How the Fables Began: Vishnu Sharman and the Three Dull Princes

The frame that holds the whole collection together. In the southern city of Maidens' Delight, King Immortal-Power despairs of three sons who are supreme blockheads, hostile to every teacher. A counselor named Keen proposes not the long grammars but an epitome of wisdom — and names the eighty-year-old Brahman Vishnu Sharman, who refuses all reward and wagers his reputation to make the princes masters of intelligent living in six months. His method is five books of animal fables: The Loss of Friends, The Winning of Friends, Crows and Owls, Loss of Gains, and Ill-Considered Action. This is how the Panchatantra — the Five Books — came to be.