2023-02-21 16:54:51 by ambuda-bot
This page has not been fully proofread.
PREFACE.
The text here printed is believed to be the closest possible
approach to the original Pañcatantra, that is, the work from
which are derived all the numerous "Pañcatantras", and the
works called by such names as "Pañcākhyānaka", "Tantra-
khyāyikā", "Tantrākhyāna", "Hito padeśa", or the like, which
are so familiarly known in one part of India or another, in Sanskrit
or in various vernaculars. That original "Pañicatantra" has not
been preserved to us directly. All its descendants, that is, all the
above-mentioned works and other extant versions, have departed
from it more or less radically.
In 1924 I published the first attempt ever made to reconstruct
this lost original "Pañcatantra", on the basis of a minute critical
study of the chief extant versions.* The text was printed in
Roman characters, with a Critical Apparatus giving the readings
of the known texts on which it was based, sentence by sentence
and verse by verse. There were included also an English trans-
lation, and an elaborate introduction, in which I discussed the
relationships of the various versions, and explained and justified
my methods and results.
In this volume I am reprinting the text alone, without change,
but in Devanagari characters. By this means I hope that this
oldest form of the Pañcatantra will become better known to the
educated Indian public, as I think it deserves to be. One who
compares this text with any of the extant versions will, I think,
The text here printed is believed to be the closest possible
approach to the original Pañcatantra, that is, the work from
which are derived all the numerous "Pañcatantras", and the
works called by such names as "Pañcākhyānaka", "Tantra-
khyāyikā", "Tantrākhyāna", "Hito padeśa", or the like, which
are so familiarly known in one part of India or another, in Sanskrit
or in various vernaculars. That original "Pañicatantra" has not
been preserved to us directly. All its descendants, that is, all the
above-mentioned works and other extant versions, have departed
from it more or less radically.
In 1924 I published the first attempt ever made to reconstruct
this lost original "Pañcatantra", on the basis of a minute critical
study of the chief extant versions.* The text was printed in
Roman characters, with a Critical Apparatus giving the readings
of the known texts on which it was based, sentence by sentence
and verse by verse. There were included also an English trans-
lation, and an elaborate introduction, in which I discussed the
relationships of the various versions, and explained and justified
my methods and results.
In this volume I am reprinting the text alone, without change,
but in Devanagari characters. By this means I hope that this
oldest form of the Pañcatantra will become better known to the
educated Indian public, as I think it deserves to be. One who
compares this text with any of the extant versions will, I think,