Abstract
Storytelling is one of the widely recognized 21st-century skills as a means for fostering qualities like emotional intelligence, creative thinking, collaboration, critical thinking, and leadership. In this paper, an argument is presented establishing the usage of storytelling and stories as a pedagogical tool in premodern India, with a focus on Panchatantra. An in-depth analysis will be conducted of the various socio-cultural-political learnings that are contained in Panchatantra stories, categorized into five principles. The study will provide evidence for the usage of these stories in educational institutions and centers during the premodern era in India, and go into depth about using animal motifs in ancient Indian storytelling.
Purvapaksha
There is a notion about premodern Indian education inculcated in modern English-speaking curriculum, which states that most of the medieval and premodern education before the arrival of Macaulay advocated education, was relegated to religious centers, and was primarily focused on “…religion, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, art, and astronomy.” [1] “The term “pre-modern” was used for three kinds of schools. The Arabic and Sanskrit schools taught Muslim or Hindu sacred literature, while the Persian schools taught Persian literature. The vernacular schools across India taught reading and writing the vernacular language and arithmetic. [2] In fact, Thomas Macaulay strongly believed that traditional India had nothing to teach regarding modern skills. “A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia,” Macaulay wrote in the Minute. He envisaged creating “a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect”, thereby assuming that traditional Indian literature was insufficient to the task of imparting skills that he considered modern – i.e. opinions, morals and intellect.
The Indian civil service examinations, in their study material, reflect similar opinions and sentiments. “Many branches of the knowledge system had their origin in India. Education was considered a higher virtue in ancient India. However, the renaissance and scientific thinking as happened in Europe didn’t happen in India at that time.” [3].
To understand the tone and subtext in these mentions of ancient Indian knowledge systems in the administrative and civil services study material, one should notice two major things: 1. Ancient Indian Knowledge Systems are acknowledged, and praised. 2. But, the scope of knowledge in these systems is considered limited to religious studies, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, art, and astronomy, thereby making the unsaid assumption that their relevance in the ‘modern’ context is questionable. Its relegation to the ‘ancient’/premodern era comes from the Western lens that appreciates the culture but deems it religious for it to be fit for a modern learning paradigm.
Now, further coming down to specific subjects and techniques of pedagogy, when we come to storytelling traditions in India, we again, see a tone of appreciation towards the aesthetics and cultural moorings of these stories, but denying or simply not acknowledging the existence of teachings and values beyond aesthetics of a storytelling tradition, ‘Aestheticization of Power’ – something, Rajiv Malhotra mentions in his Purvapaksha of noted Western Indologist, Sheldon Pollock. [12]
Now, taking a step further, in the ancient storytelling traditions, let’s take the example of Panchatantra. There has been sufficient scholarship on Panchatantra, over the years, but again, we notice something similar, acceptance of poetics, the aesthetics, but denial of its modern relevance. If it’s not relevant to modern pedagogy, then it would simply be deemed as outdated literature, as opposed to a tool for teaching. We see that in researchers like McComas Taylor who enquire about the veracity and authority of Panchtantra, deeming it socially oppressive, “That the Jaina Pūrṇabhadra wrote the broadly Brahminical Pañcatantra throws into question the relationship between agency of the individual and the controlling nature of discourse within a given (Brahminical) episteme….”. The passive voice in which the Panchtantra has been written convinces Taylor of the ‘controlling nature’ of the manner of stories. This conclusion lies in the belief that passive voice removes the agency of the speaker and the listener because according to the standard rules of English grammar, passive voice removes the subject of the sentence and focuses on the action being done. It must be noted that their theoretical lens and much of their research were shaped by Sheldon Pollock.
So, moving on forward, in this paper, first, evidence will be provided for the existence of relevant teachings across disciplines in Panchatantra, Further, to establish the universality of these teachings, the influence of Panchatantra will be examined across cultures and the nature of its adoption in European and Middle Eastern literature, along with presence of this Panchatantra-influenced literature in modern day curriculums across the world.
Bhoomika – Introduction
Pedagogy can be broadly classified into 1) The Content or curriculum of what is being taught 2) The methods employed to impart learning 3) Techniques for socializing children in the complete gamut of social and cognitive skills required for successful functioning in society.
Therefore the function of pedagogy is to not only impart information, but also elevate the thinking skills of the students so that they can go from gathering information to understanding it, applying it, analyzing and evaluating the outcomes and setbacks critically, and then creatively synthesizing new information and insights.
Therefore, critical thinking, creative thinking, innovative thinking, and evaluative thinking are considered 21st-century skills that should be made part of the classrooms [13]. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy of thinking skills, the goal is to move students from lower- to higher-order thinking:
- from knowledge (information gathering) to comprehension (confirming)
- from application (making use of knowledge) to analysis (taking information apart)
- from evaluation (judging the outcome) to synthesis (putting information together) and creative generation
Stories as a pedagogical tool are considered a responsive and organic way of delivering information while developing empathy for social cohesion and functioning. This is a broad definition, while over the years there has been much scholarship on storytelling as a means of developing critical thinking and self-learning.[14]
Paribhasha – What is Panchatantra?
The Panchatantra stories are a collection of interwoven tales of anthropomorphized animals, credited to have been written by the scholar Vishnu Sharma. “Its narrative illustrates, for the benefit of three ignorant princes, the central Hindu principles of nīti. While nīti is hard to translate, it roughly means prudent worldly conduct, or “the wise conduct of life”.[4]
Apart from a short introduction, it consists of five parts, and each part consists of a main story, called the frame story, which in turn leads to embedded stories, narrated by the characters in the story. We can see the resemblance of the structure of stories in Panchatantra to the physical structure of Russian Dolls, or the ancient Rajasthani storytelling tradition of Kaavad [5].
Pramana – Why is Panchatantra a pedagogical text?
From the above paragraph, it might come across to the reader that Panchatantra is an anthology of moral stories, which was written, perhaps, for the benefit of young children. That is how Panchtantra has been introduced to young children in India – cute animal stories with moral lessons of right and wrong. But assuming it’s only that would be denying the subtext of the actual text. To understand the subtext of Panchatantra, we have to know the frame story or the conception story of Panchatantra –
In the city of Mahilaropya, the kind Amarashakti, is well-educated and well-versed in all arts, but has three utterly stupid (moodha) sons – Vasushakti, Ugrashakti, and Anekashakti. Worried about what kind of kings/rulers/administrators these sons would make, he sends for his ministers and consults on how long the learning fit for royalty would take. To that, the ministers enumerate grammar (vyakarana) to take 12 years, followed by dharmasastras, Chanakya’s Arthashastra, Vatsyayana’s Kamashastra and others. To circumvent this long time, there is a way out – going to Vishnusarma, an 80-year-old brahmana, who takes up the challenging task of training the princes in the learnings of kingship within a semester. After the princes go to Vishnusarma, the narrative shifts from Vishnusarma and the princes and delves into the teachings, which are imparted using stories, often one inside the other.
Since the task was condensing years’ worth of knowledge into six months, the creator and author of Panchatantra had to do four tasks to teach the princes – acquire the knowledge of arthashastra, comprehend it, know the application of that knowledge, analyze, evaluate the lessons and pitfalls of the application to then finally creatively synthesize something that reflects the lessons of the application – thus came the stories. Since he was 80 years old, he had time to acquire, apply, analyze, and evaluate the lessons of his knowledge. It is described as the ‘sumanohara shastra’,
an attractive normative text. As per Naik’s interpretation [15], ‘This book is a commentary on the Panchatantra from a socio-political perspective to explain how the text functions as a nītiśāstra.’
In Dharampal’s ‘The Beautiful Tree’, ‘Punchtantra’ is listed in the ‘Lighter Literature Read’ for the Bellary school district during the 1820s [23], but not beyond that, in any presidencies. At her RC Majumdar Memorial lecture in 2020, Prof. Kusum Roy noted, ‘Despite its wide dissemination, the text also remains context-specific. Attributed to a brahmana named Vishnusharma, and ostensibly composed/compiled to instruct princes in the intricacies of statecraft, the framing narrative opens up a wealth of possibilities of alliances, administrative structures and institutions, social hierarchies, and their circumvention.’ And, as has been pointed out by Upinder Singh [16] “the Panchatantra is also a socially and politically subversive text.”It’s important to note the phrases ‘context-specific’, and ‘framing narrative’. We’ll examine these terms in the next section.
The word Panchatantra means a group of five most useful strategies [7]. Tantra in Sanskrit means ‘woven’ together. In the context of these stories, it’s niti (wise conduct of life) woven with the plot and characters of the stories. Each tantra is preceded by a ‘sutra’, an aphorism, which is then explained by a story. These five strategies are called:
- Mitra-bheda: The Separation of Friends (The Lion and the Bull)
- Mitra-lābha or Mitra-samprāpti: The Gaining of Friends (The Dove, Crow, Mouse, Tortoise and Deer)
- Kākolūkīyam: Dealing with the rivalry between Crows and Owls (War and Peace)
- Labdhapraṇāśam: Loss Of Gains (The Monkey and the Crocodile)
- Aparīkṣitakārakaṃ: Ill-Considered Action / Rash deeds (The Brahman and the Mongoose)
Like Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, each of which contains a world of knowledge, each sutra before each tantra consists of beads of knowledge, each of which is meticulously taken out and expounded using stories. Let’s now examine the sutra in the context of Panchatantra, the concept of a frame narrative, and its journey across the world.
Sutra – Frame Narrative and its journey around the world
A sutra is an aphorism, a concise statement containing a truth. A sutra in the context of a panchtantra story, has been called a frame narrative – A narrative that gives birth to other narratives/stories. We’ll use frame narrative in place of sutra, for now. Each tantra, as mentioned earlier, begins with a frame narrative. For example – the first tantra (Mitra–bheda) is preceded by:
वर्धमानोमहान्स्नेहःसिंहगोवृषयोर् वने|
पिशुनेनातिलुब्धेनजम्बुकेनविनाशितः||
vardhamānomahānsnehaḥsiṃhagovṛṣayor vane|
piśunenātilubdhenajambukenavināśitaḥ||
[2.1] The deep and burgeoning friendship between a lion and a bull in the forest was destroyed by a vicious and over-ambitious jackal.
The frame narrative sets the context for what to look out for, in the story, or the reason the story is written. The frame narrative doesn’t work on its own, without the story to make the point. Without the frame narrative, the story might still make sense, but the reader will not be sure about the main/essential lesson s/he’s supposed to learn from it. Now, if we think back to the frame narrative of Panchatantra, it contains the exact reason for reading Panchatantra, ‘training the princes in the learnings of kingship’.
Training someone using entertaining stories about niti, or politics in the day and age in which Panchatantra was written, was a tricky task, without ruffling feathers. Even without using human names, the different kinds of characters – good, bad, jealous, kind, cruel, trickster – that one finds in the act of administration, one can’t openly talk about, let alone write about. So, sutras encoded the truths, and the use of animals further cemented the encoding of different types of people found in a kingdom.
According to Vijay Bedekar [9], ‘There is hardly any other secular work in the World which has penetrated so deeply in many cultures encompassing practically every continent of the World. During the last 1500 years, there have been at least 200 translations of Panchatantra in about 60 languages of the World. Aesop fables, Arabian Nights, Sindbad, and more than 30 to 50% of Western nursery rhymes and Ballads have their origin in Panchatantra and Jataka stories. In European countries there is so much migration and borrowing of stories from one another over many centuries, making it difficult to finalize their origin at one location in Europe. However,most of the time their Indian origin is not in dispute. ‘
Therefore, frame narrative, which is considered to be a medieval literary genre, can be traced back to sutras in Panchatantra.
Adhyaaya – Narrative Teachings in Panchatantra
We’ll examine Prof Roy’s [6] lecture, and Ashay Naik’s [15] book to examine selected teachings in Panchatantra, from as wide-ranging topics as possible.
● Tantra-Wise Teachings
- First Tantra – This Tantra talks about how to gain the favor of the king, and in the process also demonstrates psychological warfare, playing on the anxieties of a weak king. Prof. Roy notes, “When we remember that it is a jackal who aspires to this role vis-à-vis a terrified lion, one gets a sense of the sarcasm that runs through the text.”, i.e. aspiring to be on top, without realizing the anxieties of being on top.
- Second Tantra – The second Tantra presents an alternative vision of kingship, represented through the figure of the pigeon king, and crow king, and it also talks about how to gain allies. The bird kingdom talks about a different kind of leadership than the animal kingdom.
- Third Tantra – Again, delving further into the bird kingdom, it introduces yet another mode of claiming and contesting kingship.
- Fourth Tantra – This Tantra talks about securing gains, keeping them, and the kind of behavior and carelessness in temperament that leads to loss of gains.
- Fifth Tantra – This Tantra has stories that highlight the importance of intelligence over learning – be it social intelligence or functional intelligence, and it employs the learned characters across educational and artistic domains to demonstrate that bookish learning must be supplemented with ‘street-smarts’.
● Business and Economics
The first story, about the lion and the bull, introduces a ruler and a scholar, in the forms of lion and the bull, but the essence of it is to introduce, through the wealthy merchant (Vardhamana), artha (wealth), the cycle of money for those who acquire it. [17] – earning, saving, investing, and spending, and how to run a profitable business.
उपार्जितानामर्थानांत्यागएव हि रक्षणं|
तडागोदरसंस्थानांपरीवाहैवांभसाम||
upārjitānāmarthānāṃtyāgaeva hi rakṣaṇaṃ|
taḍāgodarasaṃsthānāṃparīvāhaivāṃbhasāma||
[3.1] To protect the wealth that has been gained, one must let go of it like the outflow of water that is stagnant in a tank.
नस्वल्पस्यकृतेभूरिनाशयेन्मतिमान्नरः|
एतदेव हि पाण्डित्यंयत्स्वल्पाद्भूरिरक्षणम्||
nasvalpasyakṛtebhūrināśayenmatimānnaraḥ|
etadeva hi pāṇḍityaṃyatsvalpādbhūrirakṣaṇam||
[3.4] The intelligent man does not destroy the many for the sake of the few. Surely, wisdom lies in protecting the many by sacrificing the few.
Meaning, that if a person owns several industries, then the profit-making ones should not be ruined to subsidize those losses.[18]
● Leadership
Through the characters of lion kings, elephant kings and different kinds of bird kings, the author has sought to talk about different kinds of leaderships, and their strengths and weaknesses.
● Politics and Administration
Even though Panchatantra urges the readers to aspire to become the king or the chief adviser of the king, i.e. prime minister, it stresses looking at the position from the perspective of seva (service). Having said that, the story and the characters of the Panchtantra are often politically and socially subversive. The story often satirizes power using the motif of the gullible or the foolish king. It teaches about what habits or predispositions make for a gullible king.
Prof. Roy observes [19], ‘While kings were ostensibly powerful, they were not regarded as infallible…The foolish or gullible king is the ruler rather than the exception and occasionally pays heavily for his folly. This is illustrated by the well-known story of the king who appointed a monkey as his attendant.’ – the lesson is that a foolish politician hires an impulsive worker, one who doesn’t have control over their whims, and ends up landing them in trouble.
‘The jackals who claim to be mantri-putras, ostensibly servile and obsequious, and yet capable of both fanning and extinguishing royal pretensions, are central to the narrative of the first story’. These ‘mantri-putras’ are the slippery people who claim to be living on the leftover of the king, but cultivate kings to benefit their friends and ward off enemies.
So, the author points to these jackals as having a lot of power over the perceived king.
● Critical Thinking and Life Skills
1.
अप्राप्तकालंवचनंबृहस्पतिरपिब्रुवन्|
नकेवलमसंमानंविप्रियत्वं च गच्छति||
aprāptakālaṃvacanaṃbṛhaspatirapibruvan|
nakevalamasaṃmānaṃvipriyatvaṃ ca gacchati||
[5.11] Speech, which is unsuited for the time, even if uttered by Bṛhaspati, begets not only scorn but also loss of favor.
2.
वचस्तत्रप्रयोक्तव्यंयत्रोक्तंलभतेफलम्|
स्थायीभवतिचात्यन्तंरागःशुक्लपटेयथा||
vacastatraprayoktavyaṃyatroktaṃlabhatephalam|
sthāyībhavaticātyantaṃrāgaḥśuklapaṭeyathā||
[5.12] One should say something only if the advice will produce a result and remain influential for a long time like the colour on a white cloth, i.e. Speaking only when you have – through careful observation – something valuable to contribute.
Pashu – Animal Motifs in Ancient Indian Storytelling Traditions
The Animal Motifs are a great device to teach about the different kinds of temperaments and how to work through them when one finds them in companies, administration, or life, in general.
Bull – Bull is associated with strength, rigor, tapas – someone who shines after a lot of silent rigor, with horns signifying Veda and Aveda – meaning, someone who has gained insight through both (horns) – learning and living – vidya and avidya. Nandi is an example.
Lion – The lion (Simha) is associated with the king (chakravartin – wheel bearer, master of the worldly realm), sometimes predatory, fierce, but always forging his path. Therefore, the lion is Devi Durga’s Vahana.
Crow – ‘Kaka’ is the bird associated with our ancestors, and is alluded to as a time-traveler, ‘Kakabhusundi’ in Ramayana – that sits outside the time-space continuum and can replay events at will. The crow is associated with effort, bird-eye vision, and bad omens. Crow is Shani’s Vahana. That the chief advisor is often alluded to as a crow, because it’s farsighted.
Monkey – Monkey (Vanara) is associated with impulse and mischief, which is why Shiva was born as a monkey (pashu) who matures to then become Hanuman (vidvan), to finally become a Bhakt, when he meets Rama. It’s used to allude to impulsive or careless employees, workers, who prioritise impulsive short cuts that turn out to be harmful.
Swan – Swan (Hamsa) symbolizes elegance, clairvoyance, and inner beauty. It’s associated with yogic wisdom.
Elephant – Elephants (Gaja) signify intelligence, wisdom, great listeners, and absorbers of the good and the bad – which is why Ganesha’s head is an elephant’s head. But sometimes, because of their enormity, if untamed, they can also be associated with ‘Mada’ and madness.
Prakriti – The Nature of Panchatantra
The earliest translations of Panchtantra, during the mid-first millennium CE, coincide with the rule of the Gupta empire [21], the period to which the works of Kalidasa and Vishakhadatta have been attributed. Compared to the portrayals of a ‘brave/lofty’ king in the texts of the time, Panchatantra’s characters are morally grey, frail, fraught with anxieties, and operating with logical, emotional, and social fallacies. So, the text is apropos to the teaching of politics and administration in the modern context.
Punarvichar – Afterthought
For future work, it might be a good exercise to examine the Guna/Swabhava and delve into the archetype study of the characters, in a comparative study with Joseph Campbell’s ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces.’ Also, a reinterpretation of Rasa theory for the Panchatantra text could be undertaken to identify Rasas in this satirical, politically, and socially, subversive text, akin to the Rasa study of Shakespearean dramas. [22] Archetypes and Rasas could lead to reimagining of myriad challenging real-life scenarios and their creative solutions in political, business and geopolitical settings.
References
[1] Education In Medieval India: All You Need To Know For UPSC Exam!
[2] Rao, Parimala V. (3 March 2016). “Modern education and the revolt of 1857 in India”. PaedagogicaHistorica. 52 (1–2): 25–42. doi:10.1080/00309230.2015.1133668.
[3] Education in India – A Detailed Analysis – ClearIAS
[5] Rajasthan’s Kaavad: A 400-year-old evolving tradition of storytelling | South Asia Monitor
[6] Kingship, Learning and Politics in the Panchatantra-Towards Understanding Perceptions from “below?
https://www.academia.edu/76318032/Political_institutions_and_the_panchatantra
[7] Panchatantra – an example of using narratives in teaching in ancient Indian education
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/250148004.pdf
[8] The Panchatantra Stories – An Embodiment of Management Wisdom
https://www.academia.edu/22128969/The_Panchatantra_Stories_An_Embodiment_of_Management_Wisdom
[9] Dr. V.V. Bedekar (2008), History of migration of Panchatantra and what it can teach us.(DOC) HISTORY OF MIGRATION OF PANCHATANTRA AND WHAT IT CAN TEACH US.docx | Vijay Bedekar – Academia.edu
[10] Panchatantra by Vishnu Sarma With Commentary By Pandit Jwala Prasad Mishra
https://archive.org/details/wg1076/page/n11/mode/2up
[11] McComas Taylor, PŪRṆABHADRA’S PAÑCATANTRA JAINA TALES OR BRAHMANICAL OUTSOURCING?
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/8960/1/Taylor_Purnabhadras2011.pdf
[12] ‘Aestheticization of Power’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI_JTSA2ayU
[15] Ashay Naik, Natural Enmity: Reflections on the Niti and Rasa of the Pancatantra [Book 1]
[16] Upinder Singh, Political Violence in Ancient India, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2017, p.234
[17] Natural Enmity: Reflections on the Niti and Rasa of the Pancatantra [Book 1], p29
[18][Book 1], p33
[19] [6] Panchatantra – an example of using narratives in teaching in ancient Indian education, P7
[20][6]Panchatantra – an example of using narratives in teaching in ancient Indian education, P11
[21][6] Panchatantra – an example of using narratives in teaching in ancient Indian education, P25
[22] Rasa Theory Applied to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. https://www.academia.edu/65324351/Rasa_Theory_Applied_to_William_Shakespeare_s_Twelfth_Night
[23] https://ia800409.us.archive.org/10/items/TheBeautifulTree-Dharampal/beautifultree.pdf, pg32
Feature Image Credit: wikipedia.org
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