English translation of Panchtantra (the five ways). As of now, I am not able to read Sanskrit but translation suffices for the time being. :-)
Also I am not a literary scholar so can live with the imperfections and deviations from the original Sanskrit text that must be there due to limitations of the modern language. I also learnt that many Sanskrit terms have no equivalent in any of the modern languages like French, Gernam, English and Persian. To me that indicates that the translations will always remain imperfect from most of the Indian languages that derive from Sanskrit.
About the book, it is a collection of five sets of stories known to have been taught to sons of a king by his priest promising him that his sons will be able to follow the stories to survive the real world and if not, he may give up his name!
Just started to read so no major opinions but yes, the author has said that no other literary work has ever used such a plot and style to teach wisdom to the real world through stories that are mostly based on animals as characters.
One thing however I noticed that the translator has translated the names of characters literally, so you get names of kings as Powerful-Fighter and his clergymen named Increase and Thought etc. That sound tasteless whereas original name might be having some relevance to the nature of the character.
Well, some day I hope to read the original Sanskrit script as well. The language that has the most ancient and valuable literary work ever produced.
I go into the bed with Arthur W. Ryder's Panchtantra today. Good night.
