पञ्चतन्त्रं एडगरटन-पण्डितेन सम्पादितम् /4

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,