Vol. No : 1004

Contents
The Jackal and the War Drum 
The Brahmin and the Goat 
How the Jackal ate the Elephant 
Crows and Owls 
The Dullard and other Stories 

Description
The original text of the Panchatantra in Sanskrit was written about 200 B.C. by a great Hindu scholar, Pandit Vishnu Sharma. But some of the tales are much older, their origin going back to the period of the Vedas and the Upanishads (1500 B.C. to 500 B.C.). 

The Panchatantra is woven around the tale of a king who entrusts his three dull sons to a learned man to enlighten their minds within six months. He recites to them his especially composed tales divided into five tantras¸ or systems, on how to deal with people in daily life. 

Over time, travellers took these stories far and wide to Persia and Arabia, through Greece to Europe. Translated into more than 50 languages of the world, the stories of the Panchatantra continue to have universal appeal today.