Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c13.s1.1

c13.s1.1

The Tantrākhyāyika seems to have been put very early into yet more popular versions. The Pañchatantra by Viṣṇuśarman has been the best known and the most influential of them all, but it was an earlier version of it which was translated into Pahlavi about the middle of the 6th century A.D. and thence into Old Syriac in 570 and into Arabic about 750, the last rendering, in its turn, being translated into Old Spanish in 1251 which, lastly, was the source of Latin and modern European versions. In India itself the Pañchatantra has influenced subsequent didactic literature in Sanskrit and has been translated into most of the Indian vernaculars.