The Panchatantra (The Lion Makers, The Duel Between the Elephant and the Sparrow)
The Panchatantra is an Indian collection of stories about animals that are connected to each other. According to Wikipedia, Panchatantra is written in Sanskrit poetry and prose and structured inside a frame plot, which is also referred to as the Panchatantra. Based on old oral tradition, the surviving work is determined to have been created between 200 BCE and 300 CE. According to some recensions, Vishnu Sharma is believed to be the author of this literary text, while others credited the work to Vasubhaga, both of which may be pen names for the author. In Hindu Literature, stories about animals are among one of the oldest type of literature based on oral traditions.
The stories in Panchatantra is one of the most well known stories in the world, that is believed to be the most often translated literary pieces in India. Panchatantra is written and translated in most language of India. There are about 200 types of the text that is written in over 50 languages and the original Panchatantra is written in Hindi.
The Lion Makers
The Lion Makers is one of the stories under Panchatantra. It is a story about four Brahmans who lived in a small town. Three of the Brahmans a very educated and while one of them is uneducated. They usually enjoy each others company. One day, they decided to go on a journey to test their knowledge. Upon reaching the forest, they found the bones of a dead lion. They each stated what they can contribute in reviving the dead lion, but the fourth Brahman warned them of the danger. The three Brahmans still continued, the first Brahman was responsible for putting the skeleton together into shape, the second Brahman was responsible for putting flesh and blood, the third Brahman was responsible for reviving or giving life to the lion, and the fourth Brahman who is sensible went against their decisions. Before the three Brahmans revived the Lion, the fourth Brahman is scared for what will happen so he climbed up the tree. When the lion was revived, it instantly attacked and killed the three Brahmans. The sensible Brahman was able to saved himself because he climbed up a tree. When the lion left, the sensible Brahman came down the tree and went home to the village.
Friendship, knowledge, sensibility are the themes found in the story. The story has four main characters: the first Brahman is the one who arrange the skeleton and put it together into shape, the second Brahman is the one who supplied the flesh and blood, the third Brahman is the one who revived or give life to the lion, and lastly, the fourth Brahman who is uneducated but has common sense was the one who warned the three Brahmans, and he was able to saved his life. The setting happens in the forest of a small town in India. The author used third person point of view. The conflict was man versus man because one of the Brahmans argued that they should not revived the lion for it is dangerous, but three Brahmans insisted and still proceeded to their plan.
Based on the story, it gives us an idea about friendship. It is good to have friends but we have to consider that not all of them are good. Some friends value us, while others does not really mind us. Therefore, we should learn to select friends who knows how to appreciate and value us.
Other lesson we can get from the story is that, no matter how much educated we are, we must learn to have common sense and be sensible to things because not all the time our knowledge is correct. Other than that, we must not make judgement to others too quickly because as I or we can observed, some of the successful people in the society are not highly educated but they still excel on what they do.
The Duel Between the Elephant and the Sparrow
This is another story from Panchatantra. It is a story about two sparrows who lived in a tree. One day the female sparrow built a nest and laid her eggs in the nest. One morning, a wild elephant with fever feeling restless came to the tree in search for shade. Out of rage the elephant accidentally broke the branch of the tree where the nest was placed. The two sparrows was able to saved themselves but they lost all their eggs. The female sparrow laments the death of her children. Then a woodpecker bird, a friend of the sparrow saw her lament, so the woodpecker offered her an idea that the elephant should be killed. They then went to see their friend gnat who also suggested that they should ask the counselor frog for advice. The frog then devised a plan on how they can kill the elephant. He asked the gnat to make a buzzing sound in the elephants ears so the elephant would be thrilled to listen to the music of the gnat and close his eyes, the woodpecker would then pluck the elephant's eyes, and the frog would be on the edge of a pit and make a sound to mislead the elephant to think that the pit is a pond. The next day at noon, they carried out their plan and the elephant was killed when he fell flat into a pit after being blinded by the woodpecker when he closed his eyes in response to the gnat.
The story teaches us that with proper planning a problem could be solve. It also teach us the power of teamwork. It also teaches us that every problem has a solution.
The story is somehow cruel in a sense that the small animals killed the elephants without even knowing his side of story. Therefore, if we judge and decide to carry out a revenge on someone just because one of our friends told us what the other person did, we must not just listen to one side of the story, but we also have to listen to the side of story of the other person because our judgement might be wrong.
SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchatantra
https://layers-of-learning.com/the-lion-makers-a-story-from-the-panchatantra/
Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu_Sharma
https://badianoran.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/the-duel-between-the-elephant-and-the-sparrow-by-panchatantra/
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