Preface

I do not recollect how old I was then; I was probably in my kindergarten years, but I vividly remember the first story I heard from my dad. It was the story of The Rabbit and the Tortoise. Every night before bedtime, he used to tell me stories from our Itihaasas and Puranas, as well as from Panchatantra and Hitopadesha. It would not be an exaggeration to say that those stories initiated me in to the habit of book reading.

Panchatantra was originally written in Sanskrit. Recently I came across a translation by Arthur Ryder, first published in 1925 by the University of Chicago press. It is considered to be the best translation to date. Once I started reading, I found its language to be old style, and harder than what I had expected to see in children's books. Mr. Ryder had translated even the proper nouns, obviously to stay close to the original, and had interspersed the stories with poetic verses. That is when I felt this urge to put pen to paper and retell the stories in my own words.

Panchatantra is by no means meant only for children. It contains niti, otherwise known as worldly wisdom, that is applicable to all ages. No one is able to ascertain the age of Panchatantra though, except to agree that it is ancient. The stories were told by a brahman named Vishnu Sharman to the three boneheaded princes of his king. He constructed stories in such a way that they imparted common sense. Most of the stories had animal characters; talking and behaving like humans, they devised clever ways to get out of tricky situations. Each story had a moral conclusion that instilled a nugget of wisdom into the listener. Needless to say, he succeeded in his quest; the stories became popular, told and re-told by millions of people to their own children. Translated into many languages, the Panchatantra Tales are the most widely known stories in the world, traveling from India to the Middle East, and then to Europe.

I'm a software engineer by profession, who writes code for a living, in computer languages such as CSharp, and Java. I would not be surprised if those names remind you of music and coffee. This book is my first foray in to the English language. I wanted to share the stories I loved as a child. You have most probably read these stories before. Reading them again will take you on a trip down the memory lane. Narrating these stories to your children, will make you feel younger!

- Shankar Bharadwaj