Hitopadesha

(“beneficial teaching”) A well-known
moralistic story that is drawn from
Panchatantra, a set of moralistic fables
aimed at conveying practical and worldly
wisdom. The Hitopadesha was compiled
in the twelfth century as an introductory
reader to Sanskrit.
The frame story for the both of these
texts describes a king who is distressed
by his sons’ lack of learning and good
moral character; these doubts lead to
grave misgivings about their abilities to
be good and fair rulers after his death.
He resolves this problem by hiring a
teacher who teaches the boys using
fables, often with several shorter fables
embedded in a longer tale. The
Hitopadesha was intended to give pragmatic advice about how to be successful
in the real world and maintains that
caution and self-interest are the keys to
success in life.