Hitopadesha

01At Pataliputra

On the bank of the Bhagirathi stood Pataliputra, ruled by King Sudarshana. One day he heard someone reciting two verses: the shastra is the eye of all, cutting through doubt and showing what cannot be seen, and one who lacks it is blind. Youth, wealth, power and want of judgement each lead to ruin; what then of all four together? The king thought of his own sons, who never opened a book and wandered the wrong roads. He called an assembly of pandits, and Vishnu Sharma, as in the older book, took the princes in hand.

02Narayana and his patron

The colophons name the author as Narayana Pandita. His opening verses say the work gives skill in Sanskrit speech, variety of expression and the science of niti, and that its four books, Mitralabha, Suhridbheda, Vigraha and Sandhi, are drawn from the Panchatantra and another book. The last verse of the whole work blesses the regional king Dhavalachandra, who had the collection copied and spread with care. Nothing else is known of Dhavalachandra. The text is usually placed between the ninth and the fourteenth century; a Nepal manuscript of 1373 CE is the oldest dated copy.

03The praise of learning

Before any animal speaks, the prelude sets out why learning matters, in verses that Indian schools still paint on their walls. The wise man should think of learning and wealth as if he would never age or die, and practise dharma as if death already had him by the hair. Of all possessions learning is the best, because no one can steal it, no one can price it and it never runs out. Learning gives humility; humility makes one worthy; worth brings wealth, wealth brings dharma, and from dharma comes happiness.

04The pigeons and the net

Mitralabha opens with a flock of pigeons led by their king Chitragriva. They see grains of rice scattered under a tree, and the old ones are suspicious, but hunger wins and they come down into a fowler’s net. Chitragriva does not let them panic. All together, he says, rise up with the net. They fly off with it, the fowler running behind, to the mouse Hiranyaka, Chitragriva’s friend. The mouse insists on freeing the king first; the king refuses, and orders his followers cut loose before himself. The crow Laghupatanaka watches all this from a branch and asks the mouse for his friendship.

05The world as one family

Later in the same book the deer Chitranga is befriended by a jackal who plans to eat him. When the crow warns against trusting a stranger, the jackal answers with the line that India has since taken as its own: ‘This one is ours, that one an outsider’ is the reckoning of small minds; for the large-hearted the whole earth is one family. The irony is the Hitopadesha’s own. The speaker is a schemer, and the deer nearly dies for believing him. A close form of the line is also found in the Maha Upanishad. During its G20 presidency of 2022–23, Bharat took ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ as its theme.

06Lion, bull and jackals

Suhridbheda retells the first tantra of the Panchatantra. The bull Sanjivaka, abandoned by his merchant, frightens the lion Pingalaka with his bellowing, and the two jackals Karataka and Damanaka make themselves useful by bringing the two together. When the friendship leaves Damanaka without influence, he sets to breaking it, telling each that the other plots against him. The lion kills the bull and repents at once. Narayana keeps the old shape but shortens the kathas and adds verses of his own choosing, so that Suhridbheda reads as a lesson for courtiers as much as for kings.

07Swans against peacocks

The third and fourth books are Narayana’s own frame. Hiranyagarbha, king of the swans, rules the lake Padmakeli on Karpuradvipa. A crane, Dirghamukha, returns from the Vindhyas, where the peacock Chitravarna is king, and reports an insult. War follows. The swans’ minister is the wise chakravaka Sarvajna; the peacocks’ is the old vulture Duradarshi. A crow named Meghavarna, welcomed at the swans’ court as a friend, sets their fort on fire. In Sandhi the two ministers, both sick of the war, arrange a peace, and the book closes on blessings for rain, harvests and the silencing of slanderers.

08Verses on every page

The Hitopadesha holds about 725 verses against a thinner thread of prose, far more in proportion than the Panchatantra. Many come from the Mahabharata, Manu, the Panchatantra and Kamandaka’s Nitisara; the verse comparing a people without a king to a boat without a helmsman on the sea stands in both Kamandaka and the third book. Narayana says plainly why he wrote in kathas: what is impressed on a new clay pot does not change, so niti is taught to children under the cover of stories. Pandits used it to teach Sanskrit idiom as much as niti.

09Into print

Charles Wilkins, the first Englishman to master Sanskrit, published his translation at Bath in 1787. In 1804 William Carey’s press at Serampore printed the Sanskrit text in Devanagari type, with an introduction by H. T. Colebrooke, among the very first Sanskrit books ever printed. The East India Company’s colleges at Fort William and Haileybury taught Sanskrit from it, and Max Müller brought out a text and translation in 1864. Edwin Arnold’s verse rendering, The Book of Good Counsels, followed in 1861. Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Tamil versions had been made long before.

What it contains

1. 1
   Prastavika

   The mangala to Shiva, the praise of learning, King Sudarshana of Pataliputra and his unlettered sons, and Vishnu Sharma’s promise. The prelude has 46 verses and names the four books to come.

2. 2
   1. Mitralabha मित्रलाभः

   The gaining of friends: the pigeons and the net, the mouse Hiranyaka, the crow Laghupatanaka, the tortoise Manthara and the deer Chitranga. It also holds the jackal who would eat the deer, and the line on the world as one family. With about 200 verses it is the longest book.

3. 3
   2. Suhridbheda सुहृद्भेदः

   The separation of friends: the lion Pingalaka, the bull Sanjivaka and the two jackals Karataka and Damanaka. Its inner kathas include the monkey who pulled out the wedge and the washerman’s donkey who tried to do the watchdog’s work and was beaten for it.

4. 4
   3. Vigraha विग्रहः

   War: the swan king Hiranyagarbha against the peacock king Chitravarna. The crane Dirghamukha sparks the quarrel and the crow Meghavarna burns the swans’ fort; the book is a manual of ministers, spies and forts in animal dress.

5. 5
   4. Sandhi सन्धिः

   Peace: the vulture Duradarshi and the chakravaka Sarvajna end the war and an alliance is sworn. The closing verses bless the world and King Dhavalachandra.

Famous verses

मित्रलाभः सुहृद्भेदो विग्रहः सन्धिरेव च। पञ्चतन्त्रात्तथान्यस्माद् ग्रन्थादाकृष्य लिख्यते॥

The gaining of friends, the separation of friends, war and peace: these are written down, drawn from the Panchatantra and from another book.Hitopadesha, Prastavika, verse 9

विद्या ददाति विनयं विनयाद्याति पात्रताम्। पात्रत्वाद्धनमाप्नोति धनाद्धर्मं ततः सुखम्॥

Learning gives humility; from humility one becomes worthy; from worth one gains wealth; from wealth, dharma; and from that, happiness.Hitopadesha, Prastavika, verse 6

अनेकसंशयोच्छेदि परोक्षार्थस्य दर्शकम्। सर्वस्य लोचनं शास्त्रं यस्य नास्त्यन्ध एव सः॥

The shastra cuts away many doubts and shows what lies beyond sight; it is the eye of all, and one who has it not is blind.Hitopadesha, Prastavika, verse 10

अयं निजः परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्। उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्॥

‘This one is mine, that one a stranger’ is the reckoning of the narrow-minded; for those of noble conduct, the whole earth is one family.Hitopadesha 1.71 (Mitralabha)