work of moral
ly enlightening tales in Sanskrit origin
ating around 500 A.D.
The background of the tales is the education
of four slovenly
princes in the kingdom
of Mahilaropya about the finer aspects of political science
and morals by a skill
The literal meaning of Panchatantra is five tantras or science
They are labelled as follows:
- The separation of friends. This is a story of a deep friendship between a lion and bull which is destroyed by two crafty jackals for their own ends.
- The acquisition of friends.
- The crows and the owls. A story about a feud between the crows and owls involving elements of espionage , double dealing and manipulation.
- Losing what has been gained.
- Thoughtless actions.
The stories are usually about animal
s and each story has several sub-stories within it , usually told by the character
s in the story. The level of story nest
ing goes upto 5 levels deep in a couple of cases!
A distinction that some of the tales from the Panchatantra have in contrast with with other similar tales like Aesop's fables
or the Jataka tales
is that , cunning and deceit are not shown as a bad thing
but as a powerful
skill used by rulers to acheive their ends. This illustrates
that the work is not just moral in nature but also political
The animals who feature in the stories , are used in an allegorical
way , representing not just talking animals but certain stereotypical
classes of people
The various translation
s and derived works
do little justice
to the teachings and concentrate
more on the story. In the original sanskrit version , the story plays a minor part and the lecture
s given by the various characters are more prominent. Also some of the stories are not covered in any translation
that has been published.
An excellent link for some of the stories is http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/panchatantra.html.
In India , Anant Pai
created a revolution in the comic book industry by creating a comic called Amar Chitra Katha
(translates to Eternal Picture
Tale) which covered The Panchatantra , The Mahabharata
, The Ramayana
and almost every Indian mythological and folk tale
A whole generation of kids have been raised on these comics which still provide a more healthy reading diet than the plethora of psychedelic super-hero comics by Marvel Comics