|
Tales of Ancient India
|
|
Publisher / Author: IQ Press
Product Options
| |
|
|
About
1,500 years ago, the king of Iran was given a book that gave a secret
alchemical formula for a potion that would bring the dead back to life.
It was explained that this potion had to be made from the extracts of
herbs and trees only found in the lofty mountains of India. Eager to
possess this precious elixir, the king sent his prime minister to India
to find the rare ingredients. The minister was led to a sage who had
himself tried to make that potion, and learned that it was in fact a
book, the Pancha-tantra.
The Hitopadesh of Narayana Pandit, a Bengali author of the 14th century, is directly inspired by the Pancha-tantra and deals with the same subject: niti. Niti is the popular wisdom that helps people to obtain success in all their undertakings. Often translated as “ethics,” niti
cannot be limited to this definition, for it goes far beyond the simple
common sense rules for living, and establishes principles of character
building that favour our spiritual endeavours.
The text is constructed through a series of stories embedded
within other stories that most often feature animal characters. The
author emphasizes first of all the importance of an education based on
wisdom and the acquisition of a solid moral base, and then describes how
to recognize true friends and the benefits that come from alliances and
friendship.
Each story is accompanied by a commentary that relates the
teachings to other stories and wisdom sayings taken from the Vedic
tradition such as the Bhagavad-gita, Mahabharata and the Niti-shastras.
|
|
|
Excerpt
Bharavi was a poet of genius who lived in the greatest poverty.
One day his wife chastised him angrily, no longer able to see him
absorbed in writing poetry while totally neglecting his family duties.
So Bharavi set off for the king's court to seek assistance.
After a long walk that left him exhausted, the poet stopped near a
lake to rest. Feeling suddenly very inspired, he wrote a verse on a
lotus petal with his fingernail. At the same time, Providence decreed
that the king, who was out hunting, should also stop near the same lake
to rest. The king read the verse on the petal of the lotus, and
appreciating it to the greatest degree, asked the poet to come to honour
the royal court with his presence. However, when Bharavi did present
himself at the palace gates, the guards refused to let him pass, seeing
him as a common beggar.
Meanwhile, the king so loved the verse that he had it engraved in
letters of gold in his room, in order to read it every morning on
waking. On one occasion, after he had been away hunting for a week and
he returned to his room late at night, he saw a young man lying in his
bed next to the queen. Furious, he pulled out his dagger to kill them
both when his eyes suddenly fell upon the verse engraved in letters of
gold.
...
Hesitating, he thought it impossible that his queen, so chaste,
could have taken up a relationship with another man. He awakened her,
and she joyfully informed him that their son, who had been lost to them a
few years previously, had arrived in the palace on that very evening.
Realizing that the maxim of Bharavi had saved both the life of his son
and his wife, the king sent for the poet and received him at his court
with all royal honours.
|
|
|
|