Narayana - The Hitopadesa

Translated from the Sanskrit with an introduction by A.N.D. Haksar

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First published by Penguin Books 1998

Copyright A.N.D. Haksar 1998

Cover: A painting representing animal life
(Courtesy National Museum)

All rights reseved

ISBN: 978-01-4400-079-1

This digital edition published in 2013.
e-ISBN: 978-93-5118-096-8

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As with many ancient Sanskrit authors, little is known of Nryaa beyond his name. He was evidently a devotee of the god iva, who is invoked in both the opening and concluding verses of the Hitopadea. Contemporary scholars suggest that Nryaa was a poet or a preceptor at the court of his patron Dhavala andra, a prince or viceroy or provincial satrap of eastern India, who commissioned the work. This densely layered and textured masterpiece was composed between 800 and 950 AD. Nryaa was an erudite grammarian and philosopher as well as a consummate stylist with a full command of epigrammatic, lyrical, satiric and rhetorical modes. He interspersed his own stanzas with skilful selections and arrangements of extracts from traditional sources. These include the immortal Panatantra, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Puraas, the Manusmti, anuals on economics and statecraft inspired by akyas Arthastra, and famous literary and dramatic compositions.

Aditya Narayan Dhairyasheel Haksar was born in Gwalior and educated at the Doon School and the universities of Allahabad and Oxford. He spent many years as a career diplomat, and went on to become Indias High Commissioner to Kenya and the Seychelles, and later the Ambassador to Portugal and Yugoslavia.

He has translated various classics from the Sanskrit, including the stories of the Panatantra, the plays of Bhasa and Dains Daa Kumra aritam. The last two translations were published by Penguin as The Shattered Thigh and Other Plays, and Tales of thTen Princes.