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A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s12: Narrative Literature

A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s12

Language
English

Contents

Narrative Literature

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Tales, fables and stories belong to the best productions of the Indian mind and they were elevated to the status of real literature in India earlier and in a much greater measure than among the other civilized countries. As we have already seen above, they occupy not only a prominent position in respect of religious books of the Buddhist and the Jainas⁴, but also in respect of ornate poetry, they are not of an inferior standing.

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⁴ We can hardly arrive at a decision as to whether the Buddhists or the Jainas had contributed more towards development of the Indian narrative literature and towards circulation of Indian stories. In any case it is an exaggeration to say, as assumed by Hertel, that we ought to be grateful to the Jainas, "due to whom we possess simple excellent prose of the type of narrative literature" (Geist des Ostens 1, 1913, p. 185). It can never be true, since we find the use of Sanskrit in Jaina literature first of all in the 9th century A.D., when Sanskrit prose had long before become fully developed.

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For the people of the West in many respects these tales, etc. are more valuable than all other branches of Indian ornate poetry.

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When one reads the court-epics, in which the same old narrative materials are repeated again and again and the dramas, that, with a few exceptions, contain the same themes over and again, with which we have already become familiar in the epic, whilst in the comedies the same intrigues are repeated with minor deviations according to certain pattern, one could be led to believe easily that Indians lacked in creative genious as such. What a great difference in narrative literature! What an inexhaustible phantasy in creating wonderful intricacies in stories! How much of spirit and wit in respect of inventing sober and comic scenes in the fable: what an abundance of increasing new materials in stories, novels and fictions¹! Unlike other types of Indian poetical works, in this narrative literature the tendency is not to delineate only the stereotyped figures, but we meet here quite often several types of people—in fables men in the guise of animals—that exhibit a distinct physiognomy. And these men are not only virtuous kings or bold warriors, or beautiful and loving princesses and venerable priests, as in the epics and mostly in dramas too, but also people from other spheres of life, viz farmers, manual workers, salesmen, artisans, and all sorts of people like jugglers, swindlers, rascals, selfish Brāhmaṇas, hypocrite monks, harlots and procuresses. Lastly, no branch of Indian ornate poetry has exercised so great an influence on foreign literatures and has become so much important for world literature as the narrative literature. It is most wonderful that the Indian narrative material has passed from nation to nation in such a way that we find in almost all the countries of Europe and Asia and even among those of Africa, stories and tales of which the original home was in India. And the fact is that not only have individual stories, per hazard, found their way from India into other countries through oral transmission by traders and tourists, but the entire bulk of Indian books, as we shall see, have through translations become common to the people of different countries. For a long time it was generally believed that India was the birth place of all tales. But with advancement of our knowledge of folklore and ethnology this theory has been completely exploded. But the fact still remains that many tales of different nations have had their original home in India.

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¹ F. von der Leyen, "Das Indische Märchen" in the Preuss. Jahrbüchern, Bd. 99, 1900, p. 62 ff. sets down fine characteristics of Indian narrative literature.

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Long before the existence of bigger narrative works in Indian literature, it was possessed of all sorts of tales and stories that offered amusement to the people. Besides there were stray fables that were invented for teaching religious or worldly lessons. Tales, swangs, anecdotes and stories that were in circulation among the people for a long time and the fables that were included in different places in literary works formed partly the source and partly the model for stories contained in narrative works. In India, as in other countries, tales and stories have occupied in all the ages the same place as the so-called light literature does during the modern days¹. Tales are different from myths, that almost always try to explain something and satisfy some urge for knowledge or a religious necessity in the same manner as from the fable, that always tries to teach and follows the padagogical objective in one or the other way. Hence it comes that tales and stories had been in existence among the people long before they found entry into literature and that they found their place first of all in Prākrit literature², whilst the fable originated in literature itself, and in all probability it belonged to Sanskrit literature from its very beginning. However, it is also probable that the animal fable sprang up from animal tales, and the former added to itself short gnomic stanzas, that are instructive sentences. There are many gnomic stanzas that at the same time contain fables *in nuce*. These gnomic stanzas are very often placed at the top of the stories, just like the titles in the narrative literature of the West³.

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¹ Cf. Benfey, Kleinere Schriften II, 158; Jacobi, GGA 1892, 632.

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² Cf. Jacobi, ZDMG 48, 416.

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³ About Indian fables, the opinion of K. Müllenhoff (Zeitschrift f. deutsches Altertum, N. F. 6, 1875, p. 1) on the German fables literally holds good: “Many old German proverbs contain small animal-fables: the heron scolds water, because he can not swim; if the mouse is fully fed food tastes bitter, etc. Gnomic stanzas were enlarged poetically more than once into fables, so conversely were many fables abridged into gnomic stanzas.”. The German word “Spruch” (saying) should be used for “Sprichwort” (proverb) in respect of India.

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The fact that adages always constitute essential elements of Indian fable-poetry should also point to its still earlier origin.

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The characteristic form of narrative literature, therefore, is a mixture of prose and verse, in which the latter are partly metrical tales and fables¹ and partly gnomic stanzas. It is only of the later times that we come by works of narrative literature written wholly in verses. Narrative works that are written wholly in prose are rare, and in ornate novels too verses have been intercalated within a limited range.

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¹ Partly these are kathāsaṁgraha-stanzas, that is verses, in which the subject-matter of the story is abridged, (“Headline-stanzas”), and partly they are ākhyāna-stanzas, that is the stanzas that themselves form part of the narrative (tale-verses). Cf. Hertel, Das Pañcatantra, p. 37. Sometimes, however, many ākhyāna-stanzas are put together in a ballad. Hence, there are (for example in the Jātakas) several stray fables and tales in the form of ballads, although elsewhere the ballad is just the form of narration for myths, sagas and legends.

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Thence it follows that the oldest tales and stories do not really belong to proper literature, and any effort to trace their beginning would be fruitless. Certain tale-like stories that we have found in Vedic works belong to mythical, declaratory and legendary poetry and not to genuine tale-literature². Likewise some animal-stories, that we find in the Upaniṣads, such as the story of the dogs, who assembled around a white dog, in order that he procures for them food through hymns,³ or the stories of Jānaśruti, who attracts the attention of pious Raikva to the conversation of the two flamingoes, or the one of Satyakāma, who receives by turn instructions from a bull, from a flamingo and a swan¹, can hardly be called fables.

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² The stories of Purūravas and Urvaśī, of Śunaḥśepha, of the monkey Vṛṣākapi and other Vedic ākhyānas and itihāsas, exactly as the monkey-stories of the Rāmāyaṇa, belong to a line of development different from proper narrative literature. They are parrallel channels of narrative poetry and not the forerunner of works like the Jātakas or the Pañcatantra. The stories that were narrated in the preliminary ceremony (pāriplava) of the horse-sacrifice, after a funeral celebration etc. (see above I, 259 ff.; trans. p. 311), were not tales and fables, but itihāsa and purāṇas. When Amalānanda (13th century) in the Vedāntakalpataru posits that stories of the type of Tantrākyāyika should be narrated in the Pāriplava (see G. A. Jacob, JRAS, 1911, 511), this evidence of so late an age proves nothing. Winternitz does not consider as probable that there took place an uninterrupted development from Vedic literature down upto the Tantrākhyāyika and the ornate novels (as assumed by Hertel, WZKM 23, 1909, 345; 24, 1910, 122f. and pointed out also by Oldenberg, NGGW 1911, 457). The region in which ākyānas and itihāsas were cultured in the form of ballads were quite different from those in which tales, fables, fictions and novels had been popular.

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³ Chāndogya-Up. 1, 12, that appeared, according to Indian view, as correctly allegorical to Winternitz, is in the opinion of Deussen “a satire on the activity of priests and their egoistic ulterior motive.”

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¹ Chāndogya—Up. 4, 1; 5; 7; 8.

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In Indian literature we come by the earliest fables in the Mahābhārata, and in fact, in the epic proper, as also in book XII². The existence of fables in India in the 3rd century B. C. is proved by the reliefs on the stūpa of Bharhut (2nd century B. C.³.) As regards their currency during the age of the grammarian Patañjali in the 2nd century B. C. the. evidence is to be found in learned formations like *kākatālīyam* “unexpected, as in the fable of the crow that was killed by a palm-fruit falling down” and *ajākṛpāṇīyam* “in the manner of the she-goat and the dagger” or in “that of the she-goat killed by a dagger⁴.”

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² Cf. above, I, 349 f., trans. 405 ff; Mahābhārata 8, 39 and 41; Holtzmann, Das Mahābhārata, IV, 88 ff. Probably in the Mahābhārata 12, 1-130 we may find the precursor of the Pañcatantra.

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³ See above II, 13 and 102; transl. p. 17 and 127.

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⁴ Mahābhāṣya, on Pāṇ. 2, 1, 3 and 5, 3, 106 f. Cf. Weber, Ind. Stud. 13, 486. It is noteworthy that in the Kauṭilīya-Arthaśāstra, animal-tales are not mentioned. “As against this, throughout there abound political maxims and epigrammatic expressions that bear comparison with natural kingdom, living and not-living, in which we are to find the rudiments of political fables (Hertel, WZKM, 24, 1910, 421).

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In case we now review the actually existing narrative literature of India, we can divide it under the following groups:—

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1. A great mass of popular tales, stories and swangs, that we now know in a larger number, meant only for spiritual or worldly objective, that were originally circulating just orally. They are found in popular languages, and not only in Sanskrit.

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2. Collections of stories that were gathered together for religious propaganda by some compilator or compilators. To this class belong the Jātakas and other story-books of the Buddhists and the Jainas, that were no doubt told for the satisfaction of the people⁵.

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⁵ In a more limited measure, the Brāhmaṇas, the Brāhmaṇical sects and schools make use of this very method. Such is the way of teaching of the Sāṁkhya in respect of elaboration of basic principles by means of stories. Therefore, the Sāṁkhyaśāstra contains a section on narrative (ākhyāyikādhyāya), see Sāṁkhyapravacanabhāṣya, translated from Sanskrit into German by R. Garbe, (AKM IX, 3, p. 251 ff. and Jacobi, SBA 1911, (P. 270).

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3. Narrative works in Sanskrit that pursue the express objective of teaching political principles and wordly wisdom. Of this type is the Pañcatantra in its numerous recensions and redactions.

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4. Narrative works, that offer crude entertainment (didactical subsidiary objective excepted) in the form of fictions with intercalated stories, firstly in Prākrit and later in Sanskrit too. To this class belong the Bṛhatkathā with its later redactions, the Vetālapañcaviṁśati, Śukasaptati and others.

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5. Fictions and novels in Sanskrit ornate prose (Daśakumāracarita, Vāsavadattā and Kādambarī).

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The works of the last three groups are not compilations but compositions in ornate poetry, of which the authors try to build their narrative stuff partly from the first two groups and partly invent it independently. But in any case they have to make efforts in framing and arranging them in the form of an independent work. The popular and generally usual form of narrative work is the so-called "intercalation¹". In a frame-story are included stories in a small or large number, and each of such stories can in turn serve as a frame for one or more other stories: In every kind of Indian narrative work we find tales, fables and stories beside one another. In the middle of a narrative, that has purely the affairs of human-being as the subject-matter, we always find also tales, relating to the world of wonder and witchcraft of superhuman beings, and animal-stories, in which human behaviours are carried over to the animal world². In the narrative works, that pursue some padagogical objective, naturally the fable predominates, and the tale prevails in works of light literature. Hence the latter too are far more dependent upon popular narratives and tales than the former do. Since the fables and stories, that are meant to inculcate a political or wordly wisdom, are generally the creation of a poetical personality and not popular in the real sense of the term¹. They became popular in course of time, as has probably been the case with the stories of the Pañcatantra and with the Aesopean fables. As against this, the tales have generally been popular, inasmuch as they spring up directly from the heart of the people, that is from religious ideas and myths, from popular belief in witchcraft and from the whim of story-telling men and women, drawn from the common people. In most cases there is no objective other than to cause amusement to one's ownself or to others².

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¹ In the epics and in the purāṇas too, we find a certain type of intercalation and also consequent narrative given in the first person (I-story). It is just a refinement of this natural type of narration, when not only the hero narrates his story, but some other persons as well retell their stories.

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² This too is wholly understandable, since according to the Indian conception of the world the different forms of creation are essentially alike, and between gods, demi-gods, spirits, men and beasts, the difference is not qualitative, but merely quantitative, that is capable of being levelled in course of repeated births.

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¹ Similarly already Benfey, Pantschatantra I, 103.

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² That does not stop even moral ideas incidentally finding expression in these tales and stories, when they are turned into ornate poetry. Down upto present times Indian poets have remained a particular class of teachers of morality.

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The common name for all the different types of narratives in Sanskrit is ākhyāyikā "little story, small narrative" and kathā, "conversation, entertainment, narrative". In manuals of poetics attempt is probably made to distinguish between these two terms and to employ each of them for two different kinds of composition in prose; yet the authors of these manuals are not all alone in the respect of their use³.

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³ Kāvyādarśa 1, 23-28; Dhvanyāloka 3, 7 f. Patañjali (on Pāṇini 4, 3, 87 Vārtt. 1) gives as examples of ākhyāyikā the titles of works that are probably fictions: Vāsavadattā, Sumanottarā and Bhaimarathī. Bāṇa calls his historical novel Harṣacarita an ākhyāyikā, while he has referred to his romantic fiction Kādambarī as a kathā. In the Pañcatantra single stories are called kathā. In the Kathāsaritsāgara, the stories are generally called kathā, and several times also ākhyāyikā. Kṣemendra in the Kathāsaritsāgara mentions kathā as the chief narrative. and ākhyāyikā, the intercalated stories (See S. K. De, in BSUS, III, p. 307 f).

The Pañcatantra in Its Oldest Text-Form

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No work of Indian literature has so long and eventful a history as the Pañcatantra. The credit of making its history clear goes to the greatest extent to two researchers: Theodor Benfey⁴, who has followed the course of history of this work beyond India in its travel into different regions of world literature and Johannes Hertel¹, who has elucidated the history of the Pañcatantra in India itself through critical editions of the most important relevant texts and with a large number of scientific researches. [Another scholar, who has succeeded in going back to the primary Pañcatantra is Franklin Edgerton², who has further examined in detail the different available versions of the work].

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⁴ Pantschatantra, fünf Bücher indischer Fablen, Märchen und Erzählungen. Aus dem Sanskrit übersetezt mit Einleitung und Anmerkungan I. II Leipzig 1859.

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¹ Über das Tantrākhyāyika, die kaśmirische Rezension des Pañcatantra (CXXII. Bd. der ASGW), Leipzig 1904; Tantrākhyāyika, the älteste Fassung des Pañcatantra aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen I, II. Leipzig and Berlin 1909; the same published, Berlin 1910; Pañcatantra, seine Geschichte und seine Verbreitung, Leipzig and Berlin 1914. Cf. Winternitz, DLZ 1910, Nos. 43 and 44; 1914, Sp. 2430 ff. and F. Edgerton in the American Journal of Philology, Vol. 36, 1915, 44 ff., 253 ff. An “editio minor” too has been published by Hertel in the HOS., Vol. 14, 1915.

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² [2. JAOS, XL, p. 271 f. Pañcatantra Reconstructed,... Text, Critical Apparatus, Introduction and Translation. New Havan 1924.]

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It is just too easily understandable that the original form of the text of a work that consists of a large number of single stories and gnomic stanzas, in course of its long history, has undergone alterations in a very strong measure. Thence it is evident that in such a work new stories and new epigrams have got included in a large number, that the stories, that did not please later redactors have been replaced by others, and that some ambitious writers have effected real or supposed improvements, refinements, intentional alterations—new motifs. But in spite of all changes that the Pañcatantra has undergone in its centuries-long course, it has not altogether obliterated its original character. It has always remained, according to its original plan, a work of which the objective has obviously remained to teach in a pleasing style what the Indians call the nītiśāstra, “the science of conduct” i.e. the art of administration, and which is called also by another name—arthaśāstra, “the science of worldly gains”. In other words, the Pañcatantra has from the very beginning been a work, that was meant to teach the art of administration and wordly wisdom through fables, stories and epigrams. In its original form it was used for teaching of princes, as it is mentioned in the introduction (kathāmukha) found in all the extant versions. But in later-day redactions, it has rather become a book of training mainly for youth, and not only for that of princes¹. Purely moral stories were added into later redactions, and there too not in a considerable number.

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The original text of the Pañcatantra, commonly mentioned as the "primary work", is in fact no more available to us, yet we are in a position to arrive at a well-grounded conclusion with regard to its condition with the help of the still—extant or deduced oldest redactions of the work. The redactions are :

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(1) the Tantrākhyāyika, that is preserved for us in an older recension and a younger one¹.

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¹ Hertel (ZDMG 57, 1903, 640 ) mentions the different versions of the Pañcatantra straightway as "school-books". This has certain justification now a day, when the Pañcatantra and similar story-books are included among the books that are translated into modern Indian languages and are used in schools. In many Sanskrit manuscripts is found the copyist's remark, as communicated to Winternitz by Hertel, that the owner of the work had got it transcribed for the study of his children.

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¹ 2. See above p. 308, note 1.

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(2) The text that was translated into Pahlavi³ in about 570 A.D. Actually neither this text nor its Pahlavi translation is available by itself. But we are able to draw a conclusion posteriorly about the existence of the Pahlavi translation and its Sanskrit original⁴ on the basis of the translations into Syriac⁵ and into Arabic⁶ made from Pahlavi, as also from the European renderings made from Arabic.

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³ Made by Burzoe under the title *Karaṭaka wa Damanaka*.

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⁴ Details about these translations further below.

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⁵ [5. Made by Būd in about 570 A.D. under the title *Kalilag wa Dimnag*, edited by Schulthess, Berlin 1911.]

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⁶ [6. Made by Abdullāh Ibnul "Muquffa", under the title Kalila wa Dimna, Ed. Cheikho, Beyruth 1923.]

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(3) An extract from the Pañcatantra, that was included in the Kashmirian Bṛhatkathā, that is now lost to us and is preserved for us in the two metrical resettings in Kṣemendra's Bṛhatkathāmañjarī and Somadeva's Kathāsaritsāgara⁷. The stories of the Pañcatantra are narrated without interruptions in Kṣemendra, whilst Somadeva has added a fool's story at the end of each book of the Pañcatantra. It is now clear that the stories in the Bṛhatkathā have very much deviated from their original objective and have been transformed into light literature, although the original motif is not wholly forgotten; when Gomukha narrates them to Prince Naravāhanadatta for his education, he remarks that even in the case of animals wisdom prevails over strength. Neither of the two versions has any independent value, and both of them represent the old texts of the Pañcatantra of importance, and in fact Kṣemendra's version is of less value than that of Somadeva.¹

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⁷ Bṛhatkathāmañjarī XVI, 255 ff. Kathāsaritsāgara 60-64. Leo V. Mankowski. Der Auszug aus dem Pañcatantra in Kṣemendras Bṛhatkathāmañjarī, Einleitung, Text Übersetzung und Anmerkungen, Leipzig 1892.

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¹ Cf. Speyer, Studies about the Kathāsaritsāgara, p. 36 f. Hertel, Das Pañcatantra, p. 30 ff.

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(4) A very abridged selection “for instruction of the boys, who have learnt little”, that is available in South Indian manuscripts and hence called “South Indian Pañcatantra”². As shown by Hertel, this goes to a North-Western abridgement made after the 7th century A.D. Difficult passages have been excluded. The importance of this text lies in the fact that it stands so close to the Tantrākhyāyika that it can be utilized for reproduction of the original text. Further there exist, in a large number, enlarged and popular recensions made from it that have contributed much towards circulation of the work. There are several extant recensions of this abridgement;

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² [2. Ed. of the recension α by Heinrich Blatt, Leipzig, 1930. Ed. of recension β by J. Hertel, Leipzig 1906.]

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(5) A Nepalese Selection of Stanzas that stands very close to the “South Indian Pañcatantra” and goes back to a north-western text. Although preserved in a unique MS it is of importance for the purpose of criticism⁴.

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³ One of these recensions has been edited in an incomplete form by M. Haberlandt in SWA 107, 1884, 397-476. Hertel, Das südliche Pañcatantra (Vol. XXIV of ASW), Leipzig, 1906 gives a critical edition of another recension. Cf. Hertel Das Pañcatantra, p. 33 ff. (Hertel, Das Pañcatantra, seine Geschichte und seine Verbreitung, Leipzig 1914, Index p. 451 f., registers 200 different versions of the work known to have been existing in over 50 different languages of the world, and that spreading from Java to Iceland.

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⁴ Cf. Hertel Das südliche Pañcatantra, p. LXXXVIII ff; ZDMG 64, 1910, 58 ff and Das Pañcatantra, p. 37 f. According to Hertel, this and similar metrical redactions have had as their objective to serve as foundations for new redactions in Sanskrit and popular languages. It is also probable that the stanzas were copied so that they could become aid to memory for the purposes of oral narration.

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In respect of the text these five recensions agree among themselves to such an extent that Hertel has rightly traced them to a common single source, and from their correspondences he has drawn the conclusion that the Tantrākhyāyika—the only complete Sanskrit text among these recensions—provides the best picture of the primary work, that is to say it stands next to the original Pañcatantra¹. Hence generally speaking, it also holds that whatever may be said with regard to the Tantrākhyāyika is equally valid also for the primary work of Pañcatantra.

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¹ We are not in a position to decide the question whether the title of this primary work should be called "Tantrākhyāyika" or "Pañcatantra". In any case the fact remains that the work attained its highest peak of fame in the whole of India under title Pañcatantra only. The title Tantrākhyāyika (i.e. Tantrākhyāyikam Nītiśāstram) means: The Instructive Stories comprising (of a manual of Wordly Wisdom and Art of Administration)" and the Pañcatantra means "The five Books" or "The five Instructive Sections or Books (comprising of a manual on the art of administration)". Cf. Hertel, WZKM 20, 1906, 81 ff., 306 ff.; Tantrākhyāyika, Übersetzung I, 7 f and Winternitz, WZKM 25, 1911 49 ff. F. W. Thomas translates the title: as "Authoritative Text (for Policy) in the form of an Ākhyāyikā and "Authoritative Text (of Policy) in five (Books)". Inaccurate is Lacôte's rendering (in Mélange Lévi, p. 269): "livre composé d'histoires" and too learned is the explanation of Jacobi (GGA 1905, 383): "Sammlung von ākhyāyikās in tantras", "die in Bücher eingeteilte Erzählungssammlung."

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The Tantrākhyāyika is now just a work of Sanskrit ornate literature. Its prose is ornate, and as such it is especially replete with characteristic long compounds. Its verses comprise of play of words, duplicity of meaning and linguistic subtleties, that are peculiar to court ornate poetry. Besides many stanzas are composed in fully ornate metres. Yet all this is treated with moderation. Its prose does not have the artificiality of language that we find in the novels of Daṇḍin, Subandhu and Bāṇa as well as in the Jātakamālā³; even in the case of verses, the artificiality in respect of metres is considerably seldom. However, the author was a man of taste who certainly knew well the kāvya-style, but did not adopt it for the simple stories that he was going to narrate¹. He was certainly not a poet of insignificant humour and wit. It will be wholly perverse to regard this work as a collection of popular stories². Probably the author has made use of older materials as well, but he has reproduced them in a free and independent manner. And above all, he has fashioned anew the peculiar class of this sort of narrative works. Although the method of introducing stories within stories and of mixing prose with verse had been in vogue from a very early age in India, still the art of framing and intercalation of stories, as we find in the Tantrākhyāyika, and the art of mixing prose firstly with instructive epigrams and secondly with verses, that in a certain measure contain the whole story *in nuce*, are characteristic of this work. It was also a new idea to teach political wisdom (*nīti*) in this ornate manner. Besides the poet has not made use of only the stories that were existing from before, but he has also composed new fables and stories. Likewise he has not increased the volume of his work just with copious quotations of stanzas, but he has himself too composed a large number of strophes that occur in it. The Pañcatantra became a popular book for the first time in its later redactions, although it was originally not so, nor was it conceived as such³. Even the refineness with which some of the stories are narrated speaks against its popular origin. As regards the purpose of the work, that it was written to serve as a convenient manual of politics for sons of rulers, the introduction found in all the recensions leaves no doubt.

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² This does not refute the position that in a number of cases the Tantrākhyāyika has not only some interpolated texts but also a corrupt text.

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³ Jacobi, GGA, 1905, 377, and Hertel, Tantrākhyāyika, Übersetzung I, 22, compare the Jātakamālā. But this belongs to a different type: it is a campū, in which narrative ornate prose alternates with ornate stanzas composed in the kāvya-style. The Tantrākhyāyika is not a campū, as here the verses serve a wholly specific purpose and have been inserted and employed in a quite special manner.

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¹ So for example is the comic story of “the louse and the bug” (I, 7) deliberately written in a very flowery kāvya-style. Contrary to this is the story of the “blue jackal” (I, 8), in which too we find an ornate kāvya-style, apparently an interpolation.

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² So Mańkowski, ibid p. LIV and Kirste, WZKM 23, 1909, 387 ff.; 29, 1915, 246 ff.

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³ In India there are only a few and incomplete manuscripts of the old text of the Pañcatantra that is represented by the Tantrākhyāyika.

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After the poet has, in the preliminary stanzas, expressed his veneration for the gods, the teachers and the masters of politics—Manu, Vācaspati, Śukra, Parāśara, Vyāsa and “Cāṇakya, the Great,” he says : Viṣṇuśarman too, after he has gone through the essence of the arthaśāstras existing in the world, has written in these five books a thoroughly delighting book of lessons. Then it is said :

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In the city of Mihilāropya in South India, there ruled a king Amaraśakti, who was the wish-yielding tree for the desire of all the needy people. His feet were coloured with the mass of rays of pearls and diamonds of highly exalted princes (who bowed down before him)". He was well versed in all the fine arts as also in arthaśāstra. He had three sons, none of whom had much interest in these sciences. Then the king summoned his council for the purpose of consulting them for deciding upon the means by which knowledge could be imparted to those boys. And one of his courtiers pointed to Brāhmaṇa Viṣṇuśarman, who was thoroughly conversant with nītiśāstra and had studied into other branches of knowledge as well. The king permitted him to come near. Viṣṇuśarman, an old man of eighty years, "caused his lion-roar voice to be heard...", "the king may exile him from his country, in case he does not in six months make the boys expert in nītiśāstra". The king and the ministers got astonished at this inconceivable promise of the Brāhmaṇa. However, the king put the princes into his charge. "And Viṣṇuśarman invented a useful method and wrote five books for instruction. And among beasts or men there is none who has not been brought within the reach of his imagination in appropriate places¹."

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¹ As in the introduction to the Tantrākhyāyika, so also in all other recensions of the Pañcatantra, Viṣṇuśarman is mentioned as the author of the work, notwithstanding the fact that many of the later recensions have different authors (Pūrṇabhadra, Nārāyaṇa). Benfey (ibid I, 29 ff) has already posed the hypothesis that the name Viṣṇuśarman has been brought in the introduction only, just to recall Viṣṇugupta, another name of Cāṇakya. [But no direct influence of Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra can be traced in the Pañcatantra—S. K. De, HSL, p. 86, note 1.] Hertel (Tantrākhyāyika, Übersetzung I, 4ff; Das Pañcatantra, p. 7) has corroborated this opinion. Though it is not improbable that Viṣṇuśarman had been the real author of the primary work, in any case it is striking that it has been expressly said that he had written the book and not just narrated or explained it to boys. Cf. Winternitz, WZKM 25, 1911, 1911, 52 ff. Whether the author was a Kashmirian or not, as assumed by Hertel (Tantr. Übersetzung I, 23; ZDMG 60, 1906, 787 ff.), in the opinion of W., it is doubtful, as is also the case with F. W. Thomas JRAS 1910, 974 f.

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Each of the five books that go to form the work, probably in its frame story, was meant to teach the main principles of nītiśāstra. The frame of the first book forms the story of the fruitful effort of the cunning jackal Damanaka to cause a rift in the friendship of the lion Piṅgalaka and the bull Sañjīvaka. The two jackals, Karaṭaka and Damanaka are the ministers of the lion, the king of beasts; and in the dialogue between the two ministers are discussed the basic principles of politics and the relationship of the ministers with the king. This is done partly with the help of citations from treatises on politics and partly with fables and stories that are sometimes narrated by the one and sometime by the other.

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Book II, in its frame-story, shows how even the weak, who are fast friends, are capable of saving themselves even against a powerful enemy through mutual help. There is an old fable that appears to be found in its oldest form in the Mahābhārata (V, 64) and has been repeated also in the Jātaka (No. 33) that shows the process in which man can avoid danger through unity; whilst it is narrated how the birds with their united strength flew away with the hunter's nest and saved themselves. This old fable has been enlarged by the author of the Tantrākhyāyika and has been very nicely written for the purpose of instructing on the efficacy of friendship in the matter of success in political affairs. Parallel to the bird-fable is narrated how the Coloured Neck (Citragrīva), king of the pigeons, has Gold (Hiraṇyaka), the mouse-king, as his friend, and the latter cuts through the stitches of the net and frees each one of the birds. The crow Light-flying (Laghupatanaka), who has seen all this, seeks friendship with each of the two animals, and very soon they have two more friends, the tortoise Slow (Manthara) and the deer Coloured-body (Citrāṅga). How the last one is caught in the net of a hunter and how he is saved with the united effort of the friends is narrated in a most charming manner. Numerous proverbs and epigrams on wisdom in respect of choice of friends and also on the advantages of friendship and of mutual help bring life into the story. In this book we find few intercalated stories, and this fact significantly shows how the fable has sprung up from the animal tales.

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In the frame-story of Book III too, that is meant to illustrate the political principle of War and Peace, the author has an old fable, that we meet with for the first time in the Mahābhārata¹, where it is told how the surviving Kauravas were resting under a tree, on which owls had their nest and how at night crows came and killed the owls. This is an occasion for making a reference to the nocturnal attack on the camp of the Pāṇḍavas and to the bloody killing of the whole of the epic. On the basis of the highly simple story of the Mahābhārata, the author of the Tantrākhyāyika has worked out the tales of the fight of the crows and the owls, of the slyness of the minister, the crow, of the destruction of the fort of the owls and of killing of their inmates with the highest skill, whilst he has included a large number of lessons on the different types of ministers, on their duties, on the relationship of the king and his ministers, and on making of war as well on the use of tricks and bravery in war. Closely connected with the frame-story is the fable of the selection of the king of birds that has resulted in enemity of the owls and the crows—an old well-known tale in world-literature. Other intercalated stories are the fables of the ass in the hide of a panther, meant to demonstrate the harm of talkativeness, the fable of the hare and the elephant meant to show that even a weak animal can defeat a mighty master too through craft, the tale of the rat that was transformed into a girl who did not consider even the sun, the cloud, the wind and the mountain suitable to be her husband and finally selected a rat for her groom, etc.

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¹ Parvan X, see above I, 312; transl. p. 368 and Benfey I, 336 ff. It is noteworthy that Kāmandaki (Nītisāra IX, 40) refers to the fight of the owls and the crows in the Mahābhārata and to that in the Pañcatantra.

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The frame-story of book IV goes to show how a fool is deceived when he speaks about a business that he has undertaken in response to false words. As an illustration of it serves the fable of the crocodile and the monkey, who pretends that he has hung his heart on a tree. The intercalated-story of the ass without heart and ears teaches the same moral.

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The frame-story of the fifth book forms in the Tantrākhyāyika the touching story of innocently killed mongoose, that is meant to serve as a warning against thoughtless action. The same moral is taught also by the intercalated story of the Brāhmaṇa who was building a castle in the air.

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It may be doubted if the last two books, particularly the fifth book, have come down to us in a complete form or if many of the fables that entered into later recensions of the Pañcatantra have been or have not been brought together in these books. Likewise it is also possible that these later recensions fabricated new narratives for the purpose of filling in the gaps that the old texts required.

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Whilst in the first three books, at least in their frame-stories, attempt has been made to express explicity the relevant political principles, the 5th and 6th books contain merely lessons regarding common worldly wisdom. No sharp line of demarcation can be drawn between these two "sciences". For princes, general worldly wisdom is as much necessary as knowledge of political principles in stricter sense of the term. Hence we find among the epigrams many stanzas, that teach political as well as wordly wisdom likewise¹. Nevertheless the Tantrākhyāyika has predominently the character of a manual of politics. We find at different places of the book big sections that have a purely technical theme: so is the case both with prose and metrical passages, that have been quoted partly verbatim from manuals of politics. At the end of the first book is found the verse that is so unusual in the Indian conception of politics:

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¹ Of the 451 adages of the Tantrākhyāyika, 205 teach political principles (rājanīti), 138, general worldly wisdom and only 108 have moral, philosophical or religious subject-matter.

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*na manuṣyaprakṛtinā śakyaṁ rājyaṁ praśāsitum* ।
*ye hi doṣā manuśyāṇāṁ ta eva nṛpaterguṇāḥ* ॥
"A state is governed not by the customs prevailing among common men:
For, what is a mistake for the people is of use for the king."

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A number of citations are taken from the Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra. Technical terms of the nītiśāstra too occur frequently².

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² Cf. A. Hillebrandt, Über das Kauṭlīyaśāstra and Verwandtes, Breslau 1908, p. 9. f.; Hertel, Tantrākhyāyika, Übersetzung I, 141 ff. and the edition, p. 169 ff.

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In case the history of the nītiśāstra had been already clear, we would have a chance for determination of the course of development of the Tantrākhyāyika and of the oldest recension of the Pañcatantra. But unfortunately we are not in a position to determine the measure in which Kauṭilīya-Arthaśāstra is the genuine work of Cāṇakya, the minister of King Candragupta. All that we can say is that the Tantrākhyāyika did not originate before the age of Cāṇakya, that is the 3rd century B.C. Provisionally this only may be stated that the Pañcatantra had become a famous work already in the 6th century A.D., that under an order of King Chosru Anōshirwan (531-579 A.D.) it was translated into Pahlavi, and that as early as 570 A.D. a Syriac translation from Pahlavi was ready. We would be able to arrive at the truth at least approximately in case we could put the age of its writing between 300 and 400 A.D. The Tantrākhyāyika apparently creates an antiquarian impression, and without doubt it is one of the oldest works of Indian ornate poetry¹. But since there are doubtless interpolations even in older recensions of the Tantrākhyāyika, the age of the primary constituent of the Pañcatantra has to be placed earlier than that of the Tantrākhyāyika.

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¹ As the "oldest of the extant work of Indian ornate poetry" (Hertel, Tantrākhyāyika, Ubersetzung I, 22), we need not point to the Tantrākhyāyika. The poems of Aśvaghoṣa are older. The often recurring word *dīnāra* (denarius) proves that it was written after the 2nd century A.D. The word rūpaka that occurs once (text p. 157, line 5) is mentioned as a gold coin for the first time in Āryabhaṭṭa (born 476 A.D.), but rūpa, "picture" is older; see Lüders, SBA 1919, p. 749 f. The author of the Tantrākhyāyika considers the Mahābhārata as an authoritative work, since a number of verses, (for example II, 103-106) are quoted as of "Vedavyāsa".

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We are not in a position to arrive at a chronological conclusion from the religious and otherwise cultural conditions as presumed in the Tantrākhyāyika. Among the religious ideas we find nothing that could particularly be very old. The general social life, as described, is Brāhmaṇical with Vaiṣṇava tendencies. In respect of mythology we find the common epic-purāṇic divine world, as it is commonly described in ornate poetry. The minister is usually a Brāhmaṇa. Brāhmaṇas are fed on the full-moon and new-moon days. The Brāhmaṇical order has attained its perfection. Killing of a Brāhmaṇa is considered a grave offence. In brief we find ourselves in the Brāhmaṇical world. Only in this sense the work can be said to be "Brāhmaṇical", but not in any way in the sense that it has any kind of Brāhmaṇical colouring or in the sense that it aims at propagation of Brāhmaṇical influence. Religious ideas stand wholly far away from the author. Brāhmaṇas and priesthood are not by all means spoken in very good terms. A greedy wandering monk is the hero of the third story of book I. The cat in the fourth story of book III is the type of the sanctimonious ascetic. In the epigram IV, 13 the greedy nature of Brāhmaṇas has been alluded to:

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*dharmamarthaṃ ca kāmaṃ ca tritayaṃ yobhivāñchati* ।
*soriktapāṇiḥ paśyeta brāhmaṇaṃ nṛpatiṃ striyam* ॥

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"He who is in quest of the triad;
Who strives in quest of religion,
In quest of gold and in quest of love,
Must not go empty-handed
To the priest, to the king and to his wife."

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In the Tantrākhyāyika there is no allusion to Buddhism. This has been observed by Benfey. He has further elaborated that the Pañcatantra has a Buddhist origin. But today this must be considered to have been fully refuted. The very nature of the book as a manual of politics shows that it can never be a Buddhist work, since Buddhists have never admitted the justification for any effort made for earthly prosperity and for earthly power as presupposed in nītiśāstra¹.

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¹ Therefore, in the Buddhist recensions of the Pañcatantra, some nīti-stories have been transformed into dharma-stories. Cf. Hertel, JA 1908, Nov.-Dec. 399 f. A. Barth (Melusine IV, 1888-89, 558 f.) and Bühler (Verhandlungen der 42. Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner in Wien 1898, p. 504) have already refuted the theory of Buddhist origin of the Pañcatantra. Hertel (WZKM 20, 1906, 113 ff) has raised objections against revival of this theory by Ed. Huber (BEFEO 24, 707, 755). Benfey had arrived at his decision with regard to the Buddhist origin of the Pañcatantra, because he could find many of the stories among Buddhist tales and stories, the antiquity of which he very much exaggerated. In fact we come across many of the Pañcatantra-stories in the Jātaka-book, but we can hardly state with certainty that in such cases the Jātaka-book depends upon the story existing in some earlier recension of the Pañcatantra. Thus for example the Jātaka Nos. 349 and 361 have been taken from the frame-story of the Pañcatantra I. Cf. Hertel, WZKM 16, 269 ff.

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The ethical standpoint of the Tantrākhyāyika too is basically different from that of Buddhism. The virtues of the common man are the same as those of a responsible head of a family. Fidelity to friends and hospitability are particularly esteemed high. But the real morality of chivalry, essentially different from the morality of asceticism, holds good also for the king and the warrior. Their duty is to fight in order to enter into the heaven. The pigeon-king Citragrīva of book II is the model of heroes and princes - faithful, courageous, sacrificing, but not peace-loving. Even the blessings of contentment is praised, as in verses, II, 78 ff., or when in II, 83, it is said: "What is religion ? Kindness towards the being", it is not to be interpreted from the standpoint of ascetic - morality, but from that of the fighter, who is not obliged to save all the animals (*ahiṁsā*), but only the weak, who have resigned into his care and have been assured of protection and security (*abhaya*).

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Notwithstanding the fact that the Tantrākhyāyika does not deny that its aim it to teach administrative and wordly wisdom, great stress is laid on the narration of entertaining stories. In the matter of transformation of an animal-tale into an animal-fable, there is still left behind much of the original, that is not even touched by the didactic tendency¹. The stories are not always well-knitted together². For the author it is of much more importance to bring in a beautiful story than to set nicely his interpolation. We must keep this thing always before our mind when the question is raised whether a story in a Pañcatantra-recension is "genuine" or "spurious," i. e. whether it belongs to the primary work or not. We should not declare each story as has been inappropriately or forcibly inserted into the collection as spurious. Above all we are not in a position to differentiate between individual stories on the basis of their being genuine or spurious. Generally speaking, it may probably be taken as correct that the subject-matter and the extent of the basic work are capable of being deduced from the whole of the oldest recension. Thus for example, if a story does not occur in all the recensions, but only in some of the old ones, it remains doubtful whether we can include it in the text of the primary work. Reversely, it is not impossible that an old story may have found place just in one of the younger recensions of the Pañcatantra¹.

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¹ Thus the story of Hiraṇyaka's experiences (II, 1) has just quite incidentally also the instructive tendency. Primarily it is an animal-tale. The story of the courser-bird (I-, 10), who humiliated the ocean, is more an animal-tale than a nīti-teaching fable.

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² Thus for example, I, 2 and I, 5.

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¹ Hertel, Tantrākhyāyika, Übersetzung, I, 98-126 gives a survey of the general contents of the primary work. Cf. also Mańkowski, ibid, p. LIII, and Benfey, ibid I, 419 f. and 340 ff. Hertel, in his researches on the Tantrākhyāyika, has attempted to maintain a distinction between the stories of doubtful genuineness and those of "doubtlessly spurious" origin. But many a time we ought to put a question-mark after "doubtlessly". Cf. notes of W. in DLZ 1910, pp. 2759 ff.

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In the case of epigrams it is still more difficult to determine whether they belong to the original text of the Pañcatantra or if they have been interpolated later than it is in the case of the stories. The various recensions of the Pañcatantra strongly differ from one another in respect of epigrams, and in later recensions the epigrams occur not only more frequently, but also appear in very inappropriate contexts. This is seldom the case with the Tantrākhyāyika. It is true that the epigrams as also the narrative stanzas belong to the original text of the work. But we are not in a position to believe that the narrative stanzas that either introduce or conclude individual stories are taken from the stories that were originally metrical². It might have been the case with some particular stories, but it is not so in general. Then only in exceptional cases we find even in the middle of the stories narrative stanzas here and there, and they are more like tales in verses, that are inserted at random in places of importance in the tales current in western countries for the purpose of making the stories lively. As a rule the narrative strophes serve merely as introduction and conclusion; whilst at the same time they allude to their morals and in a few words the subject-matter of the story.

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² So Hertel, WZKM 25, 1911, 19

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We are hardly in a position to distinguish between the epigrams cited from those written by the author of the Tantrākhyāyika. Since many of the epigrams occur only in the Tantrākhyāyika, (and in later recensions of the Pañcatantra) we can consider these in any case as based on stories invented of the author. Many of the epigrams found in the anthologies that are attributed to Cāṇakya or to Bhartṛhari might have their original place either in the Tantrākhyāyika or in the primary work of the Pañcatantra. In any case the epigram sconstitute the essential part of the work, and many of them, on account of their wit and humour are not less noteworthy than the fables and stories. Here are some of the examples:—

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*rājānamapi sevante viṣamapyupabhuñjate* ।
*ramante ca saha strībhiḥ kuśalāḥ khalu mānavāḥ* ॥ (I, 27)

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“The wise men serve the king, They can swallow even poison, They enjoy the company of women.”

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*yadaśakyaṁ na tacchakyaṁ yacchakyaṁ śakyameva tat* ।
*nodake śakaṭaṁ yāti na nāvā gamyate sthale* ॥ (II, 20)

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“What is not possible is impossible; What is possible is possible; A cart does not move in water; One cannot travel on a boat on land.”

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*sarvaḥ sampattayastasya saṁtuṣṭaṁ yasya mānasam* ।
*upānadgūḍhapādasya sarvā carmāvṛtaiva bhūḥ* ॥ (II, 79).

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“He who is mentally content, For him everything is prosperity : He who has covered his feet with shoes, For him the entire earth is covered with leather.”

Later Redactions of the Pañcatantra

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None of the old texts of the Pañcatantra has been so popular and has had such a wide circulation in India as the so-called ‘’Textus simplicior’’, that is the recension of the text that has been bcst known in Europe and that for the longest time and up to the time of discovery of the Tantrākhyāyika was considered to be the Pañcatantra¹. It is wholly a new redaction of the old work, rather a completely new work. A lage number of recently written stories and stanzas have been brought in, whilst many of the stanzas occurring in old recensions have been left out. The stories are narrated in a clearer and simpler language, mostly in a better style, and always they are longer and more comfortable than in the Tantrākhyāyika. Particularly in books IV and V, that contain only a few stories in the Tantrākhyāyika, there have been interpolated¹, in a large number narratives, tales and also pornographical stories, that certainly originated in a wholly different region of stories and possibly have been taken from other books or from popular oral tradition.

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Cites (36)