Post # 137
India's most famous book abroad ...
I recently read something extraordinary. Impulsively, I asked my wife and a close friend which Indian book they thought was most frequently translated and reproduced abroad. Bhagawat Gita, both of them replied, just like I had guessed.
Turns out, the most popular Indian literary work translated abroad is Panchatantra! Turns out, there are 200 versions of Panchatantra in more than 50 languages around the world, in many different names. Turns out, many stories in Jataka tales, Aesops fables, Arabian nights and many western tales have origin in Panchatantra! Unbelievable, huh?
But how did a animals-moral-story book turn out to be an international best seller? Therein lies a tale.
The original author of Panchatantra is unknown. Most researchers believe that a sage named Vishnu Sharma wrote it, though some believe that a person called Vasubhaga wrote it. Some others believe both these names are pen names for an anonymous author.
In any case, the original Panchatantra was not written down. It was orally transmitted. The earliest records of the written down manuscript is from between 200 BCE to 300 CE.
Vishnu Sharma was a great teacher. In those days, there used to be a kingdom called Amarasakti. Its king had three vagabond kids as princes. Worried that they would not be able to rule the kingdom after him, he took them to teacher after teacher. All failed.
Enter Vishnu Sharma. He took them to his ashram and told them stories - of birds, animals, people and gods, all of them could talk and feel and behave as people do. Teacher and pupils discussed the stories, and in the process, the princes understood how people behaved - their ambitions, foolishness, cunning, deceit, smartness, hard work and so on. In six months time, vagabonds became wise. They had learnt from the greatest teacher of all - life, in the most interesting way of all - stories.
There is no unanimity about where Panchatantra was originally conceived - some say Kashmir and some say South India. In any case, it was originally written in Sanskrit. Some of its other names are Tantrakhyayika, Panchakhyanaka and Tantropakhyana. The suffix akhyayika and akhyanaka mean little story or little story book in Sanskrit. The format of the book is a story within a story within a story.
Vishnu Sharma expounded his wisdom to the three princes in five sections:
1. Mitra bheda : How friends are parted
2. Mitra labha: Securing allies
3. Kakolukiyam : War and Peace: The story of the crows and the owls
4. Labdhapranasham : Loss of gains
5. Aparikshitakarakam : Hasty action
The stories from Panchatantra recur in various forms in the Indian tradition, most famously as Hitopadesha (Wise advice).
Hitopadesha is believed to have been written by Narayana, under the patronage of a king named Dhavala Chandra, but the content and style is clearly from Panchatantra.
But how Panchatantra travelled to the West is a very interesting story.
Around 550 CE, parts of Iran were ruled by an emperor called Anoushiravan. This emperor had a royal physician named Borzuy. Borzuy sought his king's permission to make a trip to Hindustan in search of a mountain herb he had read about that "is mingled into a compound and when sprinkled over a corpse, the corpse is immediately restored to life." The emperor was intrigued. So he agreed.
Borzuy came to India, did not find the herb, but met a wise sage who told him that the story of the herb is a metaphor. The herb is the scientist, science is the mountain, the corpse is the man without knowledge and through knowledge man is revived.
The wise sage gives the frustrated physician a book. Borzuy likes it, has it translated into an Iranian language called Pahlavi, with the help of some pandits. This translated version arrives in Persia in the 6th century. The Pahlavi version is lost, but it gets translated to Syriac and Arabic languages. These versions are still available.
Do you know what this book was called in Pahlavi? Kalilag o Demnag. It was called Kalila wa Dimna in Arabic. In Syriac, it was called Kalilag and Damnag.
These names mean Karataka and Damanaka, the names of the two jackals in the first story of the Panchatantra, which changed to Kalila and Dimna in the Persian versions.
Kalīla wa Dimna is considered "the first masterpiece of Arabic literary prose."
In the 12th century CE, Kalila wa Dimba was translated to Hebrew by Rabbi Joel. This Hebrew version was translated into Latin by as Directorium Humanae Vitae, or "Directory of Human Life".
In 1439, a German by the name of Gutenberg invented the printing press. A German translation, Das Buch der Beispiele, of the Panchatantra was printed in 1483, making this one of the earliest books to be printed by Gutenberg's press after the Bible!!!
In the 16th century, the Latin version was translated to Italian and then English. In English, it was called The Fables of Bidpai. Bidpai was apparently Vidyapati, a corruption of Vishnu Sharma. Several versions of the text are also found in Indonesia, Laos and Thailand under various names.
Somebody took the trouble of putting all of this together in a chart form. Hats off to them and those folks in Wikipedia who make knowing new stuff so enjoyable.
As a kid, I loved those intimate moments with my Amar Chitra Katha copies of Panchatantra, Hitopadesha and Jataka tales. Even now, they are my go-to books when I am emotionally drained and need my space.
This post is a tribute to India's most popularly translated book abroad - Panchatantra.