Ever since the dawn of civilasation, ever since man first realised the imperative need to know himself and, through that self knowledge, to win friends and influence people so to secure his own happiness and well being no less than those of his fellowmen, these stories have offered him significant and dynamic aid. These are over a few thousands of years old first originated in India.
These have remained to reveal to man woman and child, through the fascinating medium of leggless fables that basic knowledge and wisdom which makes one's life richer, happier and fuller.
It is the best collection of stories in the world.
The Pentateuch is divided into five books and they are independent consisting of a framing story with numerous inserted stories, told, as fit circumstances arise, by one or another of the characters in the main narrative. The large majority of the actors are animals, who have of course, a fairly constant character.
The first book relates to broken friendship of the lion Rusty and the bull Lively, with some 30 inserted stories, told for the most part by the two jackals, Victor and Cheek.
The second book has as its framing story the tale of the friendship of the crow, the mouse, the turtle, and the deer, whose names are Swift, Gold, Slow, and Spot.
The third book has as a framing story the war between crows and owls.
These three books are of considerable length and show great skill in construction.
The fourth books framing story, the tale of the monkey and the crocodile, has less interest than the inserted stories. It is called Loss of Gains.
Book five has hardly any framing story, it ends with a couple of grotesque tales, somewhat different in character from the other stories in the four books. It is called Ill considered action.
any guesses on the book??????????????????????????????????
well one clue verse.
One Vishnusharma, shrewdly gleaning
All worldly, wisdoms inner meaning,
in these five books the charm compresses
Of all such books the world possesses.
i.Yes this is the introduction to the Panchatantra.
the present version has not been made by a scholar, but by the opposite of the scholar, a lover of good books, eager, so far as his powers permit, to extend an accurate and joyful acquaintance with the world's masterpieces. he will therefore not endavour to tell the history of the Panchatantra, but to tell what the Panchatantra is.
whoever learns the work by heart,
Or through the story tellers art
Becomes acquainted,
His life by sad defeat - although
the king of heaven be his foe-
Is never tainted.
ii. Introduction to the Panchatantra.
The Panchatantra is a niti-shastra, or text book of niti. The word niti means roughly "the wise conduct of life". The western civilisation must endure that no precise equivalent of the term is found in English, French, Latin or Greek. Many words are therefore necessary to explain what niti is, though the idea once grasped, is clear, important, and satisfying.
a man to thrive
must keep alive.
There is no toy
Called easy joy;
But man must strain
To body's pain.
a n oble purpose to attain
Desiderates extended pain,
Ask's mans full greatness, pluck and care,
and loved ones aiding with a prayer.
Yet if it climb to heart's desire,
what man of pride and fighting fire,
Of passion and os self esteem
Can bear the unaccomplished dream.
his heart indignantly is bent
(through its achievement) on content.
these words which the crow, Livestrong addresses to his king Cloudy. book three.
winning and holding of intelligent friends is important. the second book named The winning of friends.
the first book named The loss of Friends.
the whole work shaddows in the importance of the necessity and the pricelessness of friendship.
The days when meetings do not fail
With wise and good
Are lovely clearings on the trail
Through life's wild wood.
slow the turtle and swift the crow say.
They taste the best of bliss, are good,
And find life's truest ends,
Who, glad and gladdening, rejoice
In love, with loving friends.
The use of intelligence, with out which no human joy is possible, nothing beyond animal happiness.
For if there be no mind
Debating good and ill,
And if religion send
No challenge to the will,
If only greed be there
For some material feast,
How draw a line between
The man beast and the beast.
Scholarship is less than sense;
Therefore seek intelligence.
the firefly seems a fire, the sky looks flat;
yet sky and fly are neither this nor that.
To know oneself is hard, to know
wise effore, effort vain;
But accurate self critics are
secure in times of strain.
For lost and dead and past
The wise have no laments;
Between the wise and fools
is just this difference.
(one must be ever conscious of the past, yet only as it offers material for wisdom, never as on object of brooding regret.) these above words are the lofty consolation offered by a woodpecker to a hen sparrow whose eggs have been crushed by an elephant with spring fever.
The noble words of cheek, the jackal:
What is learning whose attaining
Sees no passion wane, no reigning
love and self control?
Does not make the mind a menial,
Finds in virtue no congenial
path and final goal?
Whose attaining is but straining
For a name, and never gaining
Fame or peace of soul?
This is NITI, the harmonious development of the powers of man, a life in which security, prosperity, resolute action, friendship, and good learning are so combined as to produce joy. It is a noble ideal, shaming many tawdry ambitions, many vulgar catchwords of our day. And this noble ideal is presented in a artistic form of perfect fittness, in five books of wise and witty stories.
Better with the learned dwell,
Even though it be in hell
Than with vulgar spirits roam
Palaces that gods call home. (P book 2.)
{Transalated by Arthur W Ryder. Berkeley, California.}
A Must possess book if you dont have one already.
Of sons unborn, or dead, or fools,
Unborn or dead will do:
They cause a little grief, no doubt;
But fools, a long life through.
To what good purpose can a cow
That brings no calf nor milk, be bent?
Or why beget a son who proves
a dunce and disobedient?
Since verbal science has no final end,
since life is short and obstacles impend,
Let central facts be picked and firmly fixed,
As swans extract the milk with water mixed.
The King named immortal power was familiar with all the works treating of the wise conduct of life. He had reached the far shore of all the arts that embellish life. he had three sons their names Rich power, Fierce power, and Endless power who were supreme blockheads.
Vishnusharman took up the challenge to induce into the three the intelligent art of living.
Even an abundant store of wealth, if pecked at, sinks together like a pile of soot. A very little, if added to, grows like an ant-hill. Hence, even though money be abundant, it should be increased. Riches unearned should be earned, what is earned should be guarded, what is guarded should be enlarged and heedfully invested. Money even if hoarded in commonplace fashion, is likely to go in a flash, the hindrances being many. Money unemployed when opportunities arise, is the same as the money unprocessed
Money causes pain in getting;
In the keeping pain and fretting;
Pain in loss and pain in spending;
Damn the trouble never ending.
The Lion needs, for his appointing
no ceremony, no anointing;
His deeds of heroism bring
Him fortune. Nature crowns him king.
None lacking shrewdness flatter well;
None but a lover plays the swell;
No saints are found in judgment seats;
No clear, straightforward speaker cheats.
Drink, women, hunting, scolding, dice,
greed, cruelty; these seven are vice.
No friend like health abounding;
And like disease no foe;
No love like love of children;
Like hunger pangs no woe.
Stout hearts delight to pay the price
of merciful self sacrifice,
Count life as nothing, If it end
In gentle service to a friend.
In what can wisdom not prevail?
In what can resolution fail?
What cannot flattery subdue?
What cannot enterprise put through?
Land and friends and gold at most
have been won when battles cease;
If but one of these should fail,
Do not think of breaking peace.
The strongest man who fails to crush
At birth, disease or foe,
Will later be destroyed by that
Which he permits to grow.
The man who reckons well his power,
Nor pride nor vigor lacks;
May single handed smite his foes
Like Rama with the axe.
Unceasing effort brings success;
Fate, fate is all let dastards wail;
Smite fate and prove yourself a man;
What fault if bold endeavor fail?
The gods befriend a man who climbs
Determinations height;
So Vishnu, discus, bird sustained
The weaver in the fight.
Not even Brahma sees the end
Of well-devised deceit:
The weaver, taking Vishnu's form,
embraced the princess sweet.
Let resolution guide the great,
However despair his state,
However grim his hostile fate.
By resolution lifted high
With shrewed decision as ally,
He grimly sees grim trouble fly.
When a counselor or king
Rises higher than he should,
Fortune strives in vain to make
Still her double footing good;
Being woman feels the strain;
Soon abandons one of twain.
With broken silver loosen truth,
Pull roots and all; so only, grief
Will find its permanent relief.
No king should ever delegate
To one sole man the power of state;
For folly seizes him, then pride,
Whereat he grows dissatisfied
With service thus impatient grown,
He longs to rule the realm alone;
And such impatient longings bring
Him into plots to kill the King.
a counselor who tramples through
His business, though his heart be true,
May not unheeded go his way,
since future days the present pay.
Some gentle actions born of love
To thoughts of active hatred move;
some deeds of rraitorous offense
Win guerdon of benevolence;
The kingly mind can no man tame,
as never being twice the same;
Such service makes the spirit faint,
A hard conundrum for a saint.
However false and fickle grown,
Once dear is always dear;
Who does not love his body though
Decrepit, blemished, queer?
His actions may be hard to bear,
His speach be hard to hear
The heart still clings delighted to
a person truly dear.
Whoever leaves the righteous path
For some unrighteous course
Will meet calamity in time
And suffer much remorse.
Whoever will not take from friends
Most excellent advice,
Will gladen foes and falling soon,
Will pay his folly's price.
On wicked trick intently bent,
the willful still lack ear to hear
(so blind their mind) of nice and vice,
The cause in saws appearing clear.
Where one will speak and one will heed
What in the end is well
Although unpleasant at the time,
There riches love to dwell.
No king's retainer should devise
a fraud, for spies are kingly eyes;
Then bear with harsh as kind, O King;
The truth is seldom flattering.
Tried servants never should be left,
And strangers taken
A Kingdom's health by no disease
is sooner shaken.
Never publicly defame
Any ones commended name
Broken promises are shame.
No rouge asks reason for his wrath;
Nor saint, to tred in kindness path;
By natures power the sweet or sour
In sugar dwells or nim-trees flower.
caress a rascal as you will,
He was and is a rascal still,
all slave and sweating-treatments fail
To take the kink from doggy's tail.
The kindness shown to vicious souls
strange diminution seeks,
The gleam of moonbeams is absorbed
On sooty mountains peaks.
A hundred benifits are lost,
if lavished on the mean;
a hundred epigrams, with their
True relevance unseen.
a hundred counsels, when a life
Obeys no rigid rule;
a hundred cogent arguments
Are lost upon a fool.
Lost is every gift that goes
where it does not fit,
Loss is service lavished on
Sluggish mind and wit.
Lost upon ingratitude
Is the kindest plan
Lost is courtesy on one
not a gentleman.
Perfume offered to a corpse,
Lotus planting dry,
weeping in the wood, prolonged
Rain or alkali
Taking kinks from doggy's tail,
Drawl in deafened ear,
Decking faces of the blind,
Sense for fools to hear.
Tirelessly benevolent,
Save a friend on evil bent:
this is sainthoods perfect song;
every substitute is wrong.
Who saves from vice is truly kind,
True wife is she who shares your mind.
True acts are free from every blame.
True joy from avarice's shame.
True wisdom wins the praise from saints
True friends involve in no restraints.
True glory knows no haughtiness,
True men are cheerful in distress
making a vicious mistake that results in thr neglect of the three things worth living for - virtue, money and love.
No thoughts of profit or of right
Can headstrong monarchs stay
who, like bull elephants amuck,
pursue their reckless way.
When puffed with pride, they come to grief
in thickets of distress,
They blame their servants and forget
Their propernaughtiness.
He stings or strikes in hasty fear
When warning has been heard,
Tis wise to warn an enemy
By action, not by word.
The weak malicious fool
can use a keener tool:
It sharpens sword-blades, but
The whetstone cannot cut.
How did Ravan fail to feel
That tis wrong, a wife to steal?
How did Rama fail to see
Golden deer could never be?
How Yudhishthir fail to know
Gambling brings a train of woe?
Clutching evil dims the sense,
Darkening intelligence.
When once the mind is gripped by fate,
The judgment even of the great,
In mortal meshes fettered, wends
To unintended, crooked ends.
what shall not be, will never be,
What shall be follows painlessly,
The thing your fingers grasp will flit,
If fate has predetermined it.
The king who mercifully grants
Due share in all good circumstance
To serving folk may fitly rise
The triple world to supervise.
Even the self sufficient should
Get friends, and seek a greater good:
The ocean fears no diminution,
Yet waits Arcturus contribution.
A lion took the life of Panini,
Grammar's most famous name:
A tusker madly crushed sage Jaimini
Of metaphysic fame:
And Pingal, metric's boast, was slaughtered by
a seaside crocodile--
What sense for scholarly attainments high
Have beasts besotted vile?
Educating minds unfit
Cannot rescue sluggish wit
Just as house lamps wasted are,
Set within a covered jar.
Bless be the tree whoes every part
Brings joy to many a creature's heart
Its green roof shelters birds in rows,
While deer beneath its shadow doze;
Its flowers are sipped by tranquil bees
And insects throng its cavities,
While monkeys in familiar mirth,
embrace its trunk, the tree has worth,
But others meremy cumber earth.
Each segment of the sugar cane
Beyond the tip is sweeter,
The friendship of the good is so,
the other kind grow bitter.
Though a foe be bound by oaths,
trust him none the more,
Indra struck the demon down,
Spite of oaths galore.
True friendship, sir, is an affair
Of seven words the wise declare;
I've forced you, then to be a friend--
so hear my pleading to the end.
Each transitory day O man,
To mortal living give,
Else, like the blacksmith's bellowa, you
suck air, but do not live.
The flower and the fruit are better than the tree,
Better than curds is butter said to be.
Better than oil-cake, oil that trickles free,
Better than mortal man morality.
The praise of constant steadfastness
Some wise profession sing,
But moral earnestness is swift
Though many fetters cling.
A form must have for egress, say
The specialist, a gap:
If this be lacking it is not
A fortress but a trap.
Do not even in thought offend
Stronger foes who will not bend.
They will feel no loss or shame;
you will die a moth in flame.
Be generous to all that lives,
Receive the needy guest.
If not, your own life fades away
Like swans from lotus nests.
all quotes available on net wonderful quotes. shall copy paste when time permits.
the audio book is also available with all the stories on the net. just google.
