Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), today I will share yet another tale from this monumental book The Panćatantra, tradition ascribes this fabulous work to Vişņu Śarma (“Preserver of Bliss”), faced with the challenge of educating three unlettered princes, to awaken their intelligence, Vişņu Śarma (“Preserver of Bliss”) evolved a unique pedagogy – for his aim was to teach the princes how to think, not what to think.
Also as we begin today ‘let us remember this about ‘Attention’. Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
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Before we embark on this wonder filled, journey I want to draw your attention to these wise words of a Storyteller which I have extracted from yet another monumental work which has been inspired from “The Panćatantra”:
My stories require, at this stage, no extra commentary, imaginings, or guesswork by you, me, or anyone else. The very worst would be that of moralizing. To explain away is to forget. Thus, let the stories which you can remember do their own work by their very diversity. Familiarize yourself with them.
Excerpt from Doctor’s orders:
Kalila Wa Dimna; Vol.1 – Ramsay Wood
The tale of ‘The Cat’s Judgement’
Once in the past I lived in a certain tree. At the base of the same tree a partridge had its home. From sharing a common residence a firm friendship sprang up between the two of us. Every day, after having our food and taken our airings, we spent the evening together sharing our diversions such as retailing witty sayings, telling each other tales and legends from old chronicles, setting each other problems to solve, posing riddles and exchanging gifts.
One day the partridge went foraging with other birds to a place where abundant rice grew ripening. But he did not return at the usual time. I was sick with worry wondering what had happened, repeatedly asking myself; ‘Oh, why has my friend, the partridge not returned this evening? Has he been trapped?’
Many days passed with such thoughts churning in my heart as I grieved in my loneliness, suffering the privation of separation from my friend, until one day a hare named Speedy came along and went into the hollow where the partridge had nested. And I did nothing to stop him because I had lost all hope of ever seeing the partridge again.
Then one day, the partridge, now grown nice and plump after eating a lot of rice, returned, remembering his old home.
When the partridge saw the hare now settled comfortably in his old home he chided him bitterly. ‘Hey there, you hare; you have done a mean thing in occupying my home. Come now, get out, leave at once.’ To which the hare replied, ‘You bumbling fool! Don’t you know that a residence belongs to its current occupant?’
‘Is that so?’ retorted the partridge. ‘Let us go ask our neighbours; for it is stated in the lawbooks:
Wherever a dispute arises
Over land, house, well, groove or field,
The claim will always be settled
On the testimony of a neighbor.’
‘Oh, you blockhead,’ retorted the hare. ‘And have you not heard what the precedent laid down in the memorial law says?
Any place occupied personally
By one for ten years successively
Belongs to him, legal texts
And eyewitness, notwithstanding.
‘So, even if this was your home, the fact is that it was unoccupied when I moved in. Therefore it is mine and mine alone.’
‘Really?’ exclaimed the partridge, ‘So you take the laws of tradition as authoritative, do you? Well, then, come with me and let us go and consult the experts on the laws of tradition. Let them decide as to whether this residence is yours or mine.’
‘Very well,’ said the hare. And both set off to seek adjudication of their claim. I too possessed by eager curiosity followed them, thinking, ‘Now let us see what happens next.’
They had not gone too far when the hare asked the partridge, ‘Listen, my good fellow; tell me who will pass judgement in our dispute?’
‘Certainly,’ replied the partridge, ‘On the sandy banks of the sacred river whose waters murmur melodiously with the sound of waves jostling and clashing as her waters are swept by strong breezes, there dwells a cat named Curd Ear who sits there unshaken in the observance of strict vows of penance and self-restraint. He is one possessed of great compassion for all living things. We shall go to him.’
However, when the hare saw the cat his innermost being shrank in fear and he blurted out, ‘Oh! No, no; let us have nothing to do with this scurvy knave
Curd Ear, who was dissembling only to follow an easy way of making a livelihood, prepared to instill confidence in the minds of his visitors. Standing upon his hindlegs with his forelegs raised up to the sky and eyes closed, he faced the sun directly and steadfastly; and the better to deceive the visitors with a display of a holy and virtuous cast of mind, he delivered the following moral discourse: Alas! Alas! How vain and unprofitable are the things of this world! How fragile and transitory is life! Like dreams are our relationships with those who are dear to us. Illusory like a magician’s tricks are family and possessions. No way of escape there is except the path of the law.
Having listened to the cat’s moral discourse, the hare exclaimed, ‘Hey! Friend Partridge; on this river-bank stands a holy person expounding the Law; let us ask him.’
‘Don’t forget that he is our natural enemy,’ replied the partridge. ‘Let us stand at a distance and question him.’
So they both began to question the cat. ‘O learned ascetic and instructor in the law,’ they began, ‘There is a dispute between us; so give us your judgement based on your knowledge of the law. Whichever of us is speaking falsely can be your food.’
‘Perish the thought,’ replied the cat, ‘Pray, don’t say such things. The very thought of cruelty to others makes me shrink in abhorrence; for it leads straight to perdition.
‘As for those who slay animals in sacrificial rites, they are indeed misguided for they do not understand the true meaning of the sacred texts. When a text says “Sacrifice goats – ajah-“ what is really meant in that context is rice grains seven years old, grain that is not gone –a-jah- not used up. It is not “goats” that are meant; the etymology of the word makes that quiet clear.
‘Therefore, I shall eat nobody. However as I am rather old I cannot tell the difference between your voices quiet clearly from a distance. In that case how can I declare who wins and who loses? In view of this, please do come closer to me and ask me for my judgement, so that I can understand the facts in dispute and pronounce a judgement that will not obstruct my gaining the other world.
‘Therefore have complete trust in me and explain everything clearly, standing close to my ear.’
To cut the story short that knave of a cat succeeded in thoroughly bamboozling those two creatures. And then, when the hare and the partridge drew close to him, he seized them both simultaneously, one with his paw and the other in his saw-toothed jaws. And so were both creatures killed and eaten.
The Panćatantra (Of Crows and Owls) – The Cat’s Judgement – Vişņu Śarma
Translated from the Sanskrit by Chandra Rajan
Let us remember: Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
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