2023-03-04 05:47:09 by suhasm
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8
by high authorities, that the original Pañcatantra was a Buddhistic
work. There is absolutely no basis for either of these theories,
and no reputable Indianist of to-day holds them; yet echoes of
them, or at least of the second one, are still found in the writings
of uninitiated persons. The text here reprinted, with the labors
(of the writer and others) on which it is based, constitutes the final
refutation of such theories.
A word of caution may be needed on one point. Though
this is the oldest form of the Pañcatantra as a literary work,
that does not mean that every story found here is presented in its
oldest known form. The author of the Pañcatantra did not
invent most of his stories. He took them from older sources,
either literary works or (in most cases, probably) floating popular
traditions. Great artist that he was, he knew how to vivify them,
to animate them with the breath of his own genius; just as Shakes-
peare took stories from old chronicles and made immortal dramas
out of them. Compare the Pañcatantra stories with the same
stories told elsewhere, no matter where, and the greater cleverness
of the Pañcatantra's author will, as a rule, be self-evident. But
that does not necessarily mean that his version of a given story
is the oldest version of that story in existence. It is the oldest
in the Pañcatantra cycle, but that is all. It is older than, say
the Hitopadeśa version, which is derived from it; but it may
possibly not be as old as a version appearing in the Mahabharata
or in a Buddhist Jataka, which will presumably have been derived
from the same popular source used by the Pañcatantra's author.
In fact, the dates of literary occurrences of originally popular
stories do not tell us much about the age of the stories themselves.
That is, they prove that the stories in this forn are at least so old;
but no one knows how much older they may be. It is important
7
by high authorities, that the original Pañcatantra was a Buddhistic
work. There is absolutely no basis for either of these theories,
and no reputable Indianist of to-day holds them; yet echoes of
them, or at least of the second one, are still found in the writings
of uninitiated persons. The text here reprinted, with the labors
(of the writer and others) on which it is based, constitutes the final
refutation of such theories.
A word of caution may be needed on one point. Though
this is the oldest form of the Pañcatantra as a literary work,
that does not mean that every story found here is presented in its
oldest known form. The author of the Pañcatantra did not
invent most of his stories. He took them from older sources,
either literary works or (in most cases, probably) floating popular
traditions. Great artist that he was, he knew how to vivify them,
to animate them with the breath of his own genius; just as Shakes-
peare took stories from old chronicles and made immortal dramas
out of them. Compare the Pañcatantra stories with the same
stories told elsewhere, no matter where, and the greater cleverness
of the Pañcatantra's author will, as a rule, be self-evident. But
that does not necessarily mean that his version of a given story
is the oldest version of that story in existence. It is the oldest
in the Pañcatantra cycle, but that is all. It is older than, say
the Hitopadeśa version, which is derived from it; but it may
possibly not be as old as a version appearing in the Mahabharata
or in a Buddhist Jataka, which will presumably have been derived
from the same popular source used by the Pañcatantra's author.
In fact, the dates of literary occurrences of originally popular
stories do not tell us much about the age of the stories themselves.
That is, they prove that the stories in this forn are at least so old;
but no one knows how much older they may be. It is important
7