Panchatantra

(“Five Treatises”) A collection of moralistic fables intended to impart practical
and worldly wisdom. The fables themselves are framed by the story of a king
who is distressed by his sons’ lack of
learning and good moral character,
which gives him grave misgivings about
their ability to rule well after his death.
He resolves this problem by hiring a person to teach the boys through fables,
each of which usually has several shorter
fables embedded in it to give moral
lessons along the way. These fables are
intended to provide pragmatic advice
about how to be successful in the real
world, particularly in the art of statecraft. This pragmatic focus can lead one
to characterize the text’s advice as
opportunistic, particularly since it
encourages caution and self-interest as
the keys to success. The Panchatantra
exists in several versions, of which the
most famous is the Hitopadesha. The
text has been translated numerous
times; a version found its way to Europe,
where it became the basis for the fables
of La Fontaine.