Unbending wood cannot be bent,
A razor cannot cut a stone:
Mark this, O Needlebeak! Try not
To lecture him who will not learn.”
A similar collection of fables is the celebrated Hitopadeça, or “Salutary Advice,” which, owing to its intrinsic merit, is one of the best known and most popular works of Sanskrit literature in India, and which, because of its suitability for teaching purposes, is read by nearly all beginners of Sanskrit in England. It is based chiefly on the Panchatantra, in which twenty-five of its forty-three fables are found. The first three books of the older collection have been, in the main, drawn upon; for there is but one story, that of the ass in the tiger’s skin, taken from Book IV., and only three from Book V. The introduction is similar to that of the Panchatantra, but the father of the ignorant and vicious princes is here called Sudarçana of Pāṭaliputra (Patna). The Hitopadeça is divided into four books. The framework and titles of the first two agree with the first two of the Panchatantra, but in inverted order. The third and fourth books are called “War” and “Peace” respectively, the main story describing the conflict and reconciliation of the Geese and the Peacocks.
The sententious element is here much more prominent than in the Panchatantra, and the number of verses introduced is often so great as to seriously impede the progress of the prose narrative. These verses, however, abound in wise maxims and fine thoughts. The stanzas dealing with the transitoriness of human life near the end of Book IV. have a peculiarly pensive beauty of their own. The following two may serve as specimens:—
As on the mighty ocean’s waves
Two floating logs together come,
And, having met, for ever part:
So briefly joined are living things.