his shoulders, and clung to them, exclaiming, "Heh! go on with you!" And the Brahmin, quaking with fear, advanced with him. But when he observed that the feet of the Râkschasa were as delicate as the stamens of the lotus, he asked him, "How is it that you have such weak and slender feet?" The Râkschasa replied, "I never walk nor touch the earth with my feet. I have made a vow not to do so." Presently they came to a large pond. Then the Râkschasa bade the Brahmin wait at the edge whilst he bathed and prayed to the gods. But the Brahmin thought: "As soon as these prayers and ablutions are over, he will tear me to pieces with his fangs and eat me. He has vowed not to walk; I will be off post haste!" so he ran away, and the Râkschasa dared not follow him for fear of breaking his vow. (Pantschatantra, v. 13.) There is a similar story in the Mahâbhârata, xiii., and in the Kathâ Sarit Sâgara, v. 49—53.
I have said sufficient to show that natural phenomena gave rise to mythological stories, and that these stories have gradually deteriorated, and have been degraded into vulgar superstitions. And I have shown that both the doctrine of metempsychosis and the mythological explanations of meteorological changes have given rise to
