A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s2.1

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.