Got carried away in the above. This is more on topic.
Tried to find something on fairy tales in the only encyclopaedia of those I own from which I can copy-paste instead of type out. Encarta's not the most reliable source, I know.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Sanskrit literature</b>
<b>PROSE</b>
No department of Indian literature is more interesting to the student of comparative literature than that comprising the fables and fairy tales. <b>Scarcely a single motif of European fable collections is not to be found in some Indian collection, and there is good reason to believe that the bulk of this kind of literature originated in India.</b> The earliest and most important collection of Indian fables is Buddhistic and is written in the Pali language; it appears to date to the 4th century bc. This collection, comprising stories of former lives of Buddha, is known as the Jatakas. The two most important Sanskrit collections, the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa, are both based on Buddhist sources.
(Others may know, but Panchatantra is not based on Buddhist sources is it? Jatakas are Buddhist. I know next to nothing about the Hitopadesa, so no comment on that.)
A noteworthy feature of the Sanskrit collections of fables and fairy tales is the insertion of a number of different stories within the frame of a single narrative, a style of narration that was borrowed by other Oriental peoples, the most familiar instance being that of the Arabian Nights. The Panchatantra passed from a Pahlavi translation of the original Sanskrit into Arabic, Greek, Persian, Turkish, Syriac, Hebrew, Latin, and German and from German into other European languages. The Hitopadesa, said to have been composed by Narayana, purports to be an excerpt from the Panchatantra and other books. The most famous collection of fairy tales is the very extensive Kathasaritsagara, composed by the Kashmiri poet Somadeva about ad1070.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But I don't mean any 'Indo-European' links, by the way. And this is also correctly dismissed in the following.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Folktales
IIÂ FOLKTALE SCHOLARSHIP</b>
Much 19th-century scholarship concentrated on attempts to account for these similarities. <b>Generally, the 19th-century scholars were unaware of the vast store of African, Native American, and Oceanic lore that existed independently of the Indo-European tradition. They sought their explanations in those parts of the world that seemed important to them. Thus, the Grimms postulated a common Indo-European origin for folktales, and the German philologist Theodor Benfey as well as the Scottish writer William Clouston believed that stories diffused by way of travelers migrating east and west from India. Such theories, however, have proven incomplete and inadequate.</b> Nevertheless, the research of these and other scholars greatly stimulated interest in folklore and folktales. The German scholar <b>Max Muller</b> held that myths originated when Sanskrit and other ancient languages began to deteriorate, and when the Scottish classicist and <b>folklorist Andrew Lang attacked this view</b>, folktales became the subject of additional attention. Research was further stimulated by the immense popularity of The Golden Bough (1890), a 12-volume compendium of ancient lore by the British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That's another myth put to rest then.
Finally:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Arabian Nights</b>
Arabian Nights, or The Thousand and One Nights, collection of stories from Persia, Arabia, India, and Egypt, compiled over hundreds of years. Most of the stories originated as folk tales, anecdotes, or fables that were passed on orally.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Tried to find something on fairy tales in the only encyclopaedia of those I own from which I can copy-paste instead of type out. Encarta's not the most reliable source, I know.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Sanskrit literature</b>
<b>PROSE</b>
No department of Indian literature is more interesting to the student of comparative literature than that comprising the fables and fairy tales. <b>Scarcely a single motif of European fable collections is not to be found in some Indian collection, and there is good reason to believe that the bulk of this kind of literature originated in India.</b> The earliest and most important collection of Indian fables is Buddhistic and is written in the Pali language; it appears to date to the 4th century bc. This collection, comprising stories of former lives of Buddha, is known as the Jatakas. The two most important Sanskrit collections, the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa, are both based on Buddhist sources.
(Others may know, but Panchatantra is not based on Buddhist sources is it? Jatakas are Buddhist. I know next to nothing about the Hitopadesa, so no comment on that.)
A noteworthy feature of the Sanskrit collections of fables and fairy tales is the insertion of a number of different stories within the frame of a single narrative, a style of narration that was borrowed by other Oriental peoples, the most familiar instance being that of the Arabian Nights. The Panchatantra passed from a Pahlavi translation of the original Sanskrit into Arabic, Greek, Persian, Turkish, Syriac, Hebrew, Latin, and German and from German into other European languages. The Hitopadesa, said to have been composed by Narayana, purports to be an excerpt from the Panchatantra and other books. The most famous collection of fairy tales is the very extensive Kathasaritsagara, composed by the Kashmiri poet Somadeva about ad1070.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But I don't mean any 'Indo-European' links, by the way. And this is also correctly dismissed in the following.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Folktales
IIÂ FOLKTALE SCHOLARSHIP</b>
Much 19th-century scholarship concentrated on attempts to account for these similarities. <b>Generally, the 19th-century scholars were unaware of the vast store of African, Native American, and Oceanic lore that existed independently of the Indo-European tradition. They sought their explanations in those parts of the world that seemed important to them. Thus, the Grimms postulated a common Indo-European origin for folktales, and the German philologist Theodor Benfey as well as the Scottish writer William Clouston believed that stories diffused by way of travelers migrating east and west from India. Such theories, however, have proven incomplete and inadequate.</b> Nevertheless, the research of these and other scholars greatly stimulated interest in folklore and folktales. The German scholar <b>Max Muller</b> held that myths originated when Sanskrit and other ancient languages began to deteriorate, and when the Scottish classicist and <b>folklorist Andrew Lang attacked this view</b>, folktales became the subject of additional attention. Research was further stimulated by the immense popularity of The Golden Bough (1890), a 12-volume compendium of ancient lore by the British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That's another myth put to rest then.
Finally:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Arabian Nights</b>
Arabian Nights, or The Thousand and One Nights, collection of stories from Persia, Arabia, India, and Egypt, compiled over hundreds of years. Most of the stories originated as folk tales, anecdotes, or fables that were passed on orally.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->