Note on the “impossibilities” motif (a)

Note: this text is extracted from Book VII, chapter 40.

This incident is found in the story of Yavakrīta in the 135th chapter of the Mahābhārata.

——The motif of proving the impossibility of one thing by showing the impossibility of another thing is not uncommon in folk-lore. Perhaps the most famous example is that of the iron-eating mice in Jātaka No. 218. As this story occurs in the Ocean of Story (Chapter LX) I will reserve my remarks on it until we come to it. There are, however, several other analogues of the motif in our present text.

First of all I should mention the legend of St Augustine. He tells us that one day he was wandering along the seashore deep in his meditations on the mystery of the Trinity. Suddenly he beheld a child who had dug a hole in the sand and was trying to fill it with sea-water. St Augustine asked the object of his task.

“I am going to empty into the hole,” replied the boy, “all the water of the great deep.”

“Impossible,” exclaimed St Augustine. “Not more impossible than for thee, O Augustine, to explain the mystery on which thou art now meditating.”

La Fontaine (Fables de la Fontaine, edit. Lemerre, vol. i, pp. 41-42, 45) in his translation of La Vie d'Esope le Phrygien related how the Pharaoh Nectanebo sent an ambassador to Lycerus, King of Babylon, and to his minister Æsop. “I have mares in Egypt that conceive by the neighing of the horses that are about Babylon: what have you to answer as to this?” The Phrygian took back his reply the next day, and when he arrived at his lodging he ordered children to take a cat and to whip it along the streets. The Egyptians, who adore that animal, were extremely scandalised at the treatment it received; they rescued it from the hands of the children, and went to complain to the king. The Phrygian was brought into his presence.

“Do you not know,” said the king to him, “that this animal is one of our gods? Why then have you caused it to be treated in this manner?”

“It is by reason of the crime that it has committed against Lycerus, for last night it strangled a cock of his that was very industrious, and crowed at all hours.”

“You are a liar,” replied the king; “how is it possible for a cat to make so long a journey in so short a time?”

“And how is it possible,” said Æsop, “for your mares to hear our horses neigh at so great a distance, and to conceive by hearing them?”

(See Maspero, Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt, P. xxix.)

In a Bihari tale translated by S. C. Mitra ( Joum. Anth. Soc. Bomb., vol. vi, 1902, pp. 140, l4l) we read of a dispute about a horse which, according to popular rumour, had been produced from an oilman’s press. A jackal is elected to decide the case. All are assembled to hear the evidence. The jackal is late in arriving, and explains that on the way he came across a tank full of fish, and he set fire to the water so as to roast the fish, and the time passed as he stopped to eat them. The people exclaim that water could not take fire and roast fish. “Just as easily as an oil-press can give birth to a horse.”

Among the exempla of the Rabbis we find various similar legends. The following précis are found in Gaster’s Exempla of the Rabbis, 1924, at the pages indicated.

No. 12, p. 54.—The Emperor in speaking to the Rabbi Gamliel expresses his doubt as to the existence of God. His answer, however, does not satisfy the Emperor, so on the next morning Gamliel slaps the face of his servant in his presence. The Emperor is wroth and thinks the Rabbi deserves punishment for acting so in his presence.

Gamliel replies:

“He brought me some extraordinary news; a ship of mine, lost for seven years, has suddenly returned fully laden without sailors and without sails.”

The Emperor declares that it is impossible, and the Rabbi replies:

“If so, how can a world created by God govern and feed itself alone, without the One who looks after it?”

No. 3 29, p. 118.—David’s servants were eating eggs. One had eaten his, and was ashamed to sit with the others. So he borrowed an egg and promised to return, when asked, all that might come from one egg. After a time the man was brought by his creditor before King David, who condemned him to pay an enormous amount, as it was claimed that from the egg a chicken could be hatched which would lay eighteen eggs, from which eighteen chickens would be hatched and again eighteen. The man is met by Solomon, who, being told of the judgment, advised him to sow boiled peas in the field.

When seen by David and asked how he could expect these to grow, he was to reply:

“How can a boiled egg be hatched and produce chickens?”

A similar legend is found on p. 124. See also the analogues given by Gaster on p. 246.— n.m.p.