‘The Panchatantra Stories’ are the most popular children’s book in India. These are the oldest surviving fables from India, which are popular abroad too.
Panchatantra is believed to be written by Vishnu Sharma, along with many other scholars. It is basically a network of interesting stories on human behaviour, depicted through animal characters that are loved by people of every age group.
The stories were probably written originally in Sanskrit, and later translated into English, and many other languages. These stories are the best guide to teach children moral values, since each tale has a moral lesson at its end. Most of the stories are written very creatively, featuring plants and animals that can speak and converse with human beings too.
Apart from a short introduction, these tales consist of five parts. Each part contains a main story, called the frame story, which in turn, contains several sub stories.
The most popular Panchatantra stories are ‘The Wedge-pulling Monkey’, ‘The Blue Jackal’ etc.
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