Panchatantra (Five Chapters) in Sanskrit is perhaps the oldest collection of stories in the world and has been translated into more than 50 languages.

Each of its ‘Chapters’ contains a string of stories one emerging from the other, with each designed to lead to a precept for proper practical conduct for a thinking person in the real world.

The characters are taken from the whole gamut of living beings including humans and animals in the wild.

In a way the unity of life is stressed by assigning the sentiments, emotions and thoughts of human beings to animals as well.

The stories here bring out how: scholarship without commonsense can lead to disaster;

action imitated thoughtlessly does not yield the desired fruit; hasty acts based on suspicion will make you repent; greed may bring unwanted acquisitions; one life-saving skill is preferable to a thousand clever tricks; it is wise not to allow imagination run wild.

These stories are based on a Kannada translation of the Panchatantra.