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 Mice that freed the Elephants’
There was once a land where the people, their houses, as well as the places of worship had fallen into decay. The mice who were old settlers in that land, occupied the chinks in the floors of mansions, with sons, grandsons, grandchildren born of daughters and the like. Successive generations of mice as they were born made their homes in that region. And they spent their days and nights in supreme comfort and happiness, enjoying themselves in a variety of activities: feasts and festivals, weddings, banquets and drink parties dramatic performances and the like. And so time passed.
One day, a bull-elephant, lord of a thousand elephants, came there surrounded by his herd, to drink at the lake of which he had heard much praise, that it was ever full. As he passed with his herd through Mouse Town, the mice that were in the way were trampled upon; faces, head, necks, all crushed.
The mice that survived this disaster, now called a council of war. ‘We are being slaughtered by these vicious elephants that come lumbering through our settlement,’ they cried. ‘And they are sure to come again. In the end there will not even be a few of us left to start a new generation.
‘Therefore, let us decide on an effective plan of action to cope with this crisis.’
When they had decided on a plan, a few of the mice went down to the lake, bowed to the Lord of Elephants and pleaded humbly, ‘Lord: not far from here is our settlement inherited over a long period of time and coming down in orderly succession from our forefathers. Living there we have prospered and increased over generations of sons and grandsons. Your Honours passing through our settlement on your way to the lake to water have trampled upon and destroyed thousands of our community, If Your Honours do this once more, there will not be one mouse left, not even for seed. Therefore, if Your Honours feel the slightest compassion for us, we beseech you, pray follow some other path to the lake. Sirs, please bear in mind that even creatures our size might be of some help sometime to Your Honours.’
The lord of the herd listened to their words and recognized that there was sound sense in what the mice said and agreed to their request. ‘It shall be so; never otherwise,’ he said.
As time passed, one day, a certain king ordered his elephant keepers to go out and trap some elephants. They went into the forest, constructed a decoy water-tank in which the King of Elephants with his herd was trapped. After three days the trappers captured the elephant-king by means of a sturdy tackle of stout ropes, dragged him with his herd forcibly to the very forest where Mouse Town was located and bound them all to the strong trunks of the great trees. When the trappers had left the king-elephant reflected in sorrow, ’By what means can we be delivered from bondage? Who will come to our aid now?’ Then remembering the little mice he thought to himself, ‘Except these little fellows, I see no one who can effect our release.’
Then he ordered one of his attendants, a cow elephant that had not walked into the trap with the others, and who knew the whereabouts of Mouse Town from previous talk among the elephants, to go and inform the mice of his grave predicament and that of his herd. No sooner had the mice heard the sad tidings than they gathered in thousands; and prompted by the desire to repay the favour done to them, came running to the spot where the Lord of Elephants stood bound with his herd. Seeing him in this state they began gnawing at once at the holding ropes. Then they clambered up the branches of the trees and gnawed away and broke the ropes that bound the animals to the trees. Soon, all were set free.
The Panćatantra (Winning of Friends) – The Mice that freed the Elephants – 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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