Father Christmas and the Green Man

With the holiday season upon us, it's a great time to investigate the possible connections of Father Christmas with the Green Man.

The idea of the link between Father Christmas, linked with the Yuletide or Winter Solstice, and the Green Man of art and architecture has been explored since at least the time of Lady Raglan in 1939.  Father Christmas is traditionally depicted with crowns or other ornaments of holly, ivy and mistletoe and often dressed in green robes.

Green Man 

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20040310163133/http://www.lincsheritage.org/lincs/misc/green-man.html


The Green Knight of medieval literature -- often equated with the artistic Green Man -- had a Winter Solstice connection. He scheduled his rematch with Sir Gawain on the shortest day of the year.  Interestingly, in the first contest between the two, the Green Knight's head was cut off by Gawain but with surprising results.  The headless body of the Green Knight retrieved the head, which offered the winter challenge to Gawain before body and head went on their way together.

The head cult perspective offers an obvious link with the foliate head of the Green Man depicted in art.


Victorian drawing of Father Christmas from a copy of Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol with green robe and foliate crown.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scrooges_third_visitor-John_Leech,1843.jpg


If we go back to the Tantric connections suggested for the Green Man here, we can find in the Kabbalah the idea of a father figure known as Abba, which means "father" in Hebrew.  This Abba is related to the male principle of creation.  He is paired with Imma, meaning "mother" in Hebrew, the female principle.

While Judaism disdained anthropomorphic icons, Abba and Imma were described in the texts as mated in divine union resulting in the generation of progeny or creation.  Abba can be equated with Adam Kadmon, the primordial man.  The divine union of Abba and Imma is similar in many respects to that of the Tibetan concept of Yabyum.  Yab also means "father" in Tibetan, while Yum means "mother."  The Yabyum depiction of deities in Tibetan art shows a male and female deity in sexual union. The literary references to Abba and Imma are also quite sexually explicit in their description of the cosmic union.

Despite the taboo against iconography, Abba was still meditated upon in the sense of his Partzufim or "face."  The Kabbalistic practitioner concentrated on the divine face of Abba and other forms of the creative male principle, particularly focusing on the massive beard. According to some interpretations, by concentrating on the face of Abba and traveling along the hairs of his beard, one achieves unity with the Divine Image.  The similarity with Tantric visualization of the deity is striking.

Also, the aspect of meditating on the face brings us back to the head cult, i.e., in the Green Knight example, and to the "face motif" discussed here earlier in connection with the Green Man.

 

Non-religious depiction of the head of Adam Kadmon, who himself is seen as a form of the Tree of Life.


Source: http://img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/202525.jpg


Although I have not found a direct solstice link with Abba and Imma, the erotic union of the two, or rather the union of their "faces,"  is considered  to have generated the ten Sephirot of the Sefer Yetzirah "tree."


Abba, along with other forms of the male principle, are also directly seen as types of the Sun, while Imma and the female principle including the Shekinah were seen as types of the Moon.  The Partzufim or faces motif blends quite well with this linkage to the celestial luminaries.


Like Abba, Father Christmas has a full beard while the Green Man has vegetation spewing from his mouth.  In all these cases, the representation may be that of the generative powers of the Sun.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

More on migration of Tantric concepts

In 1977, the anthroposophist Pio Filippani-Ronconi suggested that elements of Ismaili Shi'ism appeared to have originated from the Vajrayana Tantric Buddhist doctrine in Tibet.  Specifically he compared the Vajrayana system of the five Dhyani Buddhas, also called Jinas and Tathagatas, to the Holy Family of Islamic mysticism -- the Five of the Mantle.  Indeed, one could favorably compare many elements, particularly in the areas of cosmology and numerology, within the Tibetan and Islamic mystical traditions, and furthermore extend these westward to the Kabbalistic traditions.

The five Dhyani Buddhas are transcendental enlightened beings (Buddhas) as compared to their earthly, human counterparts known as Manusa Buddhas.  Each of the Dhyani Buddhas is linked with a specific cosmic time cycle, and also with a "family" of beings and attributes.  The five-fold division of the cosmos in line with the Dhyani Buddhas recalls the Wuxing classification in China, but we will not pursue that lead in this article.

Dhyani Buddhas are particularly associated with the five primary colors -- white, blue, red, gold/yellow, and green.  

In Islamic mystic tradition, the Five of the Mantle (or Cloak) -- Muhammad; his daughter Fatima, her husband 'Ali; and the couple's sons al-Hasan and al-Husayn -- become primordial, transcendental beings in Twelver Shi'ism.  They are said to have existed before Creation and are linked with successive cosmic cycles in a manner remarkably similar to that of the Dhyani Buddhas.  Additionally, the five are associated with the "Five Lights" or "Five Colors" a reference to the human incarnations of these transcendental beings.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the five Dhyani Buddhas are combined with a sixth being -- the Adibuddha -- representing the pantheistic totality of the group.  Similarly in Islamic mystical tradition, the angel Gabriel becomes the "sixth of you five," which Henry Corbin describes as the "uni-totality" of the pentad.  In both the Tibetan and Islamic systems, this sixth member is associated with the element of the mind, as Vajrasattva (manas "mind") in the case of the Adibuddha, and as the Ruh Natiqa or "Thinking Spirit" in the Ismaili tradition.


Body of Light

The association of the Dhyani Buddhas and the Five of the Mantle with the five colors links conceptually with the belief found in both schools that spiritual adepts can attain a "body of light."

In the Dzogchen and Bonpo traditions of Tibet, this is known as the Rainbow Body or the Rainbow Light Body.   Upon the attainment of the highest yogic plane before death, the yogi dissolves into the "Five Pure Lights," i.e., the five primary colors of the rainbow achieving union with the Dharmakaya, the pantheistic godstuff.

The Sufi "body of light" or "resurrection body" is attained by the adept who completes a sacred itinerary that is generally thought of as imaginal in nature.  Actually the final part of the journey is that in which the devotee travels to union with the Divine in this subtle body of light.


The Inner and Outer Journey

Both the Tibetan and Islamic mystical traditions include concepts of a pilgrimage that the adept undertakes to attain spiritual transformation.

In the Tibetan case, there are clearly both real world along with imaginal sides to this tradition. The pilgrimage sites are real places that have been traditionally used as such including Kamarupa in Assam, the Gondavari River in South India, and the Himalayan range in Nepal and Tibet.  The only really exotic destination is Suvarnadvipa, which also happens to be a key location in this blog's research.

The Tibetan pilgrimage sites are divided into five major groups -- the pitthas, ksetras, chandohas, melapakas and smasanas -- and these are further subdivided by adding the prefix upa- to each major group.  Thus there are five groups of pilgrimage sites, ten in all including subgroups, that are said to correspond also to ten parts of the human body:

Suvarnadvipa is included in the group known as the upamelapakas, which are associated with the feet and the calves.  According to Jamgon Kongtrul, the inner journey of transformation begins interestingly enough from the head and then moves downward toward the feet.  Suvarnadvipa is found at the eighth stage of awakening and is associated with the sacred ground known as the "Higher Gathering Place."  The sacred grounds of the ninth and tenth stages are known respectively as "Cemetery" and "Higher Cemetery" suggesting that the adept is already passed on beyond this life.

The Sufi and Shi'a sacred journey is represented by the journey of the birds to the East toward Mt. Qaf, the eighth mountain in a system that consists of either nine or ten stages.  The birds never proceed beyond Qaf, which is known as the Footstool of God, for the next stages take the adept to the very Throne of God.

For the Sufi mystics also, the inner itinerary begins from the top, starting in the eyes according to al-Kubra then moving down into the face, the chest, and then the rest of the body.  Like Suvarnadvipa, the eighth stage of the Tantric pilgrimage, Mt. Qaf, the eighth sphere, was located in the furthest East.  Abassid tradition places it "behind," i.e. on the other side of the China Sea.



Kabbalah echoes

The Zohar, the central text of Kabbalah that dates back to 13th century Spain, also emphasizes a journey, mainly spiritual in nature, that the practitioner undertakes to reach Gan Eden -- the Garden of Eden, also known as Pardes.  There are actually two Garden of Edens -- a heavenly one that one attains to after death, and an earthly garden where the Shekinah is exiled.

The Shekinah is the female aspect of the Divine that remained in the Terrestrial Paradise after the banishment of humanity.  The Kabbalah adepts seek to rejoin the Shekinah via a sacred pilgrimage to the primordial garden through mystical paths known as Sephirot.  The Sephirot were likened to the organs of the human body, specifically that of Adam Kadmon, the Primordial Man.


The Sephirot shown in a traditional diagram. (Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tree_of_life_hebrew.svg)




 
From Wikipedia:  "Metaphorical representation of the Five Worlds, with the 10 Sephirot radiating in each, as successively smaller Iggulim-concentric circles."


At the top of the body is the first Sephira, Keter, the crown of the head, while the tenth and last Sephira corresponding to Gan Eden is Malkuth, which also represents the feet of Adam Kadmon.  The Hebrew term malkuth is related to the malakut of Islamic mysticism with both words referring to the "realm of kings," an area on the border of the earthly and heavenly regions.


Although the sacred journey of Kabbalah was an inner one, the belief in a real world Gan Eden did exist.  According to medieval documents like the Hebrew letters of Prester John, the location of Gan Eden was 'India ha-gedolah or "Further India," the same area where one finds the Sambatyon River and the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.

Evidence exists that at least some medieval Kabbalists undertook real journeys to these far-off locations.  For example, Abraham Abulafia attempted to find the Sambatyon River with the idea that he could help the world along toward the end times, but also to help undo the "knots" that hindered his own spiritual development. 


Echoes in the East

Suvarnadvipa (Island of Gold) in the Tibetan version of the spiritual itinerary would equate with the locations of Qaf and Gan Eden in the respective Islamic and Kabbalah traditions. As I have argued often here, the Ming Dynasty kingdom known as Lusung (Luzon) was the political and cultural heir to Suvarnadvipa and located in the same geographical political center.

Here we can still find the concept of cyclic and generational time represented in the image of a human body divided into five parts.  The body thus divided could represent five generations of a clan, and also the cycles of regeneration and reincarnation that existed in the previous belief systems.

I have also suggested previously that the sacred lands of Lusung were apparently divided in a quadripartite fashion based on the imagery of the human body.  Thus, we have place names like Olongapo or Ulo ng Apo "Head of the Lord." 

Another example of the human form representing the cosmos or at least the Earth can be seen in the Tausug house architecture that interlinks Earth, tree, house and human body.





A diagram of a traditional pentagonal Tausug house made with nine posts that create an outline of a human body in the well-known squatting figure motif.  The tree acts as the umbilical cord of the Mother Earth extended by a rope tied to a central post.  After nine months, the period of human gestation, the rope is cut.  (Sources  http://media.photobucket.com/image/tausug%20nine%20square%20house%20numbers/kharl_prado/tausug.jpg)


The house with it's symbolic human figure represents the "child" of the Earth and thus is a copy of the world in microcosm. While the oldest form of the Austronesian house had four corner posts, a central post is often added symbolically to represent the center of the world.  Thus, the five posts create an imagery of the cosmos. In the Austronesian scheme of the base, trunk and tip, the base of the house is the bottom and thus one travels back to the "source" by going from top to bottom.  

In another sense, the mythical family of Pinatubo and Arayat can be compared to the Holy Family of the Mantle in Islamic tradition.  In the local folk legends, this family is often represented with five members, for example, Sinukuan and his spouse and their three daughters. However, an extensive review of the traditions would allow us to logically reconstruct the family as consisting of the two deities of Pinatubo and Arayat, standing for the Moon and Sun respectively;  a single child for each of these deities, more connected with the Earth, who are involved in a battle-courtship; and the offspring of the latter who again has an astronomical relationship representing Venus, the Morning Star.

Islamic mystical tradition normally equates Muhammad with the Sun; 'Ali with the Moon; Fatima with Venus; while the al-Hasan and al-Husayn are sometimes equated with the pole stars.  The emphasis on the luminaries and Venus to the exclusion of the other planets is quite telling. The astronomical links here are clearly associated with the association of these "families" with cyclic time.

We also hear of widespread beliefs surrounding the rainbow in the Philippine region .  In some cases, the rainbow was equated with the Supreme Deity, while elsewhere it is seen as the abode of God or the gods.  Sometimes it is viewed as a bridge or boat by which one reaches the Divine after death.  There was a belief that people who died a noble death by the sword, or who were devoured by crocodiles, or struck by lightning, became anitos (deified spirits) and were united with the pantheistic Deity in the rainbow, or through the vehicle of the rainbow.

In Pampanga, the pantheistic nature of the rainbow can be seen in its name pinanari "loincloth of the King" with the "king" here probably referring to the creative force Mangetchay.

Concepts of transformation are also included in the practice of obtaining a mutya, although in this case the transformation involves those still living on earth.  Mutya refers to a pearl or gem that shines and radiates light.  Grace Odal-Devora states: "...the inherent powers and virtues of the various mutya objects can be the basis for conceptualizing on the nature of the self – that starts from discovering the innate powers and inherent virtues within and using them to transform oneself and one’s society – like the transformation of the pearl from slime, mud, sand or dirt into a gem of light, beauty, healing and purity."


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Cooper, David A. The Ecstatic Kabbalah. Boulder, Colo: Sounds True, 2005.

Corbin, Henry. Cyclical time and Ismaili Gnosis, http://www.amiscorbin.com/textes/anglais/Corbin%20Cyclical%20Time.pdf.


Idel, Moshe. Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah. SUNY series in Judaica. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.

Karma-gliṅ-pa, and W. Y. Evans-Wentz. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Or, The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, According to Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup's English Rendering. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Katz, Nathan. Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A View from the Margin. New York: Palgrave Mac Millan, 2007, 64-5.

Merkur, Daniel. Gnosis: an esoteric tradition of mystical visions and unions. SUNY series in Western esoteric traditions. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 1993, 217-245.

Odal-Devora, Grace. 2006. Some problems in determining the origin of the Philippine word "mutya" or "mutia."  Paper presented at Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. 1720 January 2006. Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines. http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/ical/papers.html.

Reyes y Florentino, Isabelo de los.  Notes in order to familiarize myself with Philippine theodicy : the religion of the Katipunan which is the religion of the ancient Filipinos, National Historical Institute, 1980, 4, 6.

Sakili, Abraham P. Space and Identity: Expressions in the Culture, Arts and Society of the Muslims in the Philippines. Diliman, Quezon City: Asian Center, University of the Philippines, 2003.

Silliman, Robert Benton. Religious Beliefs and Life at the Beginning of the Spanish Regime in the Philippines: Readings. Dumaguete City, Philippines: Reproduced by College of Theology, Silliman University, 1964.

Wallace, Vesna A. The Inner Kālacakratantra A Buddhist Tantric View of the Individual. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Zangpo, Ngawang, and Blo-gros-mtha'-yas . Sacred Ground: Jamgon Kongtrul on "Pilgrimage and Sacred Geography". Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publ, 2001.

The Christian Buddha

Returning over the next few blog posts to the theme of the migration of Tantric elements from South and Southeast Asia across the Muslim world into Europe, probably the most noteworthy literary evidence of this transmission of ideas comes in the story of Barlaam and Josaphat.

The Sayabiga, I have suggested in this blog, played an important role in the transmission of Tantric ideas, as they migrated along the trade routes seemingly always accompanied for some reason by another group known as the Zutt (Jats). The Sayabiga originally came from Zabag (Suvarnadvipa) and the king of that country had a great interest in reaching out to far-off kingdoms.  During the Pala dynasty, we hear of Serlingpa, a prince of Suvarnadvipa, bringing a number of Tantric texts including the abridged Kalacakra Tantra from Shamhbala, which can thus be equated with Suvarnadvipa. Even earlier, this same regional king, who was known by Muslims as the Mihraj, had sent correspondence to the Umayyad caliphs Mu'awiyah and Umar ibn abd al-Aziz.

Along the trade routes, the merchants and seafarers of Zabag had absorbed Tantric Buddhist and Muslim, mostly Shiite, influences.  In Europe, I have suggested that Sayabiga settled in the areas of the rice fields of Valencia with their tidal rice and fishing culture based on the tropical Japonica rice strain. Some of these Sayabiga may have dispersed along the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in connection with the people known as Agotes and Cagots.


The Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat

Two important texts were transmitted into Europe from the East during the Romanesque period.  These were the books known as the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat and the European versions of the Arabic Kalilah wa Dimnah, based on the Sanskrit Panchatantra.

The Barlaam legend contains the story of the cattari-pubba-nimattani, the "four signs" of the Buddha.  In the story, the Indian prince Josaphat is confined within the wall of the king's palace to keep the prince safe from the evils of the world.  The prince though becomes the subject of a prophecy that declares he will either become a great world conqueror or shall take up the life of an ascetic.  He manages to convince his father to allow him to make excursions to the park outside the walls of the palace escorted by his friends.  There he encounters for the first time in order an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and lastly, an ascetic.  Eventually Josaphat decides to join the ascetic, Barlaam, and renounces the throne to become a hermit himself.  Now, these important elements of the story provide a near replica of the tale of Gautama Buddha.

A sculpture at the Parma Cathedral by Benedetto Antelami (c. 1150 – c. 1230) shows St. Josaphat, i.e., the Christianized Buddha, standing in the Tree of Life after being transported there by angels. (Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15762541@N06/2230621003/

According to the text itself, the Barlaam story was written down by one John the Monk of St. Sabas Monastery near Bethlehem.  John reportedly received the legend from "pious men" from India who apparently translated the tale.  However, all Europeans versions of the Barlaam legend that exist today are thought to trace back to a Greek translation of a 10th century Georgian version by Euthymius the Iberian.

The Georgian version in turn is derived from the Ismaili Shi'ite text Kitab Bilawhar wa Budhasaf in Arabic, which dates to about the 8th century. An Old French version by Gui de Cambrai appears around 1215 in Western Europe.  Around 1250, Hebrew and Old Spanish versions of Kalilah wa Dimnah also appear on the European scene, so we can say rather confidently that the transmission of the two texts was linked at least to some extent.

The ultimate source of both the Buddha and Panchatantra stories appears to be Buddhist.  Such a contention is natural enough with the story of the four signs, but the Panchatantra leads us further to make a connection with the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet.

In the Kalilah wa Dimnah cycle we find the story of the interpretation of the king's dreams that has a decided anti-brahmin bias.  The story is completely missing from the Hindu Panchatantra, but is found in the Tibetan Kanjur. 


Flow of knowledge from the East

We know that during Abbasid times the caliphs, probably attempting to imitate Sassanian rulers, welcomed scholars from all directions and particularly from "India" to their courts. In 772, for example, a scholar from Indian brought an astronomical work called the Sindhind to the court of al-Mansur.

However, many of the "Tantric" cultural elements appear to have been transmitted more by groups of wandering ascetics, probably connected with the Zutt and Sayabiga, who it has been suggested eventually helped spawn the Sufi Dervish sects.  The early ascetics appear to have had a Shi'ite bias and we can see that particularly in the mystical orientation of the Ismaili branch of the Shi'a religion.

Zutt and Sayabiga, described alternately as guards, mercenaries, pirates, farmers, and buffalo herders, were already present in the Sassanian empire before the Arab invasions.  Many of these people were forcibly moved to the swamps around Basra to help in creating an agricultural system there.  So, it is worth noting the position of Basra as an early center of Islamic mysticism with its blending of Persian and Indic influences.  Both Sayabiga and the Zutt were later moved to northern Syria, which like Basra also became strongly associated with Ismaili and Sufi mysticism.

At some point also, the "Gypsy" Sayabiga and Zutt appear to have located themselves in Egypt.  A few names provide some evidence of these groups in the history of the region.  For example, from 815 to 820, the governor of Egypt was Yusuf al-Zutti, whose nisba "surname" indicates he was from a Zutt tribe. Salim Bayya' al-Zutti was a Shi'ite faqih and a companion of the Imams Musa ibn Ja'far and 'Ali ibn Musa.

Likewise, the captain of the guard of Caliph Ali was Ma'kal Ibn Kifi al-Zabaji, whose nisba could indicate ancestry from Zabag.  A number of Muslim authors testify that the Sayabiga were widely employed as guards, for example, at the treasury of Basra.   The early Sufi mystic Salim al-Barusi may trace his descent from Barus or Balus in Sumatra, the home of the famous Fansuri camphor, while another Sufi sage Abu Yazid al-Waqwaqi has a nisba that could indicate his heritage from the islands of Waqwaq south of Zabag.

The evidence of a Tibetan Buddhist background to the texts of Kalilah wa-Dimnah and Barlaam and Josaphat would fit in well with the Sayabiga presence as Zabag had established links with Tibet through the Kalacakra doctrine.  Serlingpa was stated by various sources to have brought texts in the historical period (10th-11th centuries) from Shambhala, and other sources claim or suggest that he was himself the author of important texts and commentaries.  Thus, Shambhala was not simply an imaginal location as suggested by some, but a real place identical with Suvarnadvipa (Zabag).

Indeed, the Sufi and Ismaili sacred geographies, also often interpreted as purely imaginal, are geographically located in the same general region as Shambhala-Suvarnadvipa.  In the Sea of China, was sacred Mt. Qaf and the talking Waqwaq Tree (Wakwak).  Many locations like the mystical fortress island Kangdez were even given latitude and longitude coordinates in Islamic geographical tables.

The appearance of the Hebrew and Spanish versions of the Panchatantra tales seem to point toward a southern entrance of these Tibetan Buddhist stories.  Although the earliest Western European variant of Barlaam and Josaphat appears in France, Spain was also an important center for Barlaam tales.  Spain and neighboring southern France experienced a flowering of mysticism during this period.

In the areas inhabited by the Agote-Cagot people, this influence was strongest where it appears together with "Tantric" material of a sexual nature found in both church art and in the literature of the troubadours.  In Languedoc, the Cathars adopted Barlaam and Josaphat as an important book, and according to D.M. Lang they even used the text to defend their rejection of material pleasures, property ownership, and the practice of asceticism among the Perfecti order. Some have even claimed that the Provencal version of Barlaam was a crypto-Cathar document.

In neighboring Provence, the Jewish Kabbalah arises around the same time as Catharism. Like the latter, it shares attitudes towards reincarnation, the transmigration of souls back and forth between humans and animals, and other spiritual beliefs with the Cathars. That the Kabbalah mystics were strongly influenced by Sufism and Ismaili Shi'ism is a standard view in the scholarly world.


Impact of the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat


Even though this story became popular in Europe only in the 13th century, the tale became so widespread that both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches eventually accepted both Barlaam and Josaphat as saints.  Philip Almond describes the story's almost unparalleled popularity:

It enjoyed a popularity attained perhaps by no other legend. It spread into nearly all the countries of Christendom and is extant in over sixty versions...and even at the beginning of the eighteenth century, returned to the East in a Philippine dialect. It was also included in Vincent of Beauvais's thirteenth century Speculum historiale, and in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine in the same century. It was probably from Caxton's English translation of the latter work, The Golden Legend, that Shakespeare borrowed the fable of the caskets for use in The Merchant of Venice. 

Even as late as the 19th-20th centuries, the book had influenced Leo Tolstoy to renounce materialism in the middle of his life. It may not be a coincidence that the flourishing of monastic orders like the Augustinians, Carmelites, Cistercians, Dominicans, and Franciscans, which helped propagate Romanesque architecture,  occurred after the original translations of the work into Greek and Latin.


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Almond, Philip C.  "The Buddha of Christendom: A review of the legend of Barlaam & Josaphat," Religious Studies, 23, 1987: 391-406.

Ashtiany, Julia. ʻAbbasid Belles-Lettres. The Cambridge history of Arabic literature. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 140-1.

Bīdpāī, and I. G. N. Keith-Falconer. Kalilah and Dimnah. Cambridge: University press, 1885.

Lach, Donald Frederick. Asia in the Making of Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965, 100-111.

Surmelian, Leon Z. Daredevils of Sassoun; The Armenian National Epic. Denver: A. Swallow, 1964, 254.

Tolstoy, L. A Confession and What I Believe, London, 1921, 23-4.