Ever since the dawn of civilisation, ever since man first realised the imperative need to know himself and, through that self-knowledge, to win friends and influence people so to secure his own happiness and well-being no less than those of his fellowmen, the Panchatantra stories have unfailingly offered him significant and dynamic aid.
In terms of historical time, these stories have been current among the Indian populace for at least five thousand years, probably longer. Nor has their popularity been limited exclusively to the confines of the Indian subcontinent, where the stories first found their origin. They have been told and retold, with perhaps a twist here and a turn there, among other peoples in other lands; in other climes and in other tongues — in short, among all peoples of the world through more than twenty centuries.
And at all times, the end purport of the Panchatantra, if not its form and setting, has remained the same; to reveal to man, woman or child, through the fascinating medium of ‘legless fables’ that basic knowledge and wisdom which makes one’s life richer, happier and fuller.
The original collection of the Panchatantra stories, in Sanskrit, numbered about eighty-four. But in their endless travel through the ages in India and abroad, these stories underwent many chanes not only in regard to their form, colour and setting, but even as to their total numerical strength. One such ‘maimed and transformed’ version of the Panchatantra was among the earliest printed books in Europe, in the German language. An earlier version, also garbled, in the English language, came from Caxton’s printing press.
But until almost a hundred years ago no authorised or literal translation of the Panchatantra existed in any European language. For the first time in 1859 Theodor Benfey, the noted German Sanskrit Scholar, provided a literal and faithful translation in the German language, of the Kashmir recension of the Panchatantra collection – a recension which has been recognised by Oriental scholars as the most authoritative in existence.
Two English translations of the Panchatantra were made –the first in 1924 by Stanley Rice, and the second by Arthur W. Ryder, the well-known American Oriental Scholar. Of these two, Ryder’s translation has rightly come to be regarded as the better one; in fact, it is the best of all existing Panchatantra translations in any foreign language.
Ryder’s Panchatantra, first pubished in America about twety years ago, found a large circle of friends and admirers in India. But the book soon went out of print; the need for a new edition, at a price within the reach of all, has long since been evident. It is in answer to this long-felt need and in the belief that an ounce of sense contained in the Panchatantra is better than a ton of scholarship (not contained it?) that the Publishers have ventured to offer the present edition to the Indian reading public.
The Publishers