Posted: 5/14/2019
Unfortunately, I forgot how I learnt about the Panchatantra. I suspect it was Michael Wood’s excellent documentary “Story of India”, but I am not sure.
Anyway, was I surprised that, in my infinite ignorance, I had probably never learnt of this masterpiece of Indian literature before. The author(s) of the animal fables are unknown or not known for sure and the fables are based on much older oral traditions. “The surviving work is dated to roughly 200 BCE”, which make these Indian fables not quite as old as Aesop’s fables, which date back to around 620 and 564 BC.
Given the regrettable fact that classicist education in Western countries has been phased out to quite some extent it is important to realize that there are strong cross cultural similarities between ancient civilizations. The ancients were a lot smarter than we ignorant modern people think not least due to our poor government run public education!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchatantra
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Panchatantra-Indian-literature
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