Panchtantra
By Pandit Vishnu Sharma
Review by शायर खान
I have never written a book review before, but the kind of book Panchtantra is, I don’t think that I will find any difficulty in writing a review of it.
First of all I would like to tell that I have chosen this book, because I had heard of many of its stories in my childhood narrated by my parents and teachers and I liked all these stories. These stories are very interesting as well as inspirational. All of these stories have morals which help the reader to understand human nature and to know how to deal with it to attain success in life.
The main theme of the book is a story about a king, his sons and a Sanskrit scholar. This story is as follows-
Once upon a time, there lived a king named Amarshakti. He had three stupid sons named Bahushakti, Ugrashakti and Anantshakti. The king was very disappointed with them and called his council of ministers for solution to the stupidity of his children. So, one of the ministers named Sumati had suggested to council, the name of Pandit Vishnu Sharma. He was a very well known and renowned Sanskrit scholar of that time. So, the king requested the Pandit to train his stupid sons, who then agreed to do so and took those children to his ashram and trained them. In only six months, the stupid boys were transformed into men of impeccable learning. The matter that was used by Pandit Vishnu Sharma is known as Panchtantra.
Panch means five and Tantra means parts and so, Panchtantra means five parts. These five parts are named as Mitrabheda, Mitrasampraapti, Kaakolookiyam, Labdhpranasham and Aparikshitkaarkam. Each of these parts or chapters is narrated as a series or chain of tales and sometimes as tale in a tale. These tales are narrated by different characters in the respective chapters. All of these tales have morals of their own and this is the supporting theme of the book. All the chapters are independent of each other, though the tales inside a chapter are correlated.
The first chapter is Mitrabheda, which means betrayal of friends. This story is about a lion and a bull who became friends. Somehow, a dispute occurred between them and they both fought. Finally, one of them died.
Sanjeewak was a bull who, because of his incapability’s and illness was discarded by his master and was left alone in a jungle, where he sat on the bank of Yamuna river and grew stronger. Once, the king of the jungle, the lion named Pinglak came near the bank of river to quench his thirst, but when he listened to the threatening sound of Sanjeewak, he hidden himself under a tree. The lion had two cunning jackal ministers named Karkat and Damnak. When they saw lion threatened, Damnak went to Sanjeewak and somehow managed to bring friendship between Pinglak and Sanjeewak. The lion indulged so deeply in the friendship that he left his entire kingship. When all the animals in the jungle felt unsecured due to this, then the jackals again managed to create differences between Pinglak and Sanjeewak. And finally in a fight between the lion and the bull, the bull gets killed.
The second chapter is called Mitrasampraapti. This word means that the regain of friends. The story is about four friends a mouse, a crow, a turtle and a deer, of which the deer got in hand of a hunter. Finally, the friends managed to save the deer’s life.
The mouse named Hiranyak and the crow named Laghupatnak were two friends lived in a town. Due to their boring daily routine they left that town and went to a jungle where Hiranyak met Laghupatnak’s old friend named Mandaarak, a turtle. There they met a deer named Chitraang. They four became very good friends and they lived happily, until when a day came when they saw that Chitraang had been captured by a hunter. Being a mouse, Hiranyak bitten the trap of Chitraang and they managed to escape. But Mandaarak had been caught by hunter as he could not run fast, because he was a turtle. Again all the friends worked together and managed to get rid of all the problems.
The third chapter Kaakolookiyam means the war between crows and owls. As the name suggests, it is about family of crows and owls who were traditional enemies. The crows were small and incapable of winning against owls, but still by wisdom, the crows were able to kill the whole colony of owls.
The owls daily killed a crow from the crow family, because of their traditional animosity. The crow king Meghwarna was much tensed of it and called his council of ministers. The ministers named Ujjeewi, Sanjeewi, Anujeewi, Prajeewi and Chiranjeewi told their own views to tackle this problem. After asking all, the king finally asked the wisest minister Sthirjeewi who then suggested the best way and then acted accordingly. He pretended to have a fight with his crow family and got success in gaining confidence of the king of owls Arimardan, who then called his council of ministers to discuss what to do. He had five ministers named Raktaksh, Krooraksh, Deeptaksh, Wakrnash and Prakaarkarn. All the ministers except Raktaksh advised the king to show mercy on Sthirjeewi and that he can be very useful in knowing enemies places. But Raktaksh advised not to believe on Sthirjeewi and that to kill him as soon as possible. But the king ignored his advice and followed other minister’s advice, for which he had to pay a big price later. Being among the enemies, Sthirjeewi found all their places of residence and once with the help of other crows, he burnt the residence of owls.
Labdhpranasham, which means the loss of what which has been gained is the fourth part of the book. The main story is about the friendship of a monkey and a crocodile, of which the crocodile tried to kill the monkey, but could not do so and also he lost the faith of him.
Raktmukh, a monkey and Karaalmukh, a crocodile were two friends. They both lived happily on the bank of a sea until a day came when Karaalmukh’s wife demanded for Raktmukh’s heart to eat. The crocodile protested much but yielded finally. He then went to Raktmukh and asked him to be his guest and to go to his home. Raktmukh agreed and sat on the back of Karaalmukh, who then told him the truth. The monkey was very wise and told the crocodile that he had left his heart on the tree where he resided. Karaalmukh then brought him back to the tree and hence, the monkey saved his life and Karaalmukh lost his wife and also the faith that he gained by Raktmukh.
The last chapter of the book is called Aparikshitkaarkam. It means the results of the act which is done without given a thought. The story is about four Brahmins who went in search of wealth. All three of them, but one survived.
There lived four poor Brahmin friends. Once they went abroad in search of wealth. There they met a sage who gave them four divine candles and asked them to dig the earth at each of the places where the candles fall down. They did so. The first two of them got copper and silver respectively when they dug the earth and they were satisfied with it. The third one called Swarnsiddhi when dropped the candle and dug the earth found gold there and stayed at that place. But the fourth one called Chakradhar thought that there must be more valuable things later in the path. But he finally got into a deep trouble. Swarnsiddhi came to that place and they both discussed the bad results of unwise act.
So, these five chapters combined called Panchtantra. This book is very useful in understanding of human nature and to be a great person in various fields of life.
The book was originally written by Pandit Vishnu Sharma and this version of it is translated in Hindi by Sri Bhartiya Yogi. The book is divided into the paragraphs of Sanskrit and then the paragraphs are translated into Hindi. The language used in some places is very typical Hindi and difficult to understand. So, one can think of an option of keeping a Hindi dictionary by side.
I would strongly recommend this book for the people who want to be leaders in their lives. This book is one of the best books especially for children. As the stories are very interesting, children would love to read it. Moreover they get a very good knowledge out of it.
