Book review
The ever-popular Book of Good Counsels from ancient India

One of the best-known Sanskrit classics, Narayan’s Hitopadesa is a fascinating collection of animal and human fables augmented with polished verse epigrams and gnomic stanzas, many of which have become proverbial. This satirical, often irreverent and sometimes ribald text has been popular for centuries as a compendium of worldly advice on matters ranging from statesmanship and detailed battleplans to personal conduct and marital fidelity. It has also served generations of students as a model of grammatical and metaphorical excellence.

In this ‘Garden of Pleasing Stories’, as Narayan himself describes it, birds, beasts, men and women scheme, suffer, lust, err, grieve and rejoice, acting as perceptive social critics and astute commentators on the absurd nature of human folly.

Combining his own literary genius with skilful selections and modifications of material from the Panchatantra and a host of other traditional sources, Narayan has created a refreshingly original masterpiece. This excellent new translation faithfully renders the wit and wisdom of the original.

Paperback
| 240 pages |



About the author R.K. Narayan (1906-2001) was born in Madras and educated there and at Maharajah’s College, Mysore. His first novel was Swami and Friends (1935). In 1980 R.K. Narayan was awarded the A.C. Benson medal by the Royal Society of Literature and was made Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1989 he was made member of the Rajya Sabha. In 2000 the Padma Vibhushan was conferred on him. The novelist places himself firmly among the ordinary people, breaking down the boundaries between the real life outside his fiction and the life within the fiction. Narayan's small town and its characters have a universal appeal. 'The grand old man of Indo-Anglian writing, and one of the greatest English language writers of the last century... There are no last words on such maestros.' —The Tribune