth, 65, John of Capua i., 3, b., German translation (Ulm, 1483), P., II. b., Spanish translation, XXXVIII, b., Doni, 47, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 340, Livre des Lumières, 264; Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 453, cp. also Hitopadeśa, (Johnson’s translation, p. 78). (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 371.)
16 This story is found in the Arabic version, Wolff, I, 219, Knatchbull, 243, Symeon Seth, 68, John of Capua, i., 4, b., German translation (Ulm, 1483) P. IV, b., Spanish translation, XXXIX, a., Doni, 50, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 355, Livre des Lumières, 279, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 466, La Fontaine, IX, 7, Polier, Mythologie des Indes, II, 571, Hitopadeśa, (similar in some respects) Johnson, p. 108, Mahábhárata, XII, (III, 515) v. 4254 and ff. Benfey compares also the story of the cat which was changed into a virgin, Babrius, 32. It is said to be found in Strattis (400 B. C.) (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 373 and ff.) See also De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 65. This bears a strong resemblance to A Formiga e a Neve, No. II, in Coelho’s Contos Portuguezes.
17 This reminds one of Babrius, Fabula LXXII.
18 I follow the Sanskrit College MS. which reads bhajámi not bhanjámi.
19 See Liebrecht’s notes on the Avadánas, translated by Stanislas Julien, on page 110 of his “Zur Volkskunde.” He adduces an English popular superstition. “The country people to their sorrow know the Cornish chough, called Pyrrhocorax, to be not only a thief, but an incendiary, and privately to set houses on fire as well as rob them of what they find profitable. It is very apt to catch up lighted sticks, so there are instances of houses being set on fire by its means.” So a parrot sets a house on fire in a story by Arnauld of Carcassès (Liebrecht’s translation of Dunlop’s History of Fiction, p. 203.) Benfey thinks that this idea originally came from Greece (Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 383.) Cp. also Pliny’s account of the “incendiaria avis in Kuhn’s Herabkunft des Feuers, p. 31.
20 This story is found in Wolff, I, 226, Knatchbull, 250, Symeon Seth, 70, John of Capua, i., 6, German translation (Ulm, 1483) Q. I, Spanish translation, XL, b., Anvár-i-Suhaili, 364, Livre des Lumières, 283, Cabinet des Fées, XIII, 467, Hitopadeśa, Johnson’s translation, p. 112. Benfey compares the western fable of the sick lion. This fable is told in the Kathá Sarit Ságara, X, 63, śl. 126, and ff., and will be found further on. (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 384.)
21 This is No. XVII in the Avadánas. Cp. Grohmann, Sagen aus Böhmen, p. 35.
22i. e. sweet, salt, acid, astringent, bitter, and pungent.
23 This is No. XLVI in the Avadánas.
24Naukaha should be no doubt ’anokaha on Dr. Brockhaus’s system.
25 This is No. CIV in the Avadánas.
26 This is No. LXVI in the Avadánas.
27 Cp. the 37th story in Sicilianische Märchen, part I. p. 249. Giufá’s mother wished to go to the mass and she said to him “Giufá, if you go out, draw the door to after you.” (Ziehe die Thür hinter dir zu.) Instead of shutting the door, Giufá took it off its hinges and carried it to his mother in the church. See Dr. Köhler’s notes on the story.