Book Description

What do you do as a father and a King if your three heirs are indolent and ignorant, and, as a result, the very future of your kingdom is at stake? You turn the three brats over to the intellectual powerhouse Pandit Vishnu Sharma! The Panchatantra Retold is a collection of entertaining and enlightening folk-tales from Ancient India, originally narrated by Pandit Vishnu Sharma to the three Princes of Mahilaropya to infuse them with the much-needed worldly wisdom that traditional learning had failed to impart. So the Panchatantra can actually be described as an Ancient self-help book on how to navigate successfully through the various vicissitudes of life. It is important to mention though that these stories are not didactic and moralistic in any sentimental, black and white way. The good do not always win here. This led the German scholar Dr. Johannes Hertel to describe the stories as 'Machiavellian' in tone. It is a possibility that Machiavelli himself was familiar with the stories from the Panchatantra and that they were something of an influence for his own work 'The Prince'. The stories offer a vivid picture of life in Ancient India, and it is interesting to discover that, for all the progress made over the many centuries since the Panchatantra was written, the essential qualities of human psychology have not altered to that great an extent. The stories are divided into five sections - Mitra Bheda (Loss of Friends), Mitra Samprapti (The Gaining of Friends), Kakolukiyam (The Fierce Enmity between the Crows and the Owls), Labdhapranasam (Loss of Gains), and Apariksitakarakam (Ill-considered Action). This is the second section, Mitra Samprapti (The Gaining of Friends). The main story is about the crow Laghupatanak and his friendship with Hiranyak the mouse, Mantharak the tortoise, and Chitrang the deer, and the other stories evolve from the main story. The focus here is on how to build and maintain friendships, and how friends can prove loyal and useful in times of peril. There are ten stories in this volume.