Panchatantra - Five Tenets

Panchatantra is a collection of fables with five (pancha) main tenets (tantra).

Each of the fables told under these tenets conveys a moral to the reader.

The fables of Panchatantra, in prose form, has occasional verses that convey the moral or maxim of the tale.

The origin of the fables of Panchatantra lies sometime during 500 BC during the reign of King Amarshakti of Mahilaropya in South India. The King had three mischievous sons who were badly in need of being disciplined. Pandit Vishnu Sharma, appointed by the King for the purpose, successfully taught them all about politics, administration and morals through a series of fables known as the Panchatantras.

The fables are intertwined with each other but the unity of theme is never lost. It is said that an ounce of sense contained in the Panchatantra is better than a ton of scholarship.

Animals with human traits, day to day situations, and its overall vitality have kept the Panchatantra popular over the years. Each animal in the fables have unique and consistent character: the lion is depicted as a strong animal, bull - dull of wit, the jackal - crafty, the heron - stupid, the cat - hypocrite and so on.

Since those days, this work on the art of intelligent living called Panchatantra has become popular the world over. There are references of translations into Persian in the sixth century - 'Kaleelah wa Dimnah', from which the Syriac version was created, which in turn led to the Greek 'Stephanites kai Ichnelates' which was further translated into various Latin and Slavic languages. Most of the European versions arose from the Hebrew version of Rabbi Joel.  One specific series in Europe is known under the name 'The Fables of Bidpai', after the narrator, an Indian sage, Bidpai, (corrupt form of Vidyapati), as early as the eleventh century.