It is now plain that the tale with the moral, whether that was the original motive or not, is more common than the tale without the moral. We find the moral among French, Italians, Avars, Russians; among people of Mahommedan, Greek, and Catholic religion. Now M. Emmanuel Cosquin is inclined to believe that the moral--the ingratitude of man contrasted with the gratitude of beasts,--is Buddhistic. If that be so, then India is undeniably the original cradle of _Puss in Boots_. But M. Cosquin has been unable to find any _Puss in Boots_ in India; at least he knew none in 1876, when he wrote on the subject in _Le Francais_ (June 29, 1876). Nor did the learned Benfey, with all his prodigious erudition, know an Indian _Puss in Boots_[65]. Therefore the proof of this theory, that Buddhistic India may be the real cat's cradle, is incomplete; nor does it become more probable when we actually do discover _Puss in Boots_ in India. For in the Indian _Puss in Boots_, just as in Perrault's, _there is no moral at all_, and the notion of gratitude, on either the man's side or the beast's, is not even suggested. There could scarcely be a more disappointing discovery than this for the school of Benfey which derives our fairy tales from Buddhism and India. First, the tale which we are discussing certainly did not find a place in the _Pantschatantra_, the _Hitopadesa_, or any other of the early Indian literary collections of _Maerchen_ which were translated into so many Western languages. Next, the story does not present itself, for long, to European students of living Indian folklore. Finally, when puss _is_ found in India, where the moral element (if it was the original element, and if its origin was in Buddhist fancy) should be particularly well preserved, there is not any moral whatever.