Panchatantra is a famous text of moral stories by Vishnu Sharma. In this book, stories are narrated to boost the moral kids.
CONTENTS AVAILABLE AT THIS PAGE
Synopsis of Panchatantra
The place of Indian fiction in world literature has been supreme and paramount, hence Indian fiction has also been called the father of world fiction. In most of the Indian fiction literature, without the name of any particular person, birds and animals have been presented in the form of symbols.
In this book, lion, elephant, rat, cat, snake, tortoise, crow, etc. give us moral and ethical education and teaching of dos and don’ts.
Indian Sanskrit fiction literature was praised and respected by almost all literary scholars of the world due to its melody, passion, emotion, and preaching. In the stories of this book, we get entertainment, ridicule, deceit, deceit and religious, moral and practical knowledge.
Various types of stories were prevalent among the people in the life of Indian society of Vedic age. In the Rigveda, there is a dialogue between the deity’s bitch Sarma and the Vaniks [merchants], in which a bitch named Sarma instructs the merchants to donate money.
Since the Rigvedic period, we see the seed of intimacy with animals and birds and this is the origin of Sanskrit-story literature. We get the detail of these stories in the Brahmana texts also.
In the Upanishads, the teachings of Brahmavidya have been imparted to Jabal-son named Satyakama by a bull, a swan and a water bird named Madgu. This is the root seed of the animal-bird tales of Panchatantra.
We get a very developed form of animal and bird stories in Mahabharata. In the Mahabharata, there are dog-story, Manu-matsya [fish] story, Hasti-turtle story and other fables. These stories can be considered as the source of the early period of animal stories.
In the Mahabharata itself comes the story of a chauffeur and a cunning cat, who, deceived by the veil of righteousness, had surrendered themselves to him.
The names of animal stories are also inscribed on the Bharhut Stupa of the third century. The Jataka tales of Buddhists existed in about 380 BC. In these stories there are stories of the births of Bodhisattva like deer, monkey etc.
Aryasur’s Jatakmala text containing 35 Jataka-tales is written in Sanskrit language. The stories of Panchatantra have a lot of similarity with these stories. Jains have composed the Jataka texts following the Buddhist Jataka texts.
Author and time of creation of Panchatantra
The creator of Panchatantra is Pt. Vishnu Sharma who was a master in all the scriptures. He was eighty (80) years old.
Chanakya also has a name Vishnu Sharma, so many scholars consider Chanakya and Vishnu Sharma to be one person and accept Panchatantra as the creation of Chanakya. In fact, the serious things related to policy have been given in nature texts.
According to Keith, a western scholar, the time of Panchatantra is 200 BC. century or later. Pro. Hertel Monsieur also accepts its time almost latter of 200 BC.
If Chanakya is accepted as the author of the Panchatantra, then his time is from 345 to 300 BC. That is, the reign of Magadha Emperor Chandragupta Maurya will be determined. As Vishnu Sharma is considered to be 80 years old man, so Chanakya must have composed this book in the last stage.
In 85 AD, the texts of Panchatantra are found ‘Brihatkatha’ composed by Gunadhya. This proves that by the time of Gunadhya, Panchatantra had become famous, so its time is 300 BC. It seems reasonable to believe.
Objective of Panchatantra
The main objective of ‘Panchatantra’ is to provide moral, religious and practical education to the children. For this, the author has made animals and birds a medium in the form of a story.
In these stories, there is a description of the virtues of daily eloquence, causal-non-actionable preaching, duty-keeping, friend-protection, word-keeping, etc.
The composition of this book is prose and poetic. This moral and didactic education has been described in verses and the narrative part has been described in prose. At some places, the story has also been included in the verse.
Just as this book attracts the minds of children with beautiful stories and amazing anecdotes, in the same way, it obliges the wise scholars and the erudite politicians by giving incomparable help in solving their complicated problems and in discussing the subtle elements of politics
Pt. Shri Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra is especially respected not only in India but also everywhere in the world. It has been translated into all languages like English, French, Italian, German, Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hebrew, Latin, Russian etc.
After the Bible in the world, this book has got the most publicity and dissemination. Its translations have been published in more than fifty languages of the world.
Language and style of Panchatantra
The language of Panchatantra is full of idioms. It is amusing, humorous, fine and heart-wrenching. The syntax is simple and understandable. Nowhere is used unclear and incomprehensible terminology. Language is according to the context.
In fact, the stories of Panchatantra are in prose, but in order to make the subject more refined and to produce effect, a lot of verses have also been included in between.
In places, satirical and ornate style has been used. The deceit and ostentation of brahmins, deceitful behaviour of servants, prudence of kings, character of women, selfishness of sycophants etc. have been expressed in a satirical style.
Conversational style is another characteristic of the text. Short and big sentences are written in conversational style.
Classification of Panchatantra
Panchatantra is a text containing five tantras. These five systems are as follows. –
(1) Mtira-bhed [Friendship-loss]
(2) Mitra-Samprapti [Friendship-gain]
(3) Kakolukiyam [Crow and owl]
(4) Labdhapranash and
(5) Aparikshita-Kark [The one who does without thinking]
The brief description of the five tantras is as follows-
Preface
Before the main story of friendship-loss, there is the story of King Amar Shakti. King Amar Shakti is unhappy with his foolish sons. His sons are devoid of scriptural knowledge, senseless and intoxicated.
He entrusts them to Pt. Vishnu Sharma on his promise that he will make him proficient in politics and ethics in six months.
(1) Mitrabhed [Losing a friend]–
In this tantra [system], there is one main story and twenty-three sub-stories have been fabricated under the main story.
Under the main story, there is a story of a lion and a bull. A lion named Pingalak is the king of the forest. He provides protection to the bull named Sanjeevak that is abandoned by his master during the calamity.
The lion against the wishes of the jackals named Karkat and Damanak, his faithful ministers, makes that bull his dear friend.
Later, the lion is disbelieved in that bull by the two jackal ministers, through several anecdotes full of deceit, that is, a distinction is made between the two friends. After that the bull is killed by the lion.
When the lion sees both his bloodied claws, he feels remorse, but the oppressive shrug consoles the lion with many tricks and remains in the position of his prime minister.
The purpose of this system is to present the distinction between friends. Along with this, there are many beautiful, ethical and heart-warming stories of animals and birds in this system.
(2) Mitra-samprapti [acquisition a friend]-
In this tantra, there is one main story of a pigeon and seven sub-story have been fabricated in this system. The gist of the main story is as follows –
A pigeon named Chitragriva is the king of pigeons. He and other pigeons got trapped in a hunter’s net. He asks the other pigeons trapped in the hunter’s net to fly with that net and goes to the house of his dear friend Hiranyaka to get the net cut.
But when Hiranyaka was first ready to cut the bondage of Chitragriva, then Chitragriva said to him – O friend, first cut the bondage of my followers, then cut my bondage.
After the pigeons are freed by the mouse, a coo named Laghupatanak befriends the rat and his old friend Mantharak, a tortoise.
Hiranyaka the mouse tells him the reason for leaving his house. Which is as follows – I (the rat) used to eat alms from a rat, despite tirelessly trying to avoid the rat by taking alms demanded by a sannyasin named Tamrachud.
A friend of the sannyasin says that there must be a reason for this force of the mouse. Then the sannyasin starts looking for the reason for the power of the mouse.
As a result, the reason for the strength in the rat’s house is obtained in the form of accumulated gold reserves. When the gold deposit is removed, the rat becomes weak and is abandoned by the servants, being unable to maintain its servants.
Later on, Chitrang becomes the fourth friend of the mouse in the form of an antelope. One day while roaming, he gets trapped in the deer’s net. After waiting a long time to be freed from him, he is thus freed from bondage by his friends (pigeon, rat, crow and tortoise).
But at the same time when the hunter comes, the tortoise gets scared and on the pretext the deer falls as dead. Later the deer cleverly deceives the tortoise as well.
In this system – Pigeon, Rat, Tortoise, Crow and Deer made friends with each other and got rid of the calamities that had come upon them by helping each other. Therefore, the name of this system is an unworthy noun.
In the end the system ends by telling the greatness of the friend.
(3) Kakolukiya [Crow and owl]-
There is one main and 17 sub-story in this system. In this there is description of Deity (war) and treaty.
In this section, under the main story – there is the story of Meghavarna, the king of crows and Arimardan, the king of owls.
On a banyan tree, the king of crows, Meghavarna, used to reside with his team. In a nearby hill cave, the owl king Arimardana lived with his entourage.
Every night during the night, Diwandh Ulukraj used to go round the banyan tree and kill some crow by pecking it.
Getting troubled by the attack of owls, Meghvarna discusses with his ministers and asks why these owls are keeping animosity towards us without any reason. And as a symbol of this, which of the measures should we take, among the measures, price etc.?
Then a crow minister named Sthajivi tells how in the past, when a proposal was made to make owl the king on the occasion of choosing the king of the birds, a crow objected to the owl being chosen as the terrifying king and the birds were By his side, he stops the coronation of the owl.
Then the owl vows to take revenge on the crows, and since then the owls have had a traditional animosity with us. After that the crow minister as a refuge before the owls. Shows the way to be present in the form.
continued ……..
