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A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s3: 3. The Subject-Matter of the Pañcatantra

A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s3

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English

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3. The Subject-Matter of the Pañcatantra

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The reconstructed text is unquestionably a text-book for the instruction of kings in politics and the practical conduct of everyday life, but it is also a story-book, and the author was not inclined to cut down his stories merely to the bare minimum necessary for his task of instruction. This is true to human nature, and it doubtless accounts for the insertion of stories which are rather Märchen than fables, as the tale¹ of the strand bird which menaced the sea and the narrative in Book ii of the experiences of the mouse, Hiraṇya. Nor was the intention of the author unmoral; he had no desire to establish the doctrine that dishonesty was the best policy; his concern was to give advice of a useful character, and it is by no means essential that such advice should be immoral. Indeed, in one important case, the story of Evil-wit and Honest-wit, we have a long account simply intended to prove that honesty is the best policy, and the point is emphasized by the fact that it is Karaṭaka, a minister of the bull, who reproves his colleague Damanaka and insists that he will live to repent successful villainy. We are in fact right in the midst of the normal Brahmanical society. The ministers of the king are normally Brahmins, Brahmins are essential for sacrifices, the Brahmanical consecrations and sacraments are observed, at the new and the full moon Brahmins are fed. It is quite a mistake to regard as signs of hostility to Brahmanism such facts as allusions to the false ascetic or the greed of the priests, a distinction which they share with women and kings. The Brahmins were not a close corporation, blind to defects of individual members; they were as ready to see the defects of one another as medieval monks. Of Buddhist tendencies there is no trace whatever; Benfey’s view that the original of the *Pañcatantra* was a Buddhist book was natural at the time when he could find parallels for the tales only in Buddhist books whose age he over-rated, and when it was imperfectly realized how essentially Indian in many regards Buddhism was. We now can be certain that several of the Jātaka tales are merely derived from the original *Pañcatantra* as in the case of Nos. 349 and 361 which rest on the frame story of Book i of that text. For the large and sometimes indigestible masses of political information regarding kings, ministers, and royal government, the means to win allies and alienate confederations of enemies, and to wage war, we have a parallel in the *Arthaçāstra* handed down under Kauṭilya’s name; it is quite possible that it was actually known as we have it to the original *Pañcatantra*, but that cannot be proved by internal evidence, and the utterly uncertain date of the *Arthaçāstra* renders it out of the question to assert that it is older than the *Pañcatantra*. What is clear is that the *Pañcatantra* derived its information from a similar source to the *Kauṭilīya*.

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¹ i. 9. Cf. St. Martin’s bird, Wesselski, *Mönchslatein*, p. 172.

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The frame story of Book i is preceded by a legend of the wickedness of the sons of king Amaraçakti, who entrusts them to Viṣṇuçarman on his promise in six months to teach them polity. Then we are introduced to the topic of the separation of friends, the frame story relating how a wicked jackal brought about the estrangement of the lion, Piṅgalaka, from the bull, Saṁjīvaka, who had been rescued by the lion and then was treated as his dear friend, to the disgust of the jackals, Karaṭaka and Damanaka, the lion's trusted ministers. By cunning the lion is made to distrust the bull, and finally to slay him; he repents when he sees his blood-stained paws, but Damanaka consoles him and remains his premier. The book gives ample room for political discussions, but it contains also a set of interesting fables. The fate of the ape who pulled out a wedge and was split up by it is recounted to prove the folly of interfering with what does not concern one. The necessity of investigating in lieu of mere looking at surface appearances is shown by the tale (2) of the jackal who learned by investigation that the drum whose sound had terrified was merely skin with emptiness within.

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Then we learn of three cases of evils brought on oneself in the tales (3 a–c) of the foolish monk who took a thief as pupil and had his cash stolen, of the jackal who ran in between and was killed by the impact of two butting rams, and of the procuress who took the place of a weaver's wife in order to further her intrigue with a patron, and suffered in consequence the loss of her nose. Tale 4 shows the advantage of guile over force; the female crow to punish the serpent who slew her offspring put the prince's gold chain in his hole and thus had him killed. Next we hear of the error of over-greed, illustrated by the heron who deceived the fish into trusting him to remove them to another lake, and so being eaten by him, but who met his just fate from a wise crab. Tale 6 proves that folly leads to ruin, as the lion was destroyed by the clever hare who caused him to leap into a well to attack his counterfeit presentment in the water. The result of cleverness inducing combined action is next illustrated by the tale of how the retainers of a lion by offering themselves to their sick master as food and being refused in turn induced the foolish camel, who was living under the lion's protection, to do likewise, whereupon the lion devoured him. Next comes a warning against attacking an enemy without knowing his prowess, illustrated by Tale 9 of the strand birds.

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The male bade the hen lay her eggs at the ocean's edge, but she derided the project, defending her thesis by two tales (10 and 11) emboxed in Tale 9. The first explains how the foolish tortoise lost his life by not heeding the advice of the geese, who were carrying him on a stick held in their claws, not to open his mouth while in the air; the second explains how the fish Forethought and Ready-wit escaped the fishers but Come-what-will was caught. The husband, however, insists on her acting as he bids; the sea takes away the eggs, but the bird successfully invokes, through Garuḍa, Viṣṇu's aid, and the ocean on pain of an assault by fire gives back the eggs. The tale (12) of the bird which would not take a telling, but insisted on explaining to a foolish monkey that he could not warm himself by the light of a glowworm and so irritated the monkey that he killed him, proves the truth that some people will not learn. Tale 13 tells how Honest-wit and Evil-wit disputed over a sum of money which they had together buried but which the latter had secretly dug up. In court he declares that the tree will prove as witness of the scene that his adversary was a thief, and, when it is arranged to go to the tree, he tells his father to go into its hollow and pretend to be the tree spirit. The father remonstrates, telling Tale 14, how the foolish heron induced a mungoose to eat a snake which devoured her young only to find that mungooses are connoisseurs in young birds.

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None the less he does his son's bidding, declares from the tree that Honest-wit is a thief, only to be burned in the tree by that outraged youth, his crime being thus exposed. The last tale is that of the merchant's son whose balance of 1,000 pounds of iron was stolen by the friend with whom he deposited it in his absence. When he asks it back he is told that mice had eaten it; he therefore steals the son of his friend, and declares that a falcon has carried him away; brought before the judge, he easily persuades him to secure the return of the balance for the son.

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Book ii of the winning of friends is perhaps more attractive. It opens with the tale of the clever king of the doves, Bright-neck, who saves his retinue from the hunter's net by making them all fly up with it and then has the bonds cut by the mouse, Goldy, being careful to have his cut last. We learn next how the crow, Lightwing, makes friends with Goldy, and is introduced to his old friend, the tortoise Sluggish. Goldy then explains why he left his first home; his tale (1) explains that he used to eat the alms begged by a monk despite the efforts of the unfortunate to put it out of his reach; a friend comes and tells the monk that the strength of the mouse must have some cause, just as there was a reason for mother Çāṇḍilī exchanging husked rice for husked rice. The allusion is explained in Tale 2; a Brahmin bade his wife prepare to feed Brahmins at the change of moon, and to override her objections on the score of economy, tells Tale 3, the story of the over-greedy jackal who, having as food a boar, deer, and hunter, nibbled the end of the bowstring which killed him by splitting his throat. The Brahmin's wife yields, but a dog snuffs and defiles the sesame prepared, so she sends the pupil of her husband to exchange it for other husked rice, evoking from the master of the house where the effort to exchange is made the adage alluded to. The monk then proceeds to search for the cause of the mouse's might and finds it in a store of gold in the mouse's home which gave him magic power. This taken away, the mouse is rendered weak, and, unable to feed his followers, is abandoned by them and gives up the delusion of desiring power and riches. A fourth friend is now added in the shape of a deer; but, wandering one day, it is caught in a snare, and, inappropriately it may be admitted, while waiting to be freed gratifies its curious friends by telling how, when young, it had been kept in captivity by a prince, until one day urged to human utterance by desire for freedom it so startled the prince that he fell afevered and only recovered when he was told the truth of the voice he had heard and released the deer. The comrades now release the deer, but the tortoise is surprised by the hunter's advent, and has to be rescued by a clever ruse on the part of the deer who pretends to be dead.

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Book iii illustrates war and peace by the tale how the stronghold of the owls was burned by the crows. The origin of the war is explained as due to an error in speech, and this elicits the tale (1) of the ass in the panther's skin, which by braying lost its life;

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then a second tale is adduced, the election by the birds of a king; the crow objects to the owl as hideous¹ and not fit even for a bluff, and to illustrate the use of bluffing tells Tale 3, how the clever hare by pretending to have a commission from his patron the moon—in which the Indians saw a hare instead of a face—frightened away an elephant which was destroying with its herd all the animals round a certain lake. Further, he denounces the meanness of the owl and by Tale 4 illustrates the danger of a mean king as judge by the case of the cat, Curd-ears, who ate up the foolish hare and partridge who had come to him to settle a dispute. The birds are now induced to desert the owl who remains alone, vowing vengeance on the crows. The next tale (5) shows how by deceit the crows may win, as the Brahmin was cheated out of his sacrificial goat, as he was carrying it home, by rogues who assured him that he was carrying an unclean dog. The crow minister, therefore, contrives to present himself to the owls as a suppliant who, for his good advice to the crow king, has been cast out; his friendly reception is advised and defended by two parallels. Tale 6 explains that even a thief received a kind welcome from the old man whose young wife is terrified by his intrusion into embracing warmly her spouse; Tale 7 extols the advantage of having enemies divided; the ogre who came to carry off a Brahmin and the thief who wished to steal his cows quarrelled over priority in evil-doing, so that the Brahmin woke up, drove off the ogre by a spell and the thief by his club. Only the owl, Red-eye, warns his foolish sovereign by the tale (8) of the silly carpenter who allowed his wife to dishonour him, but was deceived by her saying that she would not have any evil happen to him for the world. Red-eye also sees through the statement of the wily crow that he wishes to burn himself and be reborn an owl, proving that no such change of nature is possible by Tale 9. An ascetic rescued a mouse and made her a maiden, when she became ripe for marriage he sought a meet husband; the sun declined the proposals as the cloud was stronger than he, the cloud admitted inferiority to the wind, the wind to the mountain, and it to the mouse, so that the sage turned the maid to a mouse again. The owl king, however, persisted in permitting his enemy within the gates and is repaid by the destruction by fire of his home. The crow king warmly rewards his minister, and on questioning him how he could bear to associate with foes is told the tale of the serpent who pretended to the frogs that he had been cursed by a Brahmin to act as their carrier; the frog king enjoys riding on him, and finding his pace diminish owing to lack of food allows him to eat up the young frogs, which he does so energetically as to devour them all.

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¹ Cf. *Jātaka* 270.

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Book iv illustrates the loss of one's gettings by the tale of the ape and the crocodile¹ who lived in such amity that the crocodile's wife became jealous, and falling sick would be content with nothing save her rival's heart. The crocodile, though sad, seeks to entice the ape to visit him, but the ape finds out his plan and saves himself by saying that his heart is kept on a fig-tree, escaping when the crocodile seeks to obtain it from the tree. The crocodile seeks to renew the friendship, but is told instead that the ape is not like the ass who came back. This constitutes the one Tale: an ass's heart and ears are demanded by a sick lion; the jackal induces an ass to come by pretending he is taking him to a she-ass; the lion springs too soon and the ass escapes, but is deluded by the jackal into a second and fatal visit. The lion then departs to perform due ceremonial before partaking of the remedy; the jackal eats heart and ears, and, when the lion demands them, asserts as irrefutable that the ass had neither heart nor ears, or else he would never have come back. Book v warns against inconsiderate action. A Brahmin is dreaming of the son to be born; his wife warns him of day-dreams by the case of Somaçarman's father; he was a Brahmin who dreamed that he would sell for twenty rupees the groats he had to buy goats, have in five years a flock sufficient to obtain 100 cows, and so become rich until he had a son born; the child would come home, and the busy mother would neglect him, whereon the chivalrous father would beat her, an action he accomplished in his dream, destroying at one stroke all hope of the riches he coveted. In point of fact a boy is born, and the wife goes to wash, leaving the child to her husband's care as they had no maid. A summons arrives from the queen and the Brahmin goes to the palace, leaving his pet mungoose in charge of the babe. On his return he finds the mungoose rushing to meet him with bloody paws and mouth; in a rage he deems his son killed and slays the beast, only to find that the blood was that of a cobra which the faithful guardian had destroyed. His wife shares his grief, and reminds him by Tale 2 of hasty action. A young merchant is bidden in a dream to slay three monks who shall present themselves, as they are treasures stored by his father in this odd form and will become when slain *dīnāras*. He obeys, carrying out the rite with a barber's aid; the barber foolishly tries to repeat the trick, but his murdered monks do not become *dīnāras*, and he perishes at the hands of outraged justice. The tone of this book, as becomes its themes, is decidedly sombre. The brevity of the two books is remarkable, but it is just as likely to have been original as to have been the product of rehandling.

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¹ *Jātaka* 208; *Mahāvastu*, ii. 246 ff.

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Of the many maxims cited only about a quarter can be assigned to moral, religious, or philosophical thought, the rest deal with royal policy and general rules of life. The latter are far from always unmoral; the hero of Book ii is a fine character of the heroic type, proud but ever ready to sacrifice himself for his folk and his friends; the mouse also, when he ruled his subjects, worked desperately for them, and in the sphere of private life the householder is expected to be loyal, generous, and upright. There is no suggestion of approval of a low moral standard in domestic life; violators of marriage ties are clearly not admired, and lack of sensitiveness to dishonour is disapproved and ridiculed.

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