PANCHATANTRA
'Five Principles'

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA












पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA
 A short story or poem in which animals assume human characteristics, especially speech.
 The purpose of the fable is to point out human weaknesses and strengths, to look at human behavior in a new or different way.

 Certain familiar animals are seen in fables as possessing certain traits or qualities, either because of their natural behaviors or because of mythological assumptions based on those behaviors
 FOR EXAMPLE:
 Bat = bloodthirsty or evil
 Bear = dumb or sweet
 Bull = Aggressive
 Cat = cool, lazy, evil, cute
 Dog = loyal, dim-witted, depressed, vicious
 Donkey = stubborn, stupid
 Elephant = good memory, afraid of mice

Fox = wily, cruel, cunning, intelligent
 Horse = noble
 Lion = proud, brave, royal, noble
 Mouse = quiet, heroic
 Mole = blind or near-sighted
 Pig = greedy, ugly, filthy
 Ant = diligent, militant, thieving

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA

 A story that is a combination of two or more stories
 A story that sets up a series of other stories that all connect with one another in a larger narrative
 FOR EXAMPLE:
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses – the narrator implores the Muse to inspire him in telling how things change into other shapes, then the individual “myths” or stories come one after another with the narrator commenting after each one
 Homer’s Odyssey – like the Metamorphoses, there is the narrator and Muse, but then there is the character Odysseus who starts telling his stories of escape and adventure, then the narrator/Muse
 Forrest Gump – the narrator is Forrest himself and the story is told with him talking to people who sit next to him at the bus stop, then it shifts to an omniscient narrator who relates the end of the film through Forrest and Jenny talking

 It is believed that he is the poet who created the Panchatantra during the 300s
BCE in southern India.
 However, it is unclear what the actual dates of composition are as they range from 1200
BCE to 300
BCE
.

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA

 It is possible that he is merely a character himself, someone invented by the true author to either hide his identity or to account for the possibility that there was no single author but a series of stories composed orally over time like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

 King Sudarshan of the kingdom of Mahilaropya in some unknown region of India was a scholar and a wise, powerful ruler.
 He had three sons (Bahushakti, Ugrashakti and Anantshakti) who were each dullards and so their father worried they would never be able to rule in his place when he died.
 The king’s minister Sumati advised him to have his sons learn the inherent wisdom of the sciences, politics, and diplomacy rather than simply study as scholars.
 Vishnu Sharma is selected and he designs his lessons around the stories of animals to make it simple and clear for the king’s sons.

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA

 Vishnu Sharma collected all of the many and various animals fables that had been told for centuries into a single, interwoven narrative that reveals the essential wisdom of leadership, the wise conduct of life:
 Mitra-bheda: The Separation of Friends (The Lion and the Bull)
 Mitra-lābha or Mitra-samprāpti: The Gaining of Friends (The Dove, Crow, Mouse,
Tortoise and Deer)
 Kākolūkīyam: War and Peace (Of Crows and Owls)
 Labdhapranāśam: Loss Of Gains (The Monkey and the Crocodile)
 Aparīksitakārakam: Ill-Considered Action / Rash deeds (The Brahman and the
Mongoose)
 Pancha = Five, tantra = Treatises
 Buddhist monks first carried copies of the original Sanskrit texts north to Tibet and China, then to Southeast Asia from 400 – 600
CE
.
 The Persian physician Borzuy translated it into Persian around 570
CE
.
 Ibn al-Muqaffa translated Borzuy’s translation into Arabic in 750
CE
.
 From Arabic it was translated into Syriac and Greek and eventually entered Europe via Castillian Spanish in 1252
CE
.

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA

 The principal of morality and ethics that instructs one to the “right path” in life.
 It is identified with the feminine as is “wisdom” (sophia) in the West.
 The Panchatantra is a Nitisastra or a “treatise on the wise conduct of life” which strives to bring knowledge in order to break the cycle of
Karma and free oneself from endless reincarnation and attain nirvana.

 The principle of natural order which regulates, which coordinates the operation of the universe.
 It is “that which is properly joined” – order, rule, truth
 Dharma – religious injunctions or modes of behavior for life
 Karma – daily religious ritual or actions that ensure the cycle of cause & effect
 The combination of Dharma and Karma lead to the “blowing out” of the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion which is Nirvana (Freedom).

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA
AUM
The Vibration of Creation, The Sound of
Order from Chaos, The Divine Energy


पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA
 The Supreme Soul and Supreme God.
 The Master of Past, Present, and Future who sustains all things in the universe.
 He is the color of water filled clouds and holds four sacred symbols in his four hands:
 The Lotus (Padma) – the pure beauty of spiritual potential
 The Mace (Gada) – the authority based on warfare & death
 The Conch (Shankha) – the war trumpet and cleanser of sin
 The Wheel (Chakra) – the ultimate weapon to destroy evil
 He is one of the five forms of the ultimate divinity:
 Shiva – the destroyer and transformer, the supreme god
 Devi – the goddess of primordial cosmic energy, the feminine
 Surya – the supreme light, daily manifestation of divinity (sun)
 Ganesha – the remover of obstacles
 Vishnu – the preserver and sustainer

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA

 He is one of the three forms (trimurti ) of the divine (holy trinity):
 Brahma – the creator
 Vishnu – the sustainer
 Shiva – the destroyer/transformer
 He is represented over time in one of ten avatars (the Dasavatara) or
“descents of the divine into the world of mankind” to cover the ten yuga or ages in the cycle of time (each cycle is 24,000 years or 432,000 years):
Matsya
(Fish)
Kurma
(Tortoise)
Varaha
(Boar)
Narasimha
(Man-Lion)
Vamana
(Dwarf)
Parashurama
(Axe-Man)
Rama
(Ideal-Man)
Balarama
(Knowledge)
Buddha
(Enlightened One)
Kalki
(Eternity)

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA

 The “continuous flow” of the universe through birth, life, death, and rebirth.
 Life does not begin with birth or end with death, but goes on and on through a continuous cycle in which one’s actions
(karma) determine one’s future fate.
 In Buddhism the “continuous flow” is defined by six realms and the purpose of life is to escape from the suffering of this cycle, to achieve moksha.
 In Hinduism, ignorance roots one in Kama (desire) which traps one in the cycle of Karma and reincarnation.

पञ्चतन्त्र
-
PANCHATANTRA

 The word literally means “yoke” as in to join, to attach, to unite.
 There are two basic concepts that underlie Hindu philosophy, that of astika and nastika:
 Astika = that “it” (heaven) exists (theistic)
 Nastika = that “it” does not exist (atheistic)
 In Hindu philosophy it relates to one of the six orthodox schools of thought:
 Nyāyá, the school of logic & knowledge - perception, inference, comparison, and testimony
 Vaiśesika, the atomist school - only perception and inference
 Sāmkhya, the enumeration school – there is no outer God, only human consciousness and the world of material phenomena
 Yoga, the school of disciplining the mind – the process of disentangling from the suffering of the world, from the cycle of existence.
 Mimāmsā, the school of revelation – the nature of dharma cannot be observed, it must be investigated through the Veda scriptures to be understood.
 Vedanta, the school of the Upanishads (Ends of the Veda) – self-realization into a Brahman (Having Become One with God) comes through the scriptures.

FIN