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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There is an analogous story to this of the Golden Apparition in an entertaining little book entitled, The Orientalist; or, Letters of a Rabbi, by James Noble, published at Edinburgh in 1831, of which the following is the outline: 

An old Dervish falls ill in the house of a poor widow, who tends him with great care, and when he recovers his health he offers to take charge of her only son, Abdallah.  The good woman gladly consents, and the Dervish sets out accompanied by his young ward, having intimated to his mother that they must perform a journey which would last about two years.  One day they arrived at a solitary place, and the Dervish