-: Moral Stories :-

Panchatantra

Panchatantra, is a collection of five volumes of stories written by a teacher to help instruct the different aspects of kinghood for princes. The five volumes together serve as a manual for a prospective king, to help him in deciding how to rule, how to choose his fellow friends, fellow ministers, how to conduct himself in daily life etc. Every story in PanchaTantra is accompanied by a moral.

For more than two and a half millennia, the Panchatantra tales have regaled children and adults alike with a moral at the end of every story. Some believe that they are as old as the Rig Veda. There is also another story about these fables. According to it, these are stories Shiva told his consort Parvati. The present series is based on the Sanskrit original.

Origins and function
The work is an ancient and vigorous multicultural hybrid that to this day continues an erratic process of cross-border mutation and adaptation as modern writers and publishers struggle to fathom, simplify and re-brand its complex origins. It illustrates, for the benefit of princes who may succeed to a throne, the central Hindu principles of Raja Niti (political science) through an inter-woven series of colorful animal tales. These operate like a succession of Russian dolls, one narrative opening within another, sometimes three or four deep, and then unexpectedly snapping shut in irregular rhythms to sustain attention (Story within a story).

A king, worried that his three sons are without the wisdom to live in a world of wile and guile, asks a learned man called Vishnu Sharma to teach them the ways of the world.

Since his wards are dimwits, Vishnu Sharma decides to pass on wisdom to them in the form of stories. In these stories, he makes animals speak like human beings. Panchatantra is a collection of attractively told stories about the five ways that help the human being succeed in life. Pancha means five and Tantra means ways or strategies or principles. Addressed to the king’s children, the stories are primarily about statecraft and are popular throughout the world. The five strategies are:

(1) Mitra Bhedha (The Loss of Friends)
(2) Mitra Laabha (Gaining Friends)
(3) Suhrudbheda (Causing Dissension Between Friends)
(4) Vigraha (Separation)
(5) Sandhi (Union)

Before you read the Panchatantra you must read the background story which is bellow:

"Long ago in the kingdom of Mahilaropya, there lived a king who was ruling very ideally. He had three sons, who were not intelligent. The king was worried about the heir to the throne, as he knew that his sons were incapable of governing. He was desperate to find a good and knowledgable teacher for his sons who would teach them the scriptures and make them knowledgeable in a short time. His minister then pointed towards a skilled pundit, VishnuSharman. Vishnusharman was old and the king was worried as to how the teacher could accomplish the teaching to his sons as he told that even an intelligent man takes more than twelve years to grasp all the elements of scriptures. Then VishnuSharman convinced the king that he would teach the princes about kingly conduct through a series of stories, which would be more effective than the scriptures. Thus VishnuRaman compiled the collection in five volumes termed as PanchaTantra meant to serve as the guide for the princes to learn about kingly behaviour."

The Panchatantra was probably written about 200 BC by the great Hindu scholar Pandit Vishnu Sharma. The Panchatantra is the oldest collection of Indian fables surving today.

The Panchatantra is broken up into 5 volumes which are:
        1. Differences Between Friends
        2. Union With Friends
        3. Friendship Of Former Enemy Is Untrustworthy
        4. Unwavering Intelligence Even During Emergencies
        5. Accomplishment Of Ones Task Using Discriminative Intelligence

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