PANCHATANTRA - Second Strategy: Gaining Friends

Following is the highlights of these stories, please click on the story name to read in detail.

Gaining Friends

• Fools can never foresee peril.
• People often lose sense when danger lurks in the corner.
• Even if a wise man has everything he needs, he should still seek friends. Even if all the rivers flow into the Sea, the Sea still waits for the Moon to come out.

The Crow-Rat Discourse

• Enmity is of two kinds. The first is natural and the second is artificial. The second kind disappears when what caused it disappears. But natural enmity ends only with the death of one of the two enemies.

Meeting a New Friend

• They are happy who are fortunate not to witness the destruction of crops and the decline of the people.
• Nothing is impossible for a competent person. There is no land that does not respond to effort.
• For a scholar every country is his own country and there is no enemy for a sweet-tongued person. Learning and power are not the same. Remember that the king is respected only in his country but a scholar is honoured everywhere.

The Hermit and The Mouse

• You must not accept the hospitality of such a host who does not welcome you gladly, does not offer you a proper seat and does not make inquiries about your well-being.
• When a man earns a lot of wealth, that pile of money increases his strength and confidence.

Shandili and Sesame Seeds

• Learned men can measure the strength of the rival by just looking at him.
• The man gets what he is destined to. Even God cannot alter destiny.

Story of The Merchant’s Son

• Man gets what is in his destiny; Even God cannot prevent it; To me it makes no difference.
• What’s mine can never become others.

The Unlucky Weaver

• He enjoys life with whatever he has. What’s the use of being rich but miserly?
• Our luck is linked to what we have done in a previous birth. If you have done a good deed in your previous birth, you will reap the harvest in this birth without your effort.
• If you don’t have it in your destiny, you will not get it even with effort. Just as sun and shade are inseparable, cause and effect are also linked to each other.

The Rescue of a Deer

• It is easier to get friends who talk sweetly but difficult to find friends who venture to tell you the truth however bitter it is. The latter alone deserve to be called friends.
• A rich person who does not spend money is as poor as any poor person can be. Not being able to enjoy is common to both the poor and the miserly rich. Nothing on this earth is greater than charity and there is no greater enemy than miserliness.