Shoooooo…….let us quietly open the secret world of stories.…
What about stories? We hear them, we remember them, we ‘act’ them, we follow them and we forward them….endlessly. Ever realized, we open our eyes in this world with stories? Right?
Its absolutely true. We heard about Gods and Goddesses, mighty, strong. They offered protection to us, they gave us strength, they saved us from perils. Then we heard about the beautiful animal kingdom, where the animals talked to each other in some imaginary world. They behaved good or bad with each other. From timid rabbit to sly fox, from wise owl to witty crow, from mighty lion to wise elephant….wow that’s the whole animal kingdom, well almost! But that’s not all, we have also heard of poor farmer, practical merchant, unhappy king, romantic prince, dreamy princess, wicked witch, honest servant…the train is too long, isn’t it? There are also many broken stories. They travel half ways, and they mix with more different stories.
These stories are endless. There are stories which a mother tells her children of vigor, valor and morals. Stories that travel with merchants and peasants, stories from mythology, stories of religion….oh I can go on. But let me talk about them is some way or the other.
So in a far away land, a king could not sleep and his wise queen offered him services with stories, till he was fast asleep. Then there was a king, who had three fool sons and to make them wise his ministers brings in a story teller who explains biggest truth of life from stories. Then there is an artist or a artists guild, now they help the king in many ways. How? Well one sings the story with music and starts dancing and acting, someone starts sculpting, then may be painting and so on…But there is an endless effort or series for the stories to be passed on over generations, hence to SAVE the stories. For what? For many eyes and ears…for yours and mine.
Genesis of narrations to ‘write and draw’ something somewhere is certainly and old old “thing”. Remember seeing the wild beast drawn by the pre history men? Oh yeah, and also them rendered in the frame too, like a match stick figure. Hunting, walking, dancing, drinking. What did they had to tell us? The stories by them, if at all those were stories, they were on ‘still blocks’, they did not move. They could not physically travel from one place to the other, neither there was a language that took the same faraway.
When we saw ‘civilizations’ then we saw some systematic ways of ‘writing’ stories or records. From ‘Code of Conduct’ by the kings to the basic cuneiform tablets or the painted potteries or seals. Great, so now there were ‘legs’ to the stories of some sort, and there were more eyes across their land of origin. The trades and travels made this super fast. The gradual growth of stories was to see a phenomenal revolution to connect the world. The stories were drawn on cloth, on papyrus, parchments, palm leaves, wooden boards and then saw the most user friendly base ‘the paper’. But in many countries including India they were recited for many generations before they were written down.
Now finally here’s THE story of THE story teller that surpassed many records, without even imagining the results so vast. There was a poet and story teller Vishnusharma in ancient India, sometime after the period of Lord Buddha and before the common era. Now this wise man, having perfect command on Sanskrit and good knowledge of mankind he was given a task to ‘teach’ the sons of a king. The wise composer then came up with metaphoric stories from the animal kingdom and ‘taught’ the king’s sons. He gave them five important ‘techniques’ or ‘values’ of life- THE PANCHA TANTRA’. They were so fluid, that they were soon set for a long journey. Panchatantra began travelling. Shortly the whole country fell in love with these beautiful intriguing stories, of animals, for humans. Each bard sang, each actor acted, each teacher recited, each mother entertained her children and there were more and more stories.
Now the wise physician named Borzuya, of the Persian King Khosrow, took these fascinating stories to Persia for his king in the 6th century C.E. No longer it took for the king to totally love these stories and then came in the command, “translate and illustrate them”. So the Persian land saw Panchatantra in Pahlavi “Kaarirak ul Damanak.”
What do you think happened next? Yes, the fire of popularity of stories spread far and wide. The Arabic world too loved it and adapted it, translated as “Kaalia wa Dimna.” Well well, this is not all. The moment the translation in Arabic came in, which was the largest known language of communication in the Middle East, Kaalia wa Dimna reached in every palace and every house. The 11th century saw the translation of this in Greek “Stephanites kai Ichnilates”, and through the gateway, the city then Constantinople, it entered Europe. Became popular among orthodox Christians and Jews and was translated in many many languages including Hebrew and Latin. In 16th century Sir Thomas North translated in English “The Moral Philososphy of Doni'” where he gave the credit to Doni, the Italian translator. Then with one of the authors from India named Piplay, who worked on the original Pancha Tantra of Vishnusharma, it became “Fables of Bidpai” in English which were then printed, translated in Germany in 15th century.
Travels and phonetics are ever changing and evolving. The original author and original name….all were changed and adapted by each world in their own ways. Very smoothly and soon to become part of their own culture and custom. So much so that the this became the best seller, more than 200 versions, in more than 50 countries, from Ethiopia to Russia, from Morocco to Laos…. each culture molded the stories in their own ways. Did Vishnusharma ever fathomed this?
There is more to come as the world has not much changed, at least in the habit of telling and listening to seeing the stories. It is still the best known act of mankind. Well as long as we are here to tell the “good” stories, and leave the “better legacy” for the forthcoming generations, it is certainly not a bad idea. We evolve, yes indeed, but there is no harm in keeping our roots deep in the soil who is the true Mother of all.
ink talking 