<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/ift/ift32.htm
EXCERPT:
Remarks.--I have selected The Wolf and the Crane as my typical example in my "History of the Aesopic Fable," and can only give here a rough summary of the results I there arrived at concerning the fable, merely premising that these results are at present no more than hypotheses. The similarity of the Jataka form with that familiar to us, and derived by us in the last resort from Phaedrus, is so striking that few will deny some historical relation between them. <b>I conjecture that the Fable originated in India, and came West, by two different routes. </b>First, it came by oral tradition to Egypt, as one of the Libyan Fables which the ancients themselves distinguished from the Aesopic Fables. <b>It was, however, included by Demetrius Phalereus, tyrant of Athens, and founder of the Alexandrian library c. 300 B.C., in his Assemblies of Aesopic Fables, </b>which I have shown to be the source of Phaedrus' Fables c. 30 A.D. Besides this, it came from Ceylon in the Fables of Kybises--i.e., Kasyapa the Buddha--c. 50 A.D., <b>was adapted into Hebrew, and used for political purposes, by Rabbi Joshua ben Chananyah in a harangue to the Jews, c. 120 A.D., begging them to be patient while within the jaws of Rome. </b>The Hebrew form uses the lion, not the wolf, as the ingrate, which enables us to decide on the Indian provenance of the Midrashic version. It may be remarked that the use of the lion in this and other Jatakas is indirectly a testimony to their great age, as the lion has become rarer and rarer in India during historic times, and is now confined to the Gir forest of Kathiáwar, where only a dozen specimens exist, and are strictly preserved.
The verses at the end are the earliest parts of the Jataka, being in more archaic Pali than the rest: the story is told by the commentator (c. 400 AD) to illustrate them. It is probable that they were brought over on the first introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon, c. 241 B.C. This would give them an age of aver two thousand years, nearly three hundred years earlier than Phaedrus, from whom comes our Wolf and Crane.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
EXCERPT:
Remarks.--I have selected The Wolf and the Crane as my typical example in my "History of the Aesopic Fable," and can only give here a rough summary of the results I there arrived at concerning the fable, merely premising that these results are at present no more than hypotheses. The similarity of the Jataka form with that familiar to us, and derived by us in the last resort from Phaedrus, is so striking that few will deny some historical relation between them. <b>I conjecture that the Fable originated in India, and came West, by two different routes. </b>First, it came by oral tradition to Egypt, as one of the Libyan Fables which the ancients themselves distinguished from the Aesopic Fables. <b>It was, however, included by Demetrius Phalereus, tyrant of Athens, and founder of the Alexandrian library c. 300 B.C., in his Assemblies of Aesopic Fables, </b>which I have shown to be the source of Phaedrus' Fables c. 30 A.D. Besides this, it came from Ceylon in the Fables of Kybises--i.e., Kasyapa the Buddha--c. 50 A.D., <b>was adapted into Hebrew, and used for political purposes, by Rabbi Joshua ben Chananyah in a harangue to the Jews, c. 120 A.D., begging them to be patient while within the jaws of Rome. </b>The Hebrew form uses the lion, not the wolf, as the ingrate, which enables us to decide on the Indian provenance of the Midrashic version. It may be remarked that the use of the lion in this and other Jatakas is indirectly a testimony to their great age, as the lion has become rarer and rarer in India during historic times, and is now confined to the Gir forest of Kathiáwar, where only a dozen specimens exist, and are strictly preserved.
The verses at the end are the earliest parts of the Jataka, being in more archaic Pali than the rest: the story is told by the commentator (c. 400 AD) to illustrate them. It is probable that they were brought over on the first introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon, c. 241 B.C. This would give them an age of aver two thousand years, nearly three hundred years earlier than Phaedrus, from whom comes our Wolf and Crane.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->