INDIAN KNOWLEDGE TRADITION AND PANCHATANTRA

Abstract

Everyone loves listening to stories. This fascination with storytelling is a timeless human trait; people of all ages—from children to the elderly—are eager to hear tales. However, children possess the greatest affinity for listening to stories. Indeed, the very manner in which a story is narrated serves to heighten one's desire or interest in listening to it. In every country across the globe, narrative literature has been expressed and disseminated through unique linguistic styles and modes of presentation. In the realm of self-expression, poetry has historically held greater prominence in the Indian psyche than prose; indeed, almost the entirety of Vedic literature is composed in verse. The earliest, albeit scant, traces of prose can be found in the Krishna Yajurveda; furthermore, we observe the use of prose in texts such as the Atharvaveda, the Brahmanas, the Puranas, and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.