Visnu Sarma

"Here is a new Clay Sanskrit Library translation of The Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom, well known also by its Sanskrit title as the "Pancatantra." The king despairs of his idle sons, so he hires a learned brahmin who promises to make their lessons in statecraft unmissable. The brahmin's lessons are disguised as short stories, featuring animal protagonists." "The Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom is the book of India's folk wisdom, teaching the principles of good government and public policy through the medium of delightful stories and pithy proverbs. Its positive attitude towards life and its advocacy of ambition, enterprise, and drive counters any preconception of passivity and other-worldliness in ancient Indian society."--Jacket.

First recorded 1500 years ago, but taking its origins from a far earlier oral tradition, the Pancatantra is ascribed by legend to the celebrated, half-mythical teacher Visnu Sarma. Asked by a great king to awaken the dulled intelligence of his three idle sons, the aging Sarma is said to have composed the great work as a series of entertaining and edifying fables narrated by a wide range of humans and animals, and together intended to provide the young princes with vital guidance for life. Since first leaving India before AD 570, the Pancatantra has been widely translated and has influenced a cast number of works in India, the Arab world and Europe, including the Arabian Nights, the Canterbury Tales and the Fables of La Fontaine. Enduring and profound, it is among the earliest and most popular of all books of fables.