The Panchatheertha Part 1

By Rajiv Mittal

The Panchatheertha Part 1 is a bold, satirical reimagining of the first section of the Panchatantra-the ancient Indian collection of fables attributed to Vishnu Sharma, composed between 1200 BCE and 300 CE. Traditionally, these tales featured animals acting as proxies for human behaviour, teaching lessons in statecraft, cunning, and moral discernment through a chain of stories, seamlessly linked by a patient narrator.
In this edition-extensively revamped in 2025-the tradition is revived through Vishnu Sharma's reincarnation, Shiva Varma, who reclaims the parampara: the passing of knowledge from teacher to student. But there's a complication. This retelling is intended for adults. The characters are allowed to explain themselves, reflect on their choices, and reveal their thoughts-precisely what the original tales cleverly avoided. The animals still behave like humans, reluctantly performing the roles assigned to them, aware of the absurdity but obliged to continue.
For Western readers, this work echoes the spirit of Hans Christian Andersen or La Fontaine: anthropomorphic creatures, moral instruction, and shrewd storytelling-but with a sharper edge. Pride, ambition, misjudgement, and desire are exposed and left for the reader to recognize and interpret. The result is a theatre of human behaviour viewed from the outside.
The Panchatheertha offers more than entertainment. It is a laboratory for reflection-on conduct, power, and instinct-cloaked in the guise of ancient fables. Readers who engage closely may find themselves laughing at the honesty of the depiction, even as they recognize the same missteps in the world as it exists now.
This is not a collection of moralistic tales. It is a mirror in which the human condition is refracted, magnified, and occasionally skewered. The animals have been asked to act like humans-much against their preference-and the consequences are observed with a patient, unsentimental eye. Yet through this theatre of insight and contradiction, readers may emerge with greater clarity, deeper curiosity, and a renewed appreciation for the strange wisdom hidden in old stories.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1731203802
• ISBN13: 9781731203809
• Release Date: November 2018
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"