Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Cinderella in Tibet

2002; Volume: 61; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1178680

0385-2342

Wayne Schlepp,

Cultural and Sociopolitical Studies

A story in chapter 11 of the Vetalapancavimsati contains the elements of some widely occurring folktales. This story, preserved in Tibetan literature, could be quite old and closely related to the origins of all Cinderella-type stories. It is a well-formed didactic tale with sound etiological grounding; and it is reasonable to assume that, as it migrated from one community to another and encountered different moral systems, certain events, having lost the social context that gave them meaning, became random elements dictated by a nameless fate. In this regard it is interesting to note how other versions elsewhere lack, by comparison, moral or logical justification from the prevailing real world of the community in which they circulate and become to a certain degree deformed, as Cosquin would say. Given the state of the evidence, however, it is difficult to argue that the Tibetan story is in fact a key member in the development of Cinderella stories; but even if it is not, one can still say that the wider context this version brings to speculations upon the stories and their elements is of benefit to research on the Cinderella cycle.