A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s3.1

c18.s3.1

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*.