PANCHATANTRA - Gems of Verses

As a young boy I was facinated by a paperback copy of THE PANCHATANTRA in English, given to me by my late father. On 31st May 1963 I had given my 'qualifiers' for the IIT-Mumbai and was hoping to be selected. On this day, I had jotted down a few short verses from the book, which appealed to me then ... they do so even today. I am sorry to say, I cannot trace the original book today.

Here are some of the limericks, hope they point out to you the reader, a better understanding and way of life.

Gems of Verses selected from the Jaico edition of 1949, edited by Ryder A.W. 

ü Whoever learns this work by heart

Or through the story-tellers art

Becomes acquainted,

His life by sad defeat – although

The King of Heaven be his foe –

Is never tainted.

… Introduction to the Panchatantra

ü Release the money you have earned;

So keep it safely still:

The surplus water of the tank

Must find a way to spill.

ü Death pursues the meddling flunkey;

Note the wedge-extracting monkey.

ü Bravest bosoms do not falter,

Fearing heavens threat:

Summer dries the pools; the Indus

Rises, greater yet.

ü Do not act as does the grass blade,

Lacking honest pride,

Drooping low in feeble meanness,

Lightly brushed aside.

ü Whoever leaves the righteous path

For some unrighteous course,

Will meet calamity in time

And suffer much remorse.

ü He strikes or stings with hasty fear

When warning has been heard;

‘Tis wise to warn an enemy

By action, not by word.

ü The serpent sandal-tree defiles;

In lotus-ponds lurk crocodiles;

The slanderer makes virtue vain:

No blessing lacks attendant pain.

ü A friend in need is a friend indeed;

Although of different caste;

The whole world is your eager friend

So long as riches last.

ü A fire will burn, though kindled

In fragrant sandal-wood;

A rascal is a rascal,

Although his birth be good.

ü Wrong is wrong, the wise man never

Wrong as right will treat;

None would drink, however thirsty,

Water in the street.

ü Do the right, the right, the right,

Till the breath of death;

Shun the wrong, although the right

Lead to death of breath.

ü When once the mind is gripped by fate,

The judgment even of the great,

In moral meshes fettered, wends

To unintended, crooked ends.

ü Whoever trusts a faithless friend

And twice in him believes,

Lays hold of death as certainly

As when a mule conceives.

ü Like a pots of clay, the wicket friend

Is quick to smash and hard to mend,

Like pots of gold, the righteous flash,

As quick to mend, as hard to smash.

ü Six things are done by friends:

To take and give again;

To listen and to talk;

To dine, to entertain.

ü No friendship ever comes

Without some kindly deed:

The very Gods respond

To gifts they have decreed.

ü As soon as presents cease

So soon does friendship die,

The calf deserts the cow

Whose udder has gone dry.

ü What’s duly his a man receives;

This law not even God can break;

My heart is not surprised, nor grieves;

For what is mine, no strangers take.

ü Bestow, or use your wealth for pleasure,

If not, you hoard another’s treasure:

As in your home, your lovely girl

Awaits a stranger, his dear pearl.

ü The miser for another hoards

His bags of needless money:

The bees laboriously pack,

But others taste the honey.

ü A calf can find its mother cow

Among a thousand kine:

So good or evil done, returns

And whispers: “I am thine”.

ü Better with the learned dwell,

Even though it be in hell

Than with vulgar spirits roam

Palaces that Gods call home.

ü Better to the servant of the wise

Than the master of a fool.

ü The parrots and the grackle birds

Are caged because they utter words:

The stupid herons go scott free –

For silence is the master key.

ü From cows expect subsistence;

From Brahmans, self-denial;

From women, fickle conduct;

From relatives, a trial.

ü Money gets you anything

Get it in a flash:

Therefore let the prudent get

Cash Cash Cash.

ü Scholarship is less than sense;

Therefore seek intelligence:

Senseless scholars in their pride

Made a lion, then they died.

ü He who lacking wit, does not

Harken to a friend,

Just like weaver Slow, inclines

To a fatal end.

ü If senseless quarrels rend

A house from day to day,

The folk who wish to keep alive

Had better move away.

ü A rolling stone gathers no moss.

(I am not a stone and anyway,

Do not wish to gather moss –

Only rich experience).

ü However skillful the disguise,

However frightful to the eyes,

Although in tiger skin arrayed,

The ass was killed – because he brayed.

ü Plant your works where profit lies:

Whiter cloth takes faster dyes.

ü Naughty meddlers suffer,

Destruction swift and sure.

ü No man reaps a harvest

Plowing barren soil.

ü Whoever will not take from friends

Most excellent advice,

Will gladden foes, and falling soon,

Will pay his folly’s price.

ü A man convinced against his will

Is of the same opinion still.

ü There is no toy, called happy joy.

ü A man must thrive – to keep alive.

ü To extinguish a fire and leave a spark,

To kill the snake and preserve its offspring

Is not the wisdom of the wise.

ü Wisely move one foot, the other

Should its vantage hold;

Till assured of some new dwelling,

Do not leave the old.

ü No fish was caught,

Who didn’t open its mouth.

ü Knowledge makes a wise man wiser,

and a fool more foolish.

ü Great humans like diamonds,

Are products of pressure.