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Story of Dharmabuddhi and Dushtabuddhi.*[1]:— For instance, there were long ago in a certain village two brothers, the sons of a merchant, Dharmabuddhi and Dushțabuddhi by name. They left their father's house and went to another country to get wealth, and with great difficulty acquired two thousand gold dínárs. And with them they returned to their own city. And they buried those dínárs at the foot of a tree, with the exception of one hundred, which they divided between them in equal parts, and so they lived in their father's house.
But one day Dushțabuddhi went by himself and dug up of his own accord those dínárs, which were buried at the foot of the tree, for he was vicious and extravagant.†[2] And after one month only had passed, he said to Dhamabuddhi: " Come, my elder brother, let us divide those dínárs; I have expenses." When Dharmabuddhi heard that, he consented, and went and dug with him, where he had deposited the dínárs. And when they did not find any dínárs in the place where they had buried them, the treacherous Dushțabuddhi said to Dharmabuddhi: " You have taken away the dinars, so give me my half." But Dharmabuddhi answered: " I have not taken them, you must have taken them." So a quarrel arose, and Dushțabuddhi hit Dharmabuddhi on the head with a stone, and dragged him into the king's court. There they both stated their case, and as the king's officers could not decide it, they were proceeding to detain them both for the trial by ordeal. Then Dushțabuddhi said to the king's officers; " The tree, at the foot of which these dinars were placed, will depose, as a witness, that they were taken away by this Dharmabuddhi. And they were exceedingly astonished, but said, " Well, we will ask it to-morrow." Then they let both Dharmabuddhi and Dushțabuddhi go, after they had given bail, and they went separately to their house.
But Dushțabuddhi told the whole matter to his father, and secretly giving him money, said; " Hide in the trunk of the tree and be my
- ↑ * Benfey compares the Arabic version, (Wolff, I, 93, Knatchbull, 151,) Symeon Seth, 31, John of Capua, e., 2., German translation (Ulm 1483) G., VI, b., Spanish, XXI, a., Firenzuola, 73, Doni, 104, Anvár-i-Suhaili, 172, Livre des Lumières, 129, Cabinet des Fées, XVII, 333, Baldo, Fab. XIX, in Edéléstand du Méril. Benfey points out that that Somadeva agrees wholly or partly with the Arabic version in two points. The judges set the tree on fire (or apply smoke to it,) not Dharmabuddhi, (as in Panchatantra, Benfey, Vol. II, pp. 114 & ff.) Secondly, in the Panchatantra the father dies and the son is hanged, in De Sacy's Arabic and the old Greek version both remain alive, in Somadeva, and John of Capua, and the Anvár-i-Suhaili, the father dies and the son is punished. Here we have a fresh proof that the Hebrew version, from which John of Capua translated, is the truest representative of the oldest Arabic recension. (Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 275 and ff.)
- ↑ † I read with the Sanskrit College MS. asadvyayi.
