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Updated: May 9, 2025
Benfey, in the introduction to his edition of Pantschatantra, i., 112, contends that the story is of Oriental origin, showing Buddhistic traits in the kindly relations between the slave and the lion; but the parallels he gives are by no means convincing, though the general evidence for Oriental provenance of many of Phædrus' fables gives a certain plausibility to this derivation.
Whether the diviner's object is to make this discovery, or the future lot of the married pair is all that he seeks to reveal, in both cases, though he charm never so wisely, it does not fall within the scope of this inquiry. Without stretching one's imagination too much, some passages in the Pantschatantra seem to imply a belief that marriage-making is under the direct control of Providence.
The probabilities of an Indian origin for this formula are rendered greater by the early age of the Pantschatantra and Somadeva parallels. On the other hand the sacrifice of the children for the faithful servant has its closest parallel in the old French romance of Amis and Amilun, where Amis smears Amilun with the blood of his child to cure him of leprosy.
The Rabbi assured his questioner that there was no need to inquire further into the whereabouts of the cock's heart. Out of the crowd of parallels to the story of the fox's heart supplied by the labors of Benfey, I select one given in the second volume of the learned investigator's Pantschatantra.
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