Early Ideas Author:F. F. Arbuthnot Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A GBOUP HINDOO STORIES. CHAPTER I. Of The Fables Of Bidpai Ok Pilpai, And The Pancha Tantra. The oldest collection of tales are those traditionally k... more »nown as the fables of Bidpai, or Pilpai. The author of them is unknown, as also the date of their production, and no edition of them is in existence. A good deal has been written about them both by Jones and Wilson, De Sacy, and Deslongchamps, but in the absence of any manuscript, or tangible proof, their writings can only be founded on ideas and conjectures. Tradition, however, says that they were written in Sanscrit, that they were the earliest work of the kind, and that they have been reproduced in the Pancha Tantra, or five chapters, or five sections, and in the Hitopodesa, or Friendly Advice. The Pancha Tantra is so called from its being divided into five Tantras, or chapters, but it is better known to the public by the name of the Panchopakhyana, or the five collection of stories, and under this name it is common in India. Its date cannot be fixed, but the author is supposed to be one Vishnu Sarma, and it was writtenfor the education of the king's sons in prose, and divided into five chapters. I. Dissension of friends. II. Acquisition of friends. III. Inveterate enmity. IV. Loss of advantage. V. Inconsiderateness. The story opens that there was once a king who had three sons, all wanting in diligence and intelligence. Having consulted his counsellors, they advised that the education of his sons should be entrusted to a learned Brahman, named Vishnu Sarma, who accordingly takes them in hand, and the result of what he teaches them, or rather his lessons, are embodied in the book. As the princes became highly accomplished in six months, the Pancha Tantra naturally became famous throughout the world. T...« less