Page 22 - Śrī Pañcatantra - Eng

xx Preface

spiritual guidance and will not be able to go back home, back
to Godhead.”

When reading Pañcatantra, remember that the devil—like
Damanaka the jackal or Tīkṣṇadaṁṣṭra the cat—also quotes
scripture. The sly Tīkṣṇadaṁṣṭra is the perfect specimen of a
yoga poser who puts on a religious show for the sake of exploiting
innocent followers for his own ends, so common today.
* * *

As far as the value of these lessons is concerned, people who
understand nīti-śāstra are happier and more secure. They are
less dependent upon the media and social pressures and are
more inclined to stand on their own two feet. Yet apart from
the great significance that emerges from these simple fables,
Pañcatantra develops and trains the mind to concentrate
with its layered stories-within-stories. It forces the reader to
think for himself. For the devotee, the value of such ability is
incalculable.
The animal fable format is much rarer, though it is sometimes
used, in the Purāṇas and Itihāsas since those revered scriptures
are factually works of historical record. Unlike the stories of
Pañcatantra, the Purāṇic descriptions of incarnations of Godhead
and the activities of the Lord’s devotees are records of actual
past events and are not fiction. Modern so-called Vedāntists
sometimes try to allege that the stories of the Supreme Lord in
his appearances as Lord Matsya, Kūrma, Varāha or Narasiṁha
are allusions to a primitive idea of evolution akin to Darwin’s
theory. Such nonsense mental speculation manufactured in the
brains of mundane wranglers has nothing to do with genuine
śāstric conclusions. When Kṛṣṇa appears as a great turtle, fish,
boar, half-man and half-lion—or in any species of life—He is
still the Supreme Personality of Godhead.