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A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s2: 2. The Reconstruction of the Pañcatantra and its Origin

A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s2

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English

2. The Reconstruction of the Pañcatantra and its Origin

c18.s2.1

The original of the numerous works which have come down to us, usually under the style of *Pañcatantra* or something equivalent, is now lost. But we can unquestionably find our way back to the substance of the original and even to a considerable measure of its form by the examination of the chief of its representatives.¹ Of these we can certainly discern four main groups. The first is the Pahlavi version of the *Pañcatantra* made before A. D. 570, but now lost, which itself can be reconstructed in substance from an Old Syrian and an Arabic version with the later texts based on the latter. The second is a version produced in north-west India, which was interpolated in the version of Guṇāḍhya's *Bṛhatkathā* which formed the basis of the *Bṛhatkathāmañjarī* of Kṣemendra and the *Kathāsaritsāgara* of Somadeva in the eleventh century. The third is represented by two Kashmir versions styled *Tantrākhyāyika*, and by two Jain recensions which derive their matter from a text akin to, but not that of, the *Tantrākhyāyika*, namely the Simplicior well known through Bühler and Kielhorn's edition *in usum tironum*, and the text of Pūrṇabhadra (1199), who used also the *Tantrākhyāyika* and some other unknown version. Fourthly, we have the common ancestor of the Southern *Pañcatantra*, the Nepalese *Pañcatantra* and the popular *Hitopadeça*; the latter two are derived from a version sister to the Southern *Pañcatantra* now lost, and the *Hitopadeça* is in considerable measure derived from another source altogether.

c18.s2.2

¹ See F. Edgerton, *The Panchatantra Reconstructed* (1924).

c18.s2.3

This is the limit of our certainty. Hertel's² unrelenting and fruitful labours led him to conclude that all these sources went back to a defective original (styled by him *t*), but it is clear that this is unproved. Further, he held that these four sources ought to be reduced to two, the *Tantrākhyāyika* original and ‘K’, the source of the other three groups, and in part of version β of the *Tantrākhyāyika* itself. This again is implausible, and the result is important, because it follows that the occurrence of any story in any two of the four versions is a strong reason for assigning it to the original text, whereas on Hertel’s view significance of this kind only applies to occurrence both in the *Tantrākhyāyika* and one of the ‘K’ version. Nor is there any adequate ground for Hertel’s further assumption of another intermediate archetype, ‘N.-W.’, from which the Pahlavi, the Southern *Pañcatantra* group, and the Simplicior are descended. Further, the priority of recension of the *Tāntrākhyāyika* is implausible; its omissions, which Hertel held of great importance in re-establishing the original text, are frequently not a proof of fidelity to the ultimate source, but are secondary; the recension which makes them good is thus as valuable, if not more so, than recension *a*. Fortunately, despite these divergences of opinion, we can be assured of the possibility of reconstructing the substance of the original. Edgerton accepts all of the stories held original by Hertel as genuine, and of those which he adds Hertel merely holds five doubtful and two certainly unoriginal. His grounds in no case are convincing, and the disputed tales are, probably enough, to be ascribed to the primary *Pañcatantra*.

c18.s2.4

² *Das Pañcatantra* (1914).

c18.s2.5

The name of this original was almost certainly *Pañcatantra*, but the sense of the term is uncertain; does *Tantra* merely mean book, or does it indicate trick, specimen of sharp conduct, or didactic or authoritative treatise? Similarly, does *Tantrākhyāyika* denote a Nītiçāstra in the form of tales arranged in (five) books; or an authoritative text-book (for policy) in the shape of an Ākhyāyikā; or a text-book composed of instructive or didactic tales? We do not know, but it is perhaps more likely that *Pañcatantra* meant originally five subject-matters; as a title, a treatise dealing with five subject-matters. Of the state of the original we cannot say more with certainty than that it must have existed before the Pahlavi version was made, and probably for some time. That it was written long after 200 B. C., Hertel’s first suggested date, is not doubted by himself; it knows the *Mahābhārata* well, and the use of *dīnāra*, the Latin *denarius*, points definitely to a time after the Christian era, though it is not sufficient to assign it to the second century A. D. at earliest.¹ Everything, however, suggests that it fell in the period of the Brahmanical restoration and expansion under the Guptas or just before their empire, with which well accords the use of Sanskrit for the instruction of princes and the distinctly Brahmanical character of the work, even if the evidence for the author having been a Vaiṣṇava is inadequate. We may reasonably accept the author as a Brahmin, but the name Viṣṇuçarman given doubtless in the prototype cannot be relied on, though it is impossible to dismiss it as certainly feigned; the author might very well have wished thus to secure remembrance of his personality. If so, then some weight may attach to the fact that Viṣṇuçarman is described as relating the tales to the sons of king Amaraçakti of Mahilāropya or Mihilāropya in the Deccan as a sign of southern origin; with this it agrees that the *Tantrākhyāyika* with the Jain versions mentions a mount Ṛṣyamūka, apparently in the western Deccan. The frame story of Book v is placed in Gauḍa, Bengal, but this is of no importance, especially as of the later versions only the *Hitopadeça* is connected with that land. Hertel's view that the work was composed in Kashmir because neither the tiger nor the elephant plays a part in the original, while the camel is known, is inconclusive in view of the late origin of the work, which would render it possible for persons in a very wide area in India to know all about the camel. The places of pilgrimage mentioned are common-place, Puṣkara, Gaṅgādvāra, Prayāga, and Vārāṇasī, so that we must leave the place of composition open.

c18.s2.6

¹ Keith, JRAS. 1915, pp. 504 .

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