Talk:Panchatantra

Proposed merger
Based on the article texts, there doesn't appear to be any reason why the Syriac translation of the fable collection deserves an article of its own, but then again I'm not an expert on ancient literature. Opinions? 84.239.128.9
 * In my opinion, if the Kalilag and Damnag is very old translation, no merger is required. Both the pages may grwo independently. --Bhadani 13:58, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The articles have grown independently to cover much of the same material in different words, which is why a merge would seem appropriate. I don't quite see how the oldness of the translation would be relevant, can you expand on that? As far as I can see, the main question would be whether the Kalilag and Damnag is substantially different from the original. 84.239.128.9 21:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I basically agree with you. However, I am trying to get views of someone having a deeper understanding (than me) of the both the texts. I have also requested you to create a user name, if you wish. Thanks. --Bhadani 16:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I am against this merger idea because the oral and literary history of this blended work is overwhelmingly complex and curious. Each of the main classical versions (translations/retellings) should have its own distinct article/identity, and indeed the Syriac title line used here (Syriac being a minor tributary source, and thus misleading) should probably be deleted, leaving only the Arabic 'Kalila and Dimna' -- which (circa 750 AD) is the undisputed mainstream rendition that transmitted these fables throughout world culture.

Part of the problem is that three distinct versions (in Sankskrit, Arabic and modern Persian) are ethnocentrically regarded by each originating culture as being the 'true' literary masterpiece. Yet in each culture's verison there are very siginificant variations of story and treatment -- including gratuitious moralistic additions to satisfy local time-bound religious or political ideologies. Furthermore the original Sanskrit version is LOST as is ALSO the first translated version into Pehlevi (or old Persian). The Syriac translation of 570 AD (two removed from the original lost Sanskrit 'Panchatantra') according to Keith-Falconer¹ (a 19 Cent Cambridge Syriac scholar) refelects the Pehlevi "perhaps more perfectly than in the Arabic". Be that as it may, it is the Arabic version, 'Kalila and Dimna', (also translated from the Pehlevi by a Persian convert to Islam, later in 750 AD) that ensures the book survival in world culture, much as Arabic scholarship sustained Greek learning for humanity during the same period.

'Kalila and Dimna' remains a classic of secular Arabic prose², known throughout the Arab world -- rather like Chaucer is to English speakers. Similarly the 15th Cent version in Persian called the 'Anwari Suhali' is also deemed a great classic by Farsi speakers. The novelist Doris Lessing, in her Introduction to Ramsay Wood's 1980 English retelling of 'Kalila and Dimna' ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0892818166/202-1445389-2081465?v=glance&n=266239 ) discusses many of these issues in detail. She begins with these words: "The claim has been made for this book that it has travelled more widely than the Bible, for it has been translated through centuries everywhere from Ethiopia to China. Yet it is safe to say that most people in the West these days will not have heard of it..."

Thus to put all versions of these worldwide fables under one article about 'The Panchantantra' would firstly be misleading as there isn't a single source Sanskrit manuscript. There are dozens, and indeed it was only in 1924 that Franklin Edgerton³, a Yale Sanskritist, reconstructed a defined modern version based on a "a minute study of... all versions which seemed to provide useful evidence on the lost Sanskrit text to which, it must be assumed, they all go back." Secondly it would ignore the unique and separate (though related and certainly equal) classical masterpieces that are enjoyed in Arabic and Persian today. --Debongu 12:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, thank you for the explanation. It is more than sufficient justification for me to withdraw my merger proposal, although I think it would still make sense to reduce the duplication of content between the two articles.  Since you obviously know more about the subject than any of the previous contributors, I hope you will have time to improve the articles some day soon.  84.239.128.9 20:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

–––– Thanks, I shall. But I'm new to Wikipedia so am stumbling along trying to master its rules,terms, language and usage skills. Do you want to see here what I've got so far, or do I just stick it up and wait and see what reaction, if any, occurs? My concern is some areas of this subject are ethnologically sensitive, so what happens in disagreements -- do different factions start wiping each others words/ideas out in the interest of 'their' truth? --Debongu 04:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Welcome. As an occasional Wikipedia dabbler I am not exactly the best person to answer, but if worst comes to worst, there are dispute resolution mechanisms that are mostly successful in discouraging and eliminating unreasonable contributors.  But then even reasonable contributors, with a willingness to discuss their differences, may end up creating a stilted article where every sentence is based on a long discussion and as a result there is no spirit or overall concept behind the text.  However, don't let my worst-case example discourage you - if you accommodate the neutral point of view and cite your sources, your knowledge will most likely come through in the end.


 * As regards your initial contributions on these two articles, I recommend being bold and simply making changes to the articles -- there hasn't been that much contributor interest to date, and if someone feels you're heading to the wrong direction, it's up to them to bring it up. 84.239.128.9 21:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Are there any updates on this discussion? For the reasons stated above, the complex history of the work, the lack of a stable origin, and the fact that different translations (especially the Arabic one) had a life of its own, the Arabic being the source of most modern translations, a separate entry for the Arabic translation would seem necessary, even if there some overlap with the this entry (which is not uncommon in Wikipedia). By the way, how come there is a separate entry for the Castilian translation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.36.49.251 (talk) 09:34, 22 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I propose just adding to this article all the stuff you'd like the article on the Arabic translation to have, and when the article looks like it is loo long and ought to be split, it will be obvious. I have tagged the Castilian translation for merging. Shreevatsa (talk) 01:43, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Image
From Dutch wikipedia. Relief from Java, Indonesia. deeptrivia (talk) 14:37, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing it out (three years ago); I have moved it from Dutch Wikipedia to Commons. Will shortly stick it into this article. Shreevatsa (talk) 19:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Confusing/Contradictory Section: "Two Links with Aesop"
The article on Aesop's Fables says, "The collection under the name of Aesop's Fables evolved from the late Greek version of Babrius, who turned them into choliambic verses, at an uncertain time between 3rd century BC and 3rd century AD. In about 100 BC, Indian philosopher Syntipas translated Babrius into Syriac, from where Andreopulos translated back to Greek, since original Greek scripts had all been lost. Aesop's fables and the Panchatantra share about a dozen tales, leading to discussions whether the Greeks learned these fables from Indian storytellers or the other way, or if the influences were mutual." This seems to contradict the glaringly incomplete section in this article which says there are exactly two stories shared (which two is not said) and that India is seen as the source of the fables.

I'm inclined to trust the "Aesop's Fables" version more.

Can any expert on this subject clear this up? Perhaps the section should be removed for its seeming incompleteness if not for inaccuracy? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pediddle (talk • contribs) 16:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

Good point! I've added in the names of the two stories from Edgerton, once a Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit at Yale. This is a contentious and tricky area; in fairness it's up to the writer of the Aesop article (or someone checking his/her references) now to specify the titles of the "about a dozen tales" that overlap with The Panchatantra. And the source of that information. Debongu 14:41, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

TODO
May I request editors of this wikipage to go through a proper review process. For me, it looks better than B. Thanks. GDibyendu (talk) 09:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

This page needs heavy editing.It tells more aboutbouzy and less about actual panchatantra stories. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hitneosh (talk • contribs) 06:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a confused article. I'd rate it C. The lead needs to be cleaned up to clarify that there the Panchatantra is a Sanskrit, Indian work upon which later works are based. The footnotes are way too heavy with prose. II  | (t - c) 09:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

some notes
abdulazim gharib mentions in his introduction that 9 years before the death of anushirvan (i.e. 570) one christian iranian with name "پرودیوت" (peridut bud?) translated the book into syriac language from pahlavi. this has two centuries difference from what the article says. ref: abdulkarim gharib's copy of Nasrollah munshi text, tehran 2005 page 6--خنیاگر (talk) 04:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC).

Self-references to footnotes
Many of the footnotes refer to other footnotes by number, e.g. "See Note 21 below", and so on. This is not stable, because as footnotes as inserted and deleted the numbers will change -- is it possible to come up with some other way of referring to them? (It might even be a good idea to move all that prose out of the footnotes and into the article itself.) Shreevatsa (talk) 19:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Removed Lessing quote
One of the footnotes had, within  tags, the following quote:

""... when we in our time talk of stories, tales, we often forget that for most of human history, thousands of years — tales were told or sung. Reading came much later, is comparatively recent, and changed not only our way of receiving tales, but also the actual machinery of our minds. The print revolution lost us our memories — or partly. Before people kept information in their heads. One may even now meet an old man or woman, illiterate, who reminds us what we once were — what everybody was like. They remember everything, what was said by whom, when and why: dates, places, addresses, history. They don't need to refer to reference books. This faculty disappeared with print." Problems, Myths and Stories by Doris Lessing, Institute for Cultural Research Monograph Series No. 36, p 13, London 1999"

This is certainly a fascinating quote, and I thank whoever found it, but it's not a reference for anything in the article. Some of the other footnotes are also of this nature... I feel guilty about removing them, but they're clearly not supposed to be there :) What should be done? Shreevatsa (talk) 07:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

"So much for naughty jackals!"
Seriously? Is THAT even remotely encyclopedic to include?! In any case, I will remove it and provide a brief description of each chapter in the book.

Cheers!

&Lambda; u α (Operibus anteire) 15:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree, good work! There are several more such essay-ish sentences in the article, albeit in bigger words. One day, someone will have to be bold and clean it up to the dry style expected on Wikipedia. Shreevatsa (talk) 20:24, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Such a badly written article
This has got to be one of the worst written articles in Wikipedia. Long winding sentences, informal terms (goody-goody, etc.) and no coherent structure. Plus the article is highly opinionated. Who is this Professor Edgerton, who is never referenced, but whose opinion about Panchatantra is deemed so important as to make its way into an encyclopedic article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.227.33 (talk) 15:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Though someone has obviously taken pains with the article, I agree with you — it might be great for some other medium, but reads too much like an essay for Wikipedia. But please be bold and fix it. Shreevatsa (talk) 17:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comment; it finally broke my reluctance and induced me to work on the article. Relative to the old version, after a few edits, I think I have now mostly removed the opinionated bits (or found attribution for them), and improved the structure. More improvements, of course, are always welcome. Shreevatsa (talk) 02:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

File:Syrischer_Maler_um_1310_001.jpg
The caption of this image (the one with the fire) says its syriac, however the writing near the illustration are undoubtly arabic and NOT syriac (which uses totally different alphabet). This should be changed. --Histolo2 (talk) 20:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, thanks for noticing it. I just used the file information from Commons:File:Syrischer Maler um 1310 001.jpg, whose title says it's a Syrian painting from around 1310. (Perhaps it's a Syrian painting with Arabic lettering? No idea.) It would be best to fix the description on Commons too if it's wrong, but feel free to change or remove the mention in the caption meantime. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 20:40, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


 * "Syriac" is a language, while "Syrian" means "from Syria". As far as I can tell, "Syrischer" means "Syrian". From this I assume that this is a picture with Arabic writing originating in Syria, which is perfectly sensible. Based on this, I'm going to alter the captions of this and other pics with "Syrischer" in their tags. Phil wink (talk) 00:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Pedigree
I put this textual pedigree together several years ago. In principle, I think it would be useful to the article since, while the existing Joseph Jacobs pedigree seems to be very good for the most part, it does not reflect subsequent findings on the early history of the Pancatantra. However, I do not think this chart is acceptable as it stands; maybe it can be used as a basis for a more useful one? Its sources (as I recall) were the Joseph Jacobs pedigree (which IS currently in the article), a stemma in one of Hertel's editions, and mostly Edgerton's notes; but other sources may have crept in (such as the questionnable dating by Isabel Burton). Its problems are 1) it is PNG and should be SVG; 2) it would probably be better to leave the "Western" branch at Ibn al-Muqaffa's Arabic translation, and leave the rest of that massive branch to Jacobs; 3) although it is correct, the unexplained presence of Nepal in "South and East India" seems wrong... perhaps a note or re-labelling would help; 4) I have no idea whether this represents the latest findings (although glancing at Olivelle's introduction, it appears that this configuration has remained relatively stable); 5) Olivelle's translation is actually based on Edgerton's reconstruction, NOT strictly on the "Southern" version as claimed in my chart; 6) the weird shading (which represents texts with relatively large ranges of possible composition dates) puts undue emphasis on these texts. I'm sure you will think of additional ways to improve it. What I DO think is useful is the quasi-2-dimensional layout, which locates a text both in geography and absolute time (which a regular stemma doesn't do). Phil wink (talk) 06:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow, great work! Truly impressive. Yes, this would be a much better image to include in the article than the page from the book of Jacobs, and your two-dimensional layout is a really good idea. I agree with your listing of problems (though many issues are quite ignorable) -
 * (1) SVG would be better than PNG, but PNG is better than nothing.
 * (2) Yes, pruning out the "Western" branch or leaving it to a separate image would make it considerably cleaner.
 * (3) I'm not sure whether putting Nepal under that heading would be very contentious, but perhaps "Rest of India" or "Rest of the Indian subcontinent" may be a better label (can't think of any better right now).
 * (4) I also think that the image still represents, or is pretty close to, the latest consensus.
 * (5) Yes, Olivelle's translation is based on Edgerton's reconstruction, but the latter is after all the best hypothesis we have that can call the "Southern version". So it may be a good idea to attribute the relevant dot to Edgerton, e.g. call it "Southern Panchatantra (as reconstructed by Edgerton)". This would also give some credit to the great amount of work done by these philologists. Similarly, the Kashmirian version (Panchakhyanaka, etc.) that was used as basis for Ryder and (I think) Chandra Rajan's translation was the text as edited/reconstructed by Hertel, so his name may be worth mentioning too.
 * (6) I agree. Maybe it can be made a normal sized dot (same as the other sources), with, say, light dotted arrows indicating the range of dates.
 * Let's hope to put the image in the article... even as it stands, it's quite good! Best regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 07:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * PS: BTW, it would be good to remove Isabel Burton's claims; they were written in an age of ignorance by the widow of a man known for exaggeration, so they're highly dubious. Best to remove all mention of the Baital Pachisi entirely. (A more extreme step would be to also remove the parts of the tree corresponding to the Brihatkatha since they're not strictly necessary, but those can usefully stay.) Shreevatsa (talk) 13:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Shreevatsa, for your encouragement. I've made (I think) most of the improvements discussed and, based on your enthusiasm, put the image right into the article. I have not addressed #3 because today it seems just fine to me as-is; don't know what my big problem was! I no longer have most of my sources in front of me, so if you find errors or omissions in the new version, please let me know explicitly what you think should change, since I may not be able to look it up easily. Phil wink (talk) 01:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Great! The new version looks much better. How did you make the image, BTW? The views about Brhatkatha etc. may have changed a bit (BTW, Budhasvamin has only one d); maybe the foreword to the recent Clay Sanskrit Library translation has some information… I'll see if I can find something. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 16:23, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * My technology is slightly more advanced than crayons: I just set up a table in MS Word for the grid, then superimposed dozens of little text boxes and shapes, and kept shifting them around until they looked OK (to me); then some machinations to get the PNG (probably would have been slicker to start with Power Point... oh well). Phil wink (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

"Alghlim"
The article contained a word "Alghlim" that doesn't seem to much exist on the internet outside of mirrors of this page. For several months it was tagged with a request for its meaning, but since none has been forthcoming, I've just removed the word. Shreevatsa (talk) 18:06, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Alghlim is actually the arabic word الغليم which mean a male turtle. He is the character in the story of the turtle and the monkey (although I understand in the nonarabic version it is a crocodile and the monkey). Id 1948 (talk) 07:50, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

List of all the stories of Panchatantra
I'm thinking of listing all the stories of this ancient work. In all there are about 62 stories. Should I do it in a separate article? please suggest. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 15:38, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea to me...


 * 1) But yes, I think a separate article would be appropriate.
 * 2) Because there is not one Panchatantra, but rather several varying recensions, in my view a list of stories would most appropriately be in the form of a table, which -- along with the list itself -- noted whether each story occurs in a) Egerton's reconstruction; Hertel's editions of b) Tantrakhyayika, c) "Southern" Panchatantra, and d) Purnabhadra; and for good measure e) the closely-related Hitopadesha. Appendices I & II in Olivelle's translation might be a good starting point, though it doesn't speak to the Hitopadesha.
 * 3) There is almost no end to how complex the table could get, since one could go on to include any number of further versions and translations, but for me the above 5 would be the heart of the matter.
 * 4) But then (to me) the real value of the list would be to see where else each of these stories ended up (e.g. Kathasaritsagara, One Thousand and One Nights... and on and on. For that, you'd have to consult something like Penzer (specifically, I believe, Volume V).
 * Obviously, from "a list of 62 stories", I've upgraded this to "a life's work", but these are the possibilities I see in the idea. Good luck. Phil wink (talk) 18:34, 16 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your inputs. I have a kannada panchatantra translated by Durgasimha. It is said he translated it in around 1025 AD. This is what I think you refer as southern panchatantra. I'm thinking of listing its stories as a first step. your idea of table is good. I'd like to implement the table you've outlined but that needs lot of time which I have in short supply. I'll first prepare a table with list of stories in southern panchatantra in rows in my sandbox and will add further colums of items a,b,c,d you have outlined. Lets see, I'll try to do what I can. Thanks again. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 15:30, 17 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The "Southern" Panchatantra is a reconstruction by Hertel, I believe based primarily on a Sanskrit version from the Deccan. Glancing at the Durgasimha entry, it seems your Kannada translation falls somewhere in the Kathasaritsagara line. I suggest you set up a table something like this, filling in the "D" column, and I can fill in "E" and "P" with Olivelle. We'll figure out "H" later. This will include (in my opinion) the most important versions.
 * {| class="wikitable"

! Tale !! E !! D !! P !! H
 * Karataka and Damanaka (Book I Frame Story) || I.Frame || || I.Frame ||
 * The monkey that pulled the wedge || I.1 || || I.1 ||
 * A rat, crow, turtle, and fawn become friends (Book II Frame Story) || II.Frame || || II.Frame ||
 * Birds with two necks and one stomach || - || || II.1 ||
 * The ascetic and the mouse || II.1 || || II.2 ||
 * }
 * E=Egerton's reconstruction (1924); D=Durgasimha's Kannada translation (c. 1025); P=Purnabhadra's recension (1199); H=Hitopadesha by Narayana (<1373).
 * It is important that for each version, we provide not just a "title" or "subject" (which I show in the first column), but also the book number (roman numeral) and order (arabic numeral) so we can tell when they get added, subtracted, or move around. Phil wink (talk) 17:29, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Correction: According to Olivelle (xlii), Durgasimha's translation is indeed in the line of Southern Panchatantras (though it would still not be right to call it the Southern Panchatantra). My assumption is that the history given in Durgasimha linking it to Brhatkatha is simply false. Phil wink (talk) 17:51, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Phil, thanks for the table format but I did not understand what you mean by book number and frame ? do you mean different sections like Mitrabhedha etc by book number? could you please give example of it by filling out the above table for the story "Monkey that pulled the wedge" Lokesh 2000 (talk) 10:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The ascetic and the mouse || II.1 || || II.2 ||
 * }
 * E=Egerton's reconstruction (1924); D=Durgasimha's Kannada translation (c. 1025); P=Purnabhadra's recension (1199); H=Hitopadesha by Narayana (<1373).
 * It is important that for each version, we provide not just a "title" or "subject" (which I show in the first column), but also the book number (roman numeral) and order (arabic numeral) so we can tell when they get added, subtracted, or move around. Phil wink (talk) 17:29, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Correction: According to Olivelle (xlii), Durgasimha's translation is indeed in the line of Southern Panchatantras (though it would still not be right to call it the Southern Panchatantra). My assumption is that the history given in Durgasimha linking it to Brhatkatha is simply false. Phil wink (talk) 17:51, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Phil, thanks for the table format but I did not understand what you mean by book number and frame ? do you mean different sections like Mitrabhedha etc by book number? could you please give example of it by filling out the above table for the story "Monkey that pulled the wedge" Lokesh 2000 (talk) 10:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Phil, thanks for the table format but I did not understand what you mean by book number and frame ? do you mean different sections like Mitrabhedha etc by book number? could you please give example of it by filling out the above table for the story "Monkey that pulled the wedge" Lokesh 2000 (talk) 10:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)


 * First, to be clear I should have named the first frame story... I've now fixed that above. I've also added more lines to make my intention clearer (you'll see I've included a story that is in P but not E). The "Frame" stories are the stories that begin each of the 5 books (4 for Hitopadesha), and continue through them... so that all the other stories in that book are "inside" it. The sources I see typically number all the "inside" stories, but do not number the frame. Therefore, the frame story of Book I is simply numbered "I.Frame" (instead of "I.1" or even "I.0"), and the next story (the first "inside" story) is numbered "I.1". Then usually the numbering starts over with the next book: "II.Frame" then "II.1", etc. Some of the "inside" stories have stories inside them, so the source may number them for example "I.3a", "I.3b", "I.3c"... our sources may not be consistent, and we should follow our sources if possible. Hopefully your Kannada version has the stories numbered; if so, just reproduce those numbers (even if the system doesn't exactly match mine), with the Book number in roman numerals first; if not, I think you should just number them sequentially yourself.
 * (To respond to your actual request, you'll see that I can't fill in the D and H rows, since the content depends on the source, and I don't have these sources in front of me at the moment.) Make sense? Phil wink (talk) 16:42, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * some stories have upto 3-4 levels of stories embedded in them one spawning the other. So I followed convention like "I.2.1.3" meaning Book I, second story's first story's third story. Bit complicated I agree, but how else to number them? I have already listed around 10 stories in the table in my sandbox. can you have a look at it? Lokesh 2000 (talk) 04:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is link to my work so far on this [Sandbox] (now in mainspace: List of Panchatantra Stories -pw).  Lokesh 2000 (talk) 05:01, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks great. I think this will be very informative. Your numbering system is exactly correct. I will not use this system for my columns, but only because I need to follow the systems of my most authoritative sources... I wish they had used your system, which is clearly better! Phil wink (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

The Panchatantra writer's identity
On the Hebrew version of this article (and on other websites, e.g. http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/bidpai.html ) I see that Bidpai is credited for the writing of the Panchatantra, yet on this article, Vishnu Sharma is credited with the writing of this work. Does someone know anything regarding this matter? Itamarm10 (talk) 20:04, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Here is my summary from memory. I don't have references to hand this moment, but I believe this is pretty solid:


 * 1) The Panchatantra is not a gradual conglomeration; although some of its individual stories pre-dated its composition, it seems really to have been composed in Sanskrit by one person probably in the early centuries CE. So it does have an author (unlike, say, a folk-song).
 * 2) However, the original author is anonymous (or at least unknown to us... possibly back in the day everyone knew this person's name.)
 * 3) In Edgerton's reconstruction of the original, the character who tells the stories in the Panchatantra is called Visnu Sharma. This is often taken to be the author's name, but really it's just the teller in the outermost frame story. Conceivably someone named Visnu Sharma really was the author and put himself in his own story, but that's mere speculation.
 * 4) In at least one version (see footnote in List of Panchatantra Stories) the name "Vasubhaga Bhatta" has a similar function.
 * 5) Many versions deriving ultimately from the Arabic Kalilah and Dimnah (this includes anything that got to the west before around 1800) are called the Fables of Bidpai or the Fables of Pilpay. Some attribute the tales to "Sendebar" which (incredibly) comes from the same name. I don't know when these names got attached, but later than the names listed above.
 * Thus it should not be surprising to see various sources attribute the work to various names. But now you know better than they do. Phil wink (talk) 22:37, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

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 * ✅ Checked that the archive link is fine. Shreevatsa (talk) 21:31, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Pinglak
Just a character from the story, that too with an odd spelling. Shreevatsa (talk) 04:02, 16 February 2016 (UTC) It is different from the others because all related things to panchtantra can not be mentioned at one page.103.60.3.22 (talk) 10:01, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Not 'Indian'
Since 'India' is the name of the newly formed nation in the Indian subcontinent, the work cannot be mentioned as 'Indian'. If that be so, Red Indian traditions should be mentioned as 'American'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.201.241.209 (talk) 09:20, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

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The Five Strategies listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect The Five Strategies. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed,Rosguill talk 23:33, 30 June 2019 (UTC)