An Introduction
So when I said I will start with Panchatantra, I did not mean this. It will be stories. From next week. From the first story upto the last one. This post today, is to introduce Panchatantra - what is it, what it means etc.
Panchatantra (Sanskrit for “Five Principles or Five Systems“) is a collections of stories. Most of the stories deal with the animals and how they behave with each other. It is said to have been composed by Vishnu Sharma. This collection is known for its entertaining tales and how through these stories, lessons are taught. Lessons related to prudence, conduct and wisdom.
Panchatantra can even be considered a manual for statecraft, governance, and effective personal living. It aims to teach the principles necessary for a person to navigate the social and political world successfully.
The stories give human traits to animals and makes them characters in the stories. The animals provide a stage where the consequences of actions are immediately visible.
What this means:
What does this mean to us?
For a modern reader, the Panchatantra shows the need for critical thinking and foresight. It teaches how to judge people’s motives, understand the dynamics of power and choose friends and allies wisely.
Panchatantra is a masterwork in the art of nested story telling. Stories are contained within other stories, which are themselves contained within a larger set of stories. This structure has the lessons being continuously repetitive. While they are repeated time and again, they are not boring. They are interesting and thereby making the didactic content highly engaging. The stories show ruin is caused when trust it broken, what happens when trust is broken, what is the value of friendship etc.
In essence, Panchatantra is a work of world literature that uses the stories to deliver a sophisticated, practical education in how to successfully and prudently operate within the social and political structure of the world.
Why were these stories composed:
It is said that Vishnu Sharma composed these stories to teach three princes. Why did these princes need learning? Lets talk about that in the next post, next week.
