Panchatantra is a unique book born on Indian soil. This is a collection of short stories, short stories, parables, fables and poetic sayings that help to live. Any person, even far from India, receives a tremendous aesthetic pleasure from reading and leaves a line by heart, reinforcing his personal life experience.
“Panchatantra” (translated from Sanskrit “The Pentateuch”) is instructive, but advice on how to behave is supported by concrete examples, clothed in the form of short stories, parables and fables. For example, a fable about a snake that hides in a hole out of fear of falling into the hands of a snake charmer. Advice in the form of a metaphor - not to bring out your hidden dark thoughts and nasty actions, takes on the features of naive realism. Another example in the form of poetic edification recommends avoiding both stupid and treacherous people:
Do not give advice to a fool:
your prompt will infuriate him.
Don’t drink a snake with milk:
only poison replenish the supply.
History of creation
The history of the "Panchatantra" is still a mystery. Scientists do not agree on the issues of where and by whom this literary work was written. Some, in particular Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov (linguist and semiotics, 1924-2005), argue that the Panchatantra was created during the heyday of Ancient India, when the Gupta dynasty ruled from 350 to 450. AD The scientist believes that the authorship belongs to the Vishnuite Brahmin Vishnusharman. Vishnusharman is the pseudonym for the brahmana who compiled the compilation. Igor Dmitrievich Serebryakov (Indologist, Sanskritologist, 1917-1998) believes that the Panchatantra in the form in which we read it today was written in 1199 by the Jainan monk Purnabhadra. The book is written in Sanskrit.
In the eleventh century, Panchatantra began its journey around the world. First, it was translated into Syriac, then into Greek, from it into Italian. In the twelfth century from Arabic to Jewish and Persian, from it in the thirteenth century to Latin.
One of the original texts is kept in Mumbai at the Prince of Wales Museum.
