been recognised as universally true, as well as diverting; or they would not have been naturalized in the W est as well as in the East. In the maxinus also which the tales serve to illustrato, there must have been inuch which secured the acquiescence of all inankiud, or the remarks would have been left to enlighten the moralists of India aloime. These inerits however were such as admitted of transfusion into other languages ; the merits of its composition are those which have chiefly recoinnended its preservation by the press, and its circulation amongst the cultivators of Sanskrit literature."
There is a great diversity in the manuscript copios of the Panchatantra. Many differences occur in the various stories. In some versions the residence of the king is in Mahilauropya, ia city in the South of Tudia, which Professor Wilson identifies with Saint Thomc.* The Kanarese version of the Panchatantra follows the Hitopadesa in making the residence of the king in Putaliputra on the Ganges.
The king had three sons who were deficient in ability and application. He inade this known to his counsellors and sought their advice; asking them “Of what use is a SOLI who has neitlher knowledge nor virtue ? of what use is a cow who has no milk with her calf ? etc. I learned Brahmin who was present offered to relieve the king of his, anxiety by taking the princes to his house and instructing them perfectly. He then composed in their benefit these five
- “ We necl not be much at a loss for its identification, as the naine approaches sufficiently to Mailapur', Melujpur, or Saint Thome; where our own recorrls indicate a city of somo consoquenco, in the beginning of tlıc Cliristain ora, as tho scene of tho luhours and martyrdom of Saint Thoinas, occurrences very far from invalidated by any argument yet adduced against the truth of the tradition."--Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 1, page 161.
