Page 16 - Śrī Pañcatantra - Eng

xiv Preface

(5) A study of the ways of the world.
(6) A collection of others’ mistakes to be avoided.

(7) The culmination of the effort of ancient sages to get their
points across even to those uninterested in learning.
(8) One of the branches of Vedic knowledge which acts as a
stepping stone towards higher levels of spiritual advancement.

(9) Lessons which serve as a touchstone for measuring one’s
own internal development and for discovering one’s areas of
weakness.

Our Vaiṣṇava interpretation of Śrī Pañcatantra is the second
in our Nīti-śāstra series subtitled “Ancient Sense for Modern
Success.” The first in the series is our ever popular Śrī Cāṇakya-
nīti with Commentaries. Through causing the gears of the mind
to rotate, nīti-śāstra explains the “science of common sense.”

I first became officially aware of Pañcatantra through the
suggestion of my friend Kṛṣṇa Ācārya, a Rāmānuja brāhmaṇa
who shared the floor with us brahmacārīs at ISKCON 7, Bury
Place, London, in 1973. By that time, however, I already knew
a few of its stories because these moral fables were favorites of
Śrīla Prabhupāda who quoted them from time to time.

In London I used to purchase copies of G.L. Chandiramani’s
Panchatantra at Books from India around the corner from the
Bury Place temple, and I would sometimes hand them out to
my Godbrothers. It is a pleasant coincidence therefore that a
brahmacārī from that era—Ilāpati Dāsa Brahmacārī, now His
Holiness Bhakti Vikāsa Swami—is the publisher of our version.
Incidentally, for the reader’s information, all profits from this
edition are being donated to his energetic programs of preaching
Kṛṣṇa consciousness in many remote corners of the world.