A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s6.4

c18.s6.4

From this *Pañcatantra* Nārāyaṇa derived the inversion of Books i and ii, so that the work starts with the winning of friends and then advances to their loss. But in Books iii and iv he went his own way; Book iii of the original he divided into two, the first being War, the second Peace, obviously as a pendant to the pair of opposites already contained in Books i and ii. His new Book iv was composed by inventing a new frame story, and placing in it part of the stories of the original Book iii. Further, Book v of the original was divided between Books iii and iv. Book iv of the original was wholly dropped, and several stories from Book i were placed in the new Book iv. Moreover, various tales of the original were simply omitted and new ones inserted in all four books, with the result that perhaps two-fifths of the original prose and a third of the verses are found. The sources of the new matter are obscure. The tale of the mouse which a pious hermit changed into a cat, a dog, and a tiger successively, but reduced it to its original form when it sought to destroy its benefactor, is perhaps merely a revised edition of a similar anecdote in the *Mahābhārata* regarding a dog. The tale (ii. 6) of the woman who carried on an intrigue with the son of the local headman, and who was clever enough to save them both from the lad’s father and her own spouse, has its original home in the *Çukasaptati*, that of Vīravara, perhaps, in the *Vetālapañcaviñçatikā*. It itself has been rendered into several vernaculars besides Bengālī.