, who, after Hajm had been compelled to ask
pardon of the fakirs for the ill-treatment they had received, was
soundly bastinadoed before the tribunal, and carried to the hospital for
madness.

That each man has his "genius" of good or evil fortune is an essentially
Buddhistic idea. The same story occurs, in a different form, in the
_Hitopadesa_, or Friendly Counsel, an ancient Sanskrit collection of
apologues, and an abridgment of the _Panchatantra_, or Five Chapters,
where it forms Fable 10 of Book III: In the city of Ayodhya (Oude) there
was a soldier named Churamani, who, being anxious for money, for a long
time with pain of body worshipped the deity, the jewel of whose diadem
is the lunar crescent. Being at length purified from his sins, in his
sleep he had a vision in which, through the favour of the deity, he was
directed by the lord of the Yakshas [Kuvera, the god of wealth] to do as
follows: "Early in the morning, having been shaved, thou must stand,
club in hand, concealed behind the door of the house; and the beggar
whom thou seest come into the court thou wilt put to death without mercy
by blows of thy staff. Instantly the beggar will become a pot full of
gold, by which thou wilt be comfortable for the rest of thy life." These
instructions being followed, it came to pass accordingly; but the barber
who had been brought to shave him, having witnessed it all, said to
himself, "O is this the mode of gaining a treasure? Why, then, may not I
also do the same?" From that day forward the barber in like manner, with
club in hand, day after day awaited the coming of the beggar. One day a
beggar being so caught was attacked by him and killed with the stick,
for which offence the barber himself was beaten by the king's officers,
and died.--In the _Panchatantra_, in place of a soldier, a banker who
had lost all his wealth determines to put an end to his life, when he
dreams that the personification of Kuvera, the god of riches, appears
before him in the form of a Jaina mendicant--a conclusive proof of the
Buddhistic origin of the story.--A trunkless head performs the same part
in the Russian folk-tale of the Stepmother's Daughter, on which Mr.
Ralston remarks that, "according to Buddhist belief the treasure which
has belonged to anyone in a former existence may come to him in the form
of a man, who, when killed, is turned to gold."[48]

[48] Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales_, p. 224, _note_.

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