Talk:List of Panchatantra stories

Typo?

There seems to be a glitch in the order at II.1.2. If this is a sub story of II.1 it should be II.1.1, or if just the next story then II.2, right? Either way the rest of the stories in Book II should be re-numbered also. Phil wink (talk) 22:11, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

you are right, it is a glitch I'll check. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 04:31, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

What = what?

Lokesh, you'll see I've begun adding Edgerton & Purnabhadra numbers. If you like, you can actually view my source pages here on Amazon using the "look inside" feature. The 2 appendices are pp 160 ff, and it also shows the table of contents at the beginning. Thus

1. For every match I find, there will be a number in P, but only sometimes in E. Thus...
2. If there's a P number, but no E, that means this story doesn't exist in E. But...
3. Every match in E will also have a match in P.
4. Lack of any P or E number means either there is no match or I haven't gotten to it yet.

However, all my matches are hypothetical, since I don't have a source matching D to E or P in the first place, and I don't have the Kannada text in front of me (and couldn't read it if I did). I'm just going by titles and order; when there is a run of similar titles in similar order I can be quite sure of the identification, but still not 100%. Eventually, what would be ideal is -- after I'm done making my educated guesses -- you get a copy of either Arthur Ryder's or Chandra Rajan's English translations of Pancatantra, and double-check my identifications. Olivelle kindly provides page number equivalents for both of these, and I can add them temporarily to the list if you need them. Also, I've ordered a book which I hope will allow me to fill in H... but that's for another day. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 21:03, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I felt my choice of story names is not so good after looking at amazon link, I think I should change the titles. I'd also double check your table listing. Few more titles, and column D is ready to go. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 05:19, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Changed many titles so that you can recognize some. Also completed listing all the stories in durgasimha's translation. Please check for any grammatical errors. once you are done with numbering your columns, we can create new article and link it to Panchatantra Lokesh 2000 (talk) 15:07, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks great. I'll try to finish up my columns (and additional Purnabhadra rows) in the next couple of days. I think for the table as a whole, I'll re-order primarily by Purnabhadra's order (which will encompass the most rows). What do you think of sorting?... We could make the table sortable, so that users can view any one of the given sources in its proper order; however our numbering systems will not sort properly. To solve that problem, we could implement this: Help:Sorting#Sorting with a hidden key. It would make the underlying text very ugly, but I think the table would be much more useful. This step would of course occur after I get all our columns and rows together correctly. Thoughts? Phil wink (talk) 17:01, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Good idea Phil, but I'm not that good in using wikipedia's table formatting tools. may be you'll have to do it all by yourself hope you dont mind it. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 09:33, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Plan of action

Lokesh, if you have time, please:

1. Add your edition of Durgasimha under References
2. Using the amazon link, double-check my matches with "?" -- if you agree with my match, delete the "?".
3. Check for "missing rows" (I discuss below).
4. Fix IV.3 - IV.5 glitch.

Then I think D will really be complete and I'll finally add the remaining E & P rows and numbers, and re-order the whole table.

• "Missing rows": There are a few stories from Edgerton which don't currently have numbers in Durgasimha. This is possible, but surprising. Please double-check Durgasimha for these... even if your edition doesn't break them out as a separate story, if they're there at all, they should get a row with a number in the D column. Of course, if they're not in your edition, that's fine; I'll add them in with the appropriate numbers in the other columns. The "missing" stories (using Olivelle's Table of Contents) are:
  • I.3, I.3.1.1 & I.3.2 -- which should correspond to D IV.3
  • I.10 -- which might correspond to D IV.10 or IV.11.
  • III.6 & III.8 -- which might occur around D III.4 or III.9 or III.11.

Thanks! Phil wink (talk) 21:54, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

regarding missing stories- I could not find I.3 but I.3.1.1 forms a part of narrative of I.3.1 which is D IV.3 in durgasimha. I also could not find I.10 and definitely it is not D IV.10 or IV.11. Regarding III.6, I could not find it exactly, but if you provide gist of the story I can tell definitely. Regarding III.8, it is III.14 in D.

regarding double-checking, I dont have purnabhadra source so I cant verify that column I can verify column E using amazon link. regarding Glich- I'll going to fix it and also add the reference Lokesh 2000 (talk) 09:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Duplicate Stories

Phil, as you may see, I have added few stories in D, I think there are duplicates we need to identify and remove, these may be due to different titles and story versions in sources we have. There are few more story titles I need to add, and then we can resolve duplicate ones. Thanks! Lokesh 2000 (talk) 08:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Reviewing

Lokesh, I'm in the process of reviewing and cleaning up. 3 initial notes:

1. Please replace your past reference with the new reference you're using for Durgasimha.
2. Are we missing D II.1.1? or should the middle "1" be removed from D II.1.1.2 & D II.1.1.3?
3. There are currently 2 different D III.3 stories.

By the way, I really appreciate your taking the time to revise with your better source! Phil wink (talk) 16:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I've just made a note (right above the table) assuming that Durgasima's translation includes the prelude. Please confirm or deny. Thanks. Phil wink (talk) 21:36, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that prelude appears in Durgasimha's version also but with a small change. The character is Vasubhaga Bhatta but not Vishnu Sharma. Thats interesting as in the beginning Durgasimha says that Vasubhaga bhatta selected 'five story-gems' from that 'Ocean of stories'-the Brihatkatha of Gunadhya, and called it Panchatantra after translating them into Sanskrit from original Paishachi language and that He (Durgasimha) is set out to re-tell them in Kannada. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 04:57, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Phil, please take a look at this link which sheds more light on Durgasimha's Kannada Translation. Let me know your views. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 05:09, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Early history based primarily on Edgerton (1924).

Lokesh, I've noted the alternate name in the article. My views on the Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature article... First, you should know that I'm NOT a scholar, only an interested person with (I think) a few good sources in front of me. For common reference, the diagram to the right reflects my general understanding of text relationships. I'll only address the 3 paragraphs beginning "The most interesting fact..."; I think this is what you meant to draw my attention to anyway. In my view, these are at best confused and misleading, and at worst a naive fringe theory.

The pivotal passage is "[I]t was the common belief that there was only one original text of Panchatantra and that was by Vishnu Sharma. It is now possible to state with certainty that there are two recensions of the Panchatantra—one of Vishnu Sharma and the other of Vasubhaga Bhatta." No one doubts that there are different recensions of the text. But this seems to be disputing the idea that "there was only one original text". What can this mean?

1. If it only means " 'Vishnu Sharma' is not the correct name of the author of the original text, but is a later interpolation" then I have no objection. But the point is relatively trivial. Certainly the words "Vishnu Sharma" or "Vasubhaga Bhatta" may serve as useful markers of different text traditions, but the article seems to be taking the texts at their word quite uncritically. Insisting on Vishnu Sharma or Vasubhaga Bhatta as editors or authors is probably a silly argument in the first place. Vishnu Sharma (and I take it Vasubhaga Bhatta too) are characters in the Panchatantra. To me, this sounds like the many "scholars" who insist — all evidence to the contrary — that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible, even though he is a character in them, who dies at the end!
2. But possibly the idea of the article is even stranger: To me it may be suggesting that there were 2 independent editors (V.S. and V.B.) who both derived their recensions from Brihatkatha making this the "original text". But there are many problems with this hypothesis.

• I believe that common sense is in agreement with the majority of scholars, that an already-existing Panchatantra was inserted into the (now lost) version of Brihatkatha used by Somadeva and Kshemendra.
• The statement that V.B. "selected 'five story-gems' from that 'Ocean of stories' " appears to be anachronistic. Durgasimha is writing in 1025-1031, but the Ocean of Streams of Story (Kathasaritsagara) was not written until 1070. To me, this statement suggests a later editor is providing Durgasimha's work with what he believes to be a noble pedigree.
• If Durgasimha is really based on V.B.'s recension, which is based on a Brihatkatha — why does Durgasimha tend to reflect the content of Edgerton's reconstruction and NOT the content of Somadeva's transmission of Brihatkatha? There are 7 stories found in Edgerton (and most recensions) but NOT in Kathasaritsagara. 6 of the 7 occur in Durgasimha (where did he get them from? almost certainly not Brihatkatha). Conversely, there appear to be at least 52 brief stories inserted into the Kathasaritsagara version of the Panchatantra, presumably derived from Brihatkatha. I cannot compare these directly, but either very few or none of these occur in Durgasimha.

Finally, I just can't tell exactly what the article means to suggest, but these are my concerns. Do YOU think it's saying something else? Phil wink (talk) 17:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Me too, like you, not a scholar, just wanted to list down the stories so that people know about them. I think "Ocean of stories" mean brihatkatha not the Kathasaritsagara, it is a common way of exaggeration in ancient indian texts (sometimes now a days too) to refer anything numerous as ocean of such things. for ex. too many people can be exaggerated as ocean of people. Moreover durgasimha explicitly mentions title and author he is referring in that sentence as Brihatkatha and Gunadhya. I'm surprised that Edgerton does not mention durgasimha's panchatantra which was first published as far back as 1898 in his diagram you posted. Also, I'm not sure if what durgasimha is referring as V.Bs panchatantra is southern panchatantra in the diagram of edgerton. We need to know what is the latest research and academic conclusion about panchatantra taking into consideration of durgasimha's work too.let me go through my source again if I find something I'll share. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 06:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Fortunately, it doesn't really matter for our list what version came from where. However, it would be nice to improve the documentation and information in the Durgasimha entry. This article too, if I read it correctly, states both that Durgasimha's translation derives from Brihatkatha, and that it derives from the Southern Panchatantra. According to Edgerton, both cannot be true, as the Brihatkatha line and the Southern line both descended independently from the original.

I have finally gotten a hold of a much fuller "genealogy" by Edgerton which I will eventually post if I can (I'm afraid it may still be in copyright... so we'll see). It does not name Durgasimha specifically, but there is mention of a "Canarese" version. Might that be equivalent to Kannada or Old Kannada? It is the only item I see that could possibly be Durgasimha in this chart. If this IS a match, then Edgerton definitely shows it coming from the Southern Panchatantra line, not Brihatkatha. But right now, this is fairly weak evidence, since "Canarese" = Kannada is just a wild guess on my part. Phil wink (talk) 21:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Phil, your guess is right, karnataka state was formed in indian federation in 1956, before that anything related to kannada or karnataka used be refered as "canarese" in english. Lokesh 2000 (talk) 09:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Duplicate Stories 2

Phil, I think "The mice who rescued the elephant" and "How a mouse freed an elephant" are duplicate stories, the latter was added by me where a mouse cuts off ropes which bind an elephant in return of a life saving favour that elephant did to mouse. Is the story same in your title "The mice who rescued the elephant" ? Lokesh 2000 (talk) 08:21, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Probably these are the same, but I'd like to do a double-check on this and 3 others. Here's my concern: in these 4 cases we have a D story which has a match in P but not in E AND it is out of order with respect to the other versions. This is certainly possible, but both these anomalies are rare and a little suspicious, and when they happen together I get worried that we've linked 2 stories that only have similar titles or subjects, but are actually different stories. The solution is for you (since you can read both Kannada and English) to compare them. Here is a good translation of the Purnabhadra text online. Please review these stories, and verify that they're actually the same (obviously they won't be 100% the same).

D I.10 = P I.29 (page 197 online) -- "Twin parrots"

D V.2 = P II.8 (page 274 online) -- "The mice who rescued the elephant" (the one you asked about above)

D I.3 = P III.15 (page 361 online) -- "The talking cave"

D III.6 = P V.3 (page 442 online) -- "Foolish scholars..."

Finally, there are still 2 rows with D III.3: the first is "The bird that tried to advise a monkey" and the second is "The owl is elected king of the birds". It looks to me like the first one is labeled incorrectly, since it is out of order with respect to the other versions.

Once these issues are resolved, I can go back in and fix the hidden numbering. Are there any other issues you see that need to be fixed? Phil wink (talk) 21:58, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about this article

And now it is on my watchlist. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:35, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Glad you liked it. Phil wink (talk) 00:30, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

"The ascetic and the mouse" ≟ "The hermit and the mouse" ?

This is a great list! Just curious about some of the stories in the Hitopadesha (which I have not read) that are not present in the Panchatantra. Is the "The ascetic and the mouse" (listed as Hitopadesha I.5; I.6) different from "The hermit and the mouse" (listed as Hitopadesha IV.6)? Is there some way of choosing titles to make this difference clearer? Shreevatsa (talk) 19:30, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! The Hitopadesha data come from a source which I don't have to hand, but I can confirm that in my A. N. D. Haksar translation, there is indeed one story "The Monks and the Mouse" at about the right place in Part I, and another "The Hermit and the Mouse" at about the right place in Part IV. (And the stories are totally distinct, despite their similar titles.) Most of the titles provided in the table come directly from the sources we used, so I'm a little hesitant to tinker with them too much (though I trust none are original in any meaningful sense). Anyway, as you see, Haksar has nearly-identical titles for these 2 stories also. It might be possible to call the second story "The Hermit who Transformed a Mouse" or something like that, but this could be WP:OR in the strictest sense. Phil wink (talk) 20:30, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

That story ("Mouse-Maid Made Mouse" in Ryder's excellent translation) is what is present in the Panchatantra, so maybe the last column needs to be reordered then. :-) Also would be nice to link to the stories when they have Wikipedia articles, let me start with a couple. Shreevatsa (talk) 03:54, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I see it's already done in the article; nevermind the struck-out part of my comment. Shreevatsa (talk) 03:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I tracked it down to yet a third story about a mouse -- which is in Edgerton (trans. Olivelle) & Purnabhadra (trans. Ryder), but is not in the Hitopadesha -- and fixed it in the article. If you find any more, please keep them coming. This is getting me thinking that probably we should make a Panchatantra navbox. I've gotten the impression that Ryder is extremely faithful both to the spirit and to the letter of sources ... a combination that is notoriously elusive in translation. But I can't judge. Can you? Is he? Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 06:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I see. Perhaps we can add a column for the Aarne–Thompson type of each story, where available, to avoid such confusion.

As for Ryder's translation, it is a great favourite of mine (among all Skt-Eng translations of all works!), and it seems to follow Hertel's Purnabhadra text very closely, both in letter and in spirit, as you said. It is of course meant to be readable on its own and not as a translation (at which goal it succeeds), so some subtletly is inevitably lost, but there's no great license taken. Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 15:37, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

A-T column: done. However, I only found 1 decent source online, plus I swiped a couple of numbers from linked Wikipedia articles, for a total of only around a dozen A-T numbers. Are you aware of any better sources? Phil wink (talk) 20:50, 27 August 2015 (UTC)