पञ्चतन्त्रं एडगरटन-पण्डितेन सम्पादितम् /5

2
 

 
descendants, and when they changed it they almost invariably

made it worse. I hope, therefore, that Indians of discriminating

taste will welcome this text as an even greater "Pañcatantra'

than the works which they already know and love under that or

similar names.
 

 
""
 

 
For a statement of the exact extent to which I think I have

succeeded in "excavating" the Pañcatantra, I must refer the

curious reader to my previous publication. Here I will only say

this I think I have proved that the text here offered contains

precisely all the stories of the original, in their original order, and

no others; and that the language in which they are told closely

approximates the language of the original throughout, and is in

large measure literally identical with it.
 

 
Like many other great works of ancient Indian literature, the

Pañcatantra is anonymous. I see no reason for supposing that

the author referred to himself as Vişnuśarman in the Kathā-

mukha; for aught I can see this name is presumably just as ficti-

tious as any of the other characters in the Pañcatantra. Ivon

if it were the author's real name, it would tell us little, for certainly

nothing else is known of such a personage. Some have tried to

identify him with "Viṣṇugupta" Canakya, reputed author

of the Arthasãāstra. This seems to me idle guess-work. The

Pañcatantra, to be sure, quotes from the Arthaśāstra; naturally,

since it professes to be not only a story-book but a work illustrative

of niti. But its general style is the very antithesis of the stiff,

crabbed style of the Arthaśāstra; it is hard to believe that the

same man could have written both. And there is really not a

scintilla of genuine evidence for such a theory. Except that the