Olivelle - Pañcatantra

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Patrick Olivelle 1997

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First published as a Worlds Classics paperback 1997
Reissued as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 1999

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Panchatantra. English.
Pacatantra: the book of Indias folk wisdom / translated from
the original Sanskrit by Patrick Olivelle.
(Oxford worlds classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
I. Olivelle, Patrick. II. Title. III. Series.
PK3741 .P3E5 1997 891.23dc21 97-2843
ISBN 0-19-283988-8 (paperback)
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by Pure Tech India Ltd., Pondicherry, India
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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

THE BOOK OF INDIAS FOLK WISDOM

Translated from the Original Sanskrit by
PATRICK OLIVELLE

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

PACATANTRA

THE PACATANTRA, composed around 300 CE, is the most famous book of animal folk tales of India, a book that has had a greater impact on world literature than possibly any other piece of Indian Literature. Versions and translations of it exist in over fifty languages, and pacatantra stories have influenced Arabic and European narrative literature of the Middle Ages, including The Arabian Nights and La Fontaine. Although story-telling is the primary literary genre of the book, it has a serious purpose. It intends to teach the Art of Government through animal folk-tales interspersed with gnomic verses, transporting the reader to the imaginary world of talking animals and of animal kingdoms structured along the lines of human societies.

PATRICK OLIVELLE is the Chair, Department of Asian Studies, and Director, Center for Asian Studies, at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions. Among his recent publications are The Samnycisa Upanisads: Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation (Oxford, 1992). The Asrama System: History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution (Oxford, 1993), and Rules and Regulations of Brahmanical Asceticism (State University of New York Press, 1995). His translation of Upanisads was published in Oxford Worlds Classics in 1996 and won the 1998 A.K. Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation. This translation of The Dharmastitras was published in Oxford Worlds Classics in 1999.

THE inspiration for undertaking this translation of the Pacatantra came from the students in my first-year Sanskrit classes. Reading and translating the Pacatantra stories for and with them was truly enjoyable; it also made me aware of the inadequacy of existing translations. I gave serious thought to translating the entire Pacatantra after the publication of my Upanisads in The World i Classics when Judith Luna was hunting for other Indian classics for inclusion in the series. I want to thank Judith for her kindness and humour and for making sure that my prose did not degenerate into scholarly jargon.

Anne Feldhaus and Gregory Schopen read the introduction and offered insightful criticisms and valuable suggestions. Over the years both Anne and Gregory have read most of what I have written and have pushed me constantly into thinking clearly and into looking at texts from new perspectives. To both a big thank-you for friendship and support. At an early stage in the preparation of this translation Bette Rae Preus read Book I and returned the typescript with red ink across every page. Her insightful criticisms of my prose from the perspective of a writer who fortunately knows no Sanskrit helped me take one more step from philological accuracy to readable prose. At the very end of this project Huberta Feldhaus, retired schoolteacher and grandma extraordinaire to my daughter, read the entire translation. Merry Burlingham, the South Asia Bibliographer at the library of the University of Texas, has always been most generous with her time and advice, obtaining for me books and journal articles from libraries in the USA and abroad. To all these a heartfelt thank-you.

As usual, my wife Suman and my daughter Meera have shared the labour of this translation in many and different wayscups of coffee brought to my computer desk, a loving and stable environment conducive both to sustained thought and work and to relaxation when needed. Suman also read the entire translation and introduction several times and caught the frequent errors and typos that I am so prone to make. To both Suman and Meera love and thanks.

No other work of Hindu literature has played so important a part in the literature of the world as the Sanskrit story-collection called the Pacatantra. Indeed, the statement has been made that no book except the Bible has enjoyed such an extensive circulation in the world as a whole. This may beI think it probably isan exaggeration. Yet perhaps it is easier to underestimate than to overestimate the spread of the Pacatantra.