What does the Panchatantra contain?
Earlier, I had mentioned that Panchatantra was written for Princes. We will cover this at length in our first lesson. However, I am providing a short version here to give you more context to understand the structure of Panchatantra. This part is called ‘Kathamukha’ in Panchatantra.
Once upon a time, there was a king, who had three sons. All three were dumb. So, he was worried he didn’t have any rightful heir. He, then asks his ministers for help. They refuse, afraid to take up such a task. One of his minsters suggests Vishnusharma. Vishnusharma takes up the challenges to make the dumb princes , wise kings in 6 months time.
For their sake, he creates the Panchatantra and starts teaching them wisdom through animal stories. This is how Panchatantra was created.As you would have already noted, it covers a lot of ground from Leadership to Project management.
Vishnusharma calls his story-based teaching as ‘Saraswati Vinodha’ or an innovative experiment in teaching.
But what is he teaching? Where does the content come from?
Vishnusharma himself gives us a clue.
Sakalārthaśāstrasāraṃ samālokya Viṣṇuśarmedam
Tantraiḥ pañcabhiretacchakāra sumanoharaṃ śāstram
"Having examined the essence of all treatises on polity and wisdom, Vishnu Sharma created this delightful scripture, consisting of five tantras (sections)."
So, the wisdom or the content is coming from all the Arthasastras at the time of writing ‘Panchatantra’. So, reading this is as good as reading all Arthasastras. We know one of the ‘Arthasastra’ was written by Chanakya. Do we have others? I will leave that exploration to you.
Now, Panchatantra means ‘Five tantras’ or ’5 Strategies’. What are they?
Mitra-bheda: The Loss of Friends
Mitra-labha: The Winning of Friends
Kakolookiyam: On Crows and Owls
Labdhapranasam: Loss of Gains
Apariksitakarakam: Ill-Considered Action
In this book, we will be covering the first tantra (Mitra-bhedha). Each tantra consists of a framing story which runs along the length of the book. Then there are shorter stories within the framing story narrated by characters in the framing story.
There are series in the framing story as well as in the shorter stories within the framing story. We have picked 26 key lessons from the first book (Mitra Bhedha) , which are applicable for today’s modern work place and have presented them in this series.
The hacks/ lessons cover ‘ways to handle yourself’, ‘ways to handle others’ and ’ways to handle your work’.
We also provide AI coaches and nitis (short sound bites) from Panchatantra to help you practice and reflect the lessons at work. You can tap or click on the links to access them. As I said, this is a very different type of series. You can gain a lot by just reading through.
But, true results will come from working with our AI coaches and reading and reflecting on the Nitis.
At this point, you might be thinking , there are so much material online, which look at Indian wisdom. What’s so different about this?
How our lessons are Different?
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