The Relevance Of The Panchatantra Today

The ‘Panchatantra’ by Vishnu Sharma, written thousands of years ago, has much to offer by way of insight into human behaviour though the characters are entirely from the animal kingdom. The earliest translations were Pehlavi and Arabic. This westward migration of the ‘Panchatantra’ is attributed to Borzuy, the personal physician of Nushirvan, the Persian emperor. Borzuy came to India in the 6th century around 570 CE looking for the mrutasanjeevini, the mystical herb that could revive a corpse. He did not find the herb but found the ‘Panchatantra’ instead. And reading it, realised that the magical herb was Knowledge and the corpse was Ignorance.

Not surprisingly, the running theme of the ‘Panchatantra’ is “Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes” and is a practical guide to niti, or the art of intelligent living.

This collection of fables in five books, are stories told by sage Vishnu Sharma to the three not-sobright sons of a king.The collection is divided thus: The Loss of Friends or Mitrabedha, The Winning of Friends or Mitrasamprapti, Crows and Owls or Kakolookiyam, The Loss of Gains or Labdhapranasha and Ill-Considered Action or Aprikshitakaraka.

Vishnu Sharma chose the fable as his medium because he understood that humans can accept their own foibles if they are presented entertainingly,configured as stories about beasts that they believe to be inferior to themselves in many ways. Tales of greed, treachery, stupidity, deceit, adultery and loyalty, unravel like a matroshka, a succession of Russian dolls-within-dolls.

The morals in the ‘Panchatantra’ are not preachy tales of good overpowering evil. Franklin Edgerton, the Yale professor known for his masterly translation of the ‘Bhagavad Gita’, calls the ‘Panchatantra’ Machiavellian. He notes, “This is a textbook of artha, ‘worldly wisdom’, or niti, polity, which the Hindus regard as one of the three objects of human desire, the others being dharma, ‘religion or morally proper conduct’ and kama ‘love’... The so-called ‘morals’ of the stories... glorify shrewdness and practical wisdom in the affairs of life, and especially of politics, of government.” Joseph Jacobs said, “...if one thinks of it,the very raison d’etre of the Fable is to imply its moral without mentioning it”.

This honest depiction of “practical wisdom” explains why in the original Sanskrit, the cunning and evil jackal is the winner in the end in the First Book. This outraged some clerics and so one translator rewrote the end in which the jackal was jailed, put on trial and finally executed.

The stories convey messages that are direct and simple. Malicious gossip can destroy even great friendships. Never trust an enemy; “reformed enemy” is an oxymoron. Deceit is the only way to overcome an unscrupulous enemy. Caste, colour and religion are no barriers to forming lasting bonds; against tyrants, unity is strength. A fool and his gains are soon parted. An intelligent man can overcome adversity by the use of his wit. The consequences of an ill-conceived hastily executed action could be death.

The stories of the ‘Panchatantra’ offer us the possibility of making our lives richer and more meaningful. Through the wisdom of its fables the ‘Panchatantra’ offers a vision of ourselves, warts and all. In so doing, it makes us aware of the fact that solutions lie within ourselves. The use of animals to present this message is particularly significant since animals are not sentimental; in the words of the translator himself, theirs is a view of life which, “piercing the humbug of every false ideal, reveals with incomparable wit the sources of lasting joy”.