Somadeva's work contains many most entertaining stories; for instance, that of the king who, through ignorance of the phonetic rules of Sanskrit grammar, misunderstood a remark made by his wife, and overcome with shame, determined to become a good Sanskrit scholar or die in the attempt. One of the most famous tales it contains is that of King Çibi, who offered up his life to save a pigeon from a hawk. It is a Jataka, and is often represented on Buddhist sculptures; for example, on the tope of Amaravati, which dates from about the beginning of our era. It also occurs in a Chinese as well as a Muhammadan form. ETHICAL POETRY. The proneness of the Indian mind to reflection not only produced important results in religion, philosophy, and science; it also found a more abundant expression in poetry than the literature of any other nation can boast. Scattered throughout the most various departments of Sanskrit literature are innumerable apophthegms in which wise and noble, striking and original thoughts often appear in a highly finished and poetical garb. These are plentiful in the law-books; in the epic and the drama they are frequently on the lips of heroes, sages, and gods; and in fables are constantly uttered by tigers, jackals, cats, and other animals. Above all, the Mahabharata, which, to the pious Hindu, constitutes a moral encyclopædia, is an inexhaustible mine of proverbial philosophy. It is, however, natural that ethical maxims should be introduced in greatest abundance into works which, like the Panchatantra and Hitopadeça, were intended to be handbooks of practical moral philosophy. Owing to the universality of this mode of expression in Sanskrit literature, there are but few works consisting exclusively of poetical aphorisms. The most important are the two collections by the highly-gifted Bhartrihari, entitled respectively Nitiçataka, or "Century of Conduct," and Vairagya-çataka, or "Century of Renunciation." Others are the Çanti-çataka, or "Century of Tranquillity," by a Kashmirian poet named Çilhana; the Moha-mudgara, or "Hammer of Folly," a short poem commending the relinquishment of worldly desires, and wrongly attributed to Çankaracharya; and the Chanakya-çataka, the "Centuries of Chanakya," the reputed author of which was famous in India as a master of diplomacy, and is the leading character in the political drama Mudra-rakshasa. The Niti-manjari, or "Cluster of Blossoms of Conduct," which has not yet been published, is a collection of a peculiar kind. The moral maxims which it contains are illustrated by stories, and these are taken exclusively from the Rigveda. It consists of about 200 çlokas, and was composed by an author named Dya Dviveda who accompanied his work with a commentary. In the latter he quotes largely from the Brihåddevata, Sayana on the Rigveda, and other authors.