The Panchatantra is a collection of folktales and fables claimed to have been authored in Sanskrit over 2500 years ago by the famous Hindu Scholar Pandit Vishnu Sharma. It provides insight into human behaviour despite the fact that all the characters are from the animal realm. The precise date of the composition of the Panchatantra is unknown and ranges between 1200 BCE and 300 CE. Some researchers date him to the third century BCE.

Three fish are good friends. When they find out that some fishermen are coming to catch them, they must figure out a way to save themselves. What does each of them do?

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.

How can a king knock some sense into his silly sons so that they grow up sensible young men? A wise man tells the king that he can do the job in six weeks. Every time one of the boys says or does something rash, the sage will put him back on the straight and narrow by telling him a cautionary tale - the story of a proud hare, or perhaps an owl, or a crowï¿¿ This collection of fables, known as the Panchatantra and familiar all over Asia, were first told, then written down in Sanskrit over 2,000 years ago. Jamila Gavin brings them alive for modern readers by telling the story of the wise man and the young princes as original stories framing the classic animal fables. The result is a powerful and unique vision of this classic Indian work.

The Panchatantra is a collection of ancient Indian fables. Many-a-times, the central characters are animals and birds, who show their most identifying characteristics in the various stories, and impart valuable life-lessons and morals. In this book, read a fine selection of six stories from the treasury of Panchatantra Tales. Read of the curious monkey that got trapped and caught, how the cat ate up the fighting partridge and hare; find out why it is said the donkey has no brain and more!

A collection of animal fables told by the Greek slave Aesop.