Vishnu Sharma

Vishnu Sharma is the name traditionally linked to the Sanskrit fable collection known as the Panchatantra. He belongs to ancient Indian literature, and the date of composition is uncertain: estimates range from the twelfth century BCE to the third century CE, though some scholars place it around the third century BCE. He matters because a book that began as a teaching tool for princes became one of the most translated non-religious texts in history.

The name has a meaning of its own. Vishnu refers to one of the chief gods of Hinduism, and sharma suggests something like refuge or home. The prelude tells how a king named Amarshakti had three dull-witted sons, and how a minister proposed entrusting their education to an elderly scholar called Vishnu Sharma. According to the story, he refused a reward of land because he would not sell knowledge, and promised to make the princes wise within six months. Rather than lecturing them from scriptures, he told them a chain of animal fables, each linked to the next. Those five sections gave the work its name: five treatises, or pancha tantra.

Little independent evidence about the author survives, so scholars cannot tell whether he was a real historical person or a literary invention. Some have proposed Kashmir as his home, based on the landscapes and animals in the tales, and others have linked him to the University of Taxila.

The work's afterlife is better documented. It was rendered into Middle Persian in 570 and into Arabic around 750 as Kalila wa Dimna. It reached Europe before 1600 in many languages, and at least eleven of its tales appear in the work of Jean de La Fontaine. A book written to educate three princes thus went on to shape literary traditions from Java to Iceland.