The Classic Popular^ or the Popular Classic?: The Proverbial Present Versus the Proverbial Past
^Taken from the eponymous title of Dr Nandini Chandra’s book, The Classic Popular: Amar Chitra Katha 1967–2007.
Having been translated in over “50 languages” which includes “nearly every major Indian language”, the original Panchatantra (which shall be referred to, as the “Ur-Pañcatantra” from here on out) cements its position as one of, if not the most popular “’collection of stories’” in India (Olivelle ix, xl). Given the Ur-Pañcatantra’s vast history spanning a millennium and a half, far-reaching proliferation, multitudinous translations, adaptations in every format imaginable, and immense scope, this paper shall limit its area of interest to the analysis of just three of Amar Chitra Katha’s comic series adaptations (which are today published under the banner of individual collections also titled Panchatantra) of the many “emboxed” stories belonging to the classic Ur-Pañcatantra (xv). The three comic books so chosen are — in the ascending chronological numbering as provided by the publishers[1] — as follows: Panchatantra: The Jackal & the War Drum and Other Stories (Amar Chitra Katha[2] #39; “10 stories”), Panchatantra: The Brahmin & the Goat and Other Stories (Amar Chitra Katha #138; 6 stories), and Panchatantra: How the Jackal Ate the Elephant and Other Stories (Amar Chitra Katha #163; 5 stories) (Thompson). In order to compare the aforementioned works to their ‘original’ predecessor, as a means of reference, this paper shall look to two English translations namely, Patrick Olivelle’s Pañcatantra: The Book of India’s Folk Wisdom and Arthur Ryder’s The Panchatantra. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the two aforementioned English translations and the Amar Chitra Katha comic series, in terms of both form and content, so as to ascertain the correlation between, that which has been altered and those aspects which have been retained as is, both in the service of making the tales more appealing and popular.
[1] The sequencing follows the one denoted by “Amar Chitra Katha’s original numbered series of 426 Indian classical comics [which] began in 1969 with #11, Krishna; it ended in 1991 with #436, Jawaharlal Nehru” (Thompson).
[2] Amar Chitra Katha will simply be referred to as ACK, and the texts, by their numbering, going forward.
Patrick Olivelle asserts that the Ur-Pañcatantra is not just a “mere ‘collection of stories’ or ‘book of fables’” as has previously been stated. Given that it “quotes extensively from … both the dharma and artha texts” — of which the “most famous artha text remains the Arthaśāstra ascribed to Kautilya” — it has been successfully been dated back to around “550 CE” at least, as attested to by “[i]ts translation into Pahlavi” as well (xi, xii). Therefore, this original text, as regarded by “Indian tradition” was intended to be looked on as a “śāstra, that is, a technical or scientific treatise, and more specifically as a nītiśāstra, a treatise on government or political science” (x). The Ur-Pañcatantra too, defines itself in exactly the same manner (Olivelle x). He goes on to state that the text “consist[ed] of five books … [varying] widely … [in their] structure and length” (xiv). Though, a “narrative feature” which Olivelle has termed “’emboxment’” runs the course of all the five books. What he means by this, is the following: “’emboxment’” refers to the process of placing stories, within stories, within stories and so on. The stories which act as containers for other stories are so named “frame stories”, and as such the largest frame story “serves as the frame [at least] for the entire[ty] [of the first] book” (xv). As a consequence of its, thus deeply interwoven skeins of embedded narratives, there arises one of its “major strength[s] … and a reason for its abiding popularity” which can be described as its ability to put forth “strong arguments for both sides of an issue … depict[ing] human life with all its ambivalences and contradictions” (xxxii, xxxiv). Therefore, it employs a conversational, almost dialectical (in the Hegelian sense of the term) approach in arriving at its pre- and proscriptions. Although, the Ur-Pañcatantra’s “central message” as Olivelle sees it — setting aside Book II — remains that “craft and deception constitute the major art of government” (xxxv).
Olivelle’s Pañcatantra, as is displayed in bold on the title page, was “[t]ranslated from the Original Sanskrit by” him (Olivelle). He claims that he translated the text keeping in mind “ordinary readers, especially students who have little or no access to the original Sanskrit”. The reason given above has contributed significantly in having chosen this particular translation as one of the two primary sources to be used as a means of reference, in this paper’s analysis of the three eponymous ACK comic books. Another reason for the same is that, this work by its own account strives to “to be accurate without being literal” thereby seeking to preserve “some of the beauty of the original narrative” (xlvi). In much the same vein, Olivelle praises Franklin Edgerton’s work to be “a much finer and more beautiful text than any extant version”. He likens “Edgerton’s reconstruction” to be as faithful to the original, Ur-Pañcatantra as is humanly possible, at least “without the discovery of new evidence” (xliv, xlv). He asserts also, that Edgerton’s taking into account and thereby comparing and contrasting, “all existing versions and translations” to aid in his reconstruction, goes a long way in extinguishing any and all doubts, that the Ur-Pañcatantra did indeed exist (xl). Therefore, in the preservation of the most crucial aspects of the original such as: including all stories present in the latter and adding not one more, in extracting “the vast majority of the verses” included in the former from the latter, and in keeping the “narrative sequence” the exact same; Edgerton made sure not to “’depart from the original, [as that] … almost always make[s] it worse’” (xlv). Olivelle thus indicates, that he has used as a basis for his translation, Edgerton’s reconstructed version (xlvii). Furthermore, he has, instead of replacing the names of the animals — whose meanings in Sanskrit often allude to their inherent natures — with their English translations, retained those original names and conveniently included their meanings in a separate “’Glossary of Names’” or, next to their first occurrence. Also conveniently included are the, commonly associated character traits of each of the animal-characters according to the types of animals, right in the text’s “Introduction”, which can be found in the above-stated glossary as well (xxii).
Given the nature of the Panchatantra, having various extant versions which house their own selection of stories — most of the time, many in common but rarely all — Olivelle’s translation too, contained only around eleven out of twenty-one of the stories found in the three ACK comics combined. Therefore, it became necessary to look to another version which would hopefully contain all the twenty-one and it just so happened that Arthur Ryder’s The Panchatantra satisfied this dire need. The second of the two reasons for having used a second version for the purpose of analysis, was to display that this translation while also accurate, succeeds in its goal to achieve accuracy by way of being quite literal (in direct opposition to the style adopted by Olivelle for his text). This is made apparent by the replacing of the names of characters with their literal English translations, among other indicators, for instance, replacing the name “Duṣṭabuddhi” with “Wrong-Mind” (Olivelle 62; Ryder 185).
The other primary texts, namely the three ACK comic books belonging to ACK’s Panchatantra series, have so been considered primarily for convenience sake given that these were the only three such titles out of six to ever be published which were also readily available online. Taken together, they comprise twenty-one stories all in all as has been stated above, with illustrations by Ram Waeerkar and scripts written by Kamala Chandrakant. All three comics and the stories contained within, follow the most basic of categorisations laid down — in terms of the segregation into the five different books — in any of the two translations taken on as primary texts for the sake of reference, albeit to different degrees. This is clearly attested to by the fact that all the stories in the comic, ACK #138, except for “The King Elephant and the Mice” belong to “Book III — Crows and Owls” and all the stories to be found in ACK #39, barring none, belong to “Book I — The Loss of Friends” (Ryder v, vi). The comics however do not in any way, shape or form replicate the emboxing of stories so quintessential of all three, that is, the Ur-Pañcatantra, Edgerton’s reconstruction, and Olivelle’s translation.
There appears to be some retention of the aforementioned “central message” of Ur-Pañcatantra in the ACK comic adaptations of the same, as well. Nandini Chandra notes that the “tales of intrigue, competition, sly-wit and infighting” ACK produces — which of course aren’t just limited to the Panchatantra series and include myriad others — are so produced to further the acquiring by children, of an “audacious pragmatism”. Thus, deliberately to this effect not much heed is paid, on the part of ACK, “to protect children from depictions of violence and sexuality” (17). The same is attested to by depictions of child kidnapping as a fair means of revenge as can be gleaned from Fig. 1. Scott McCloud is of the opinion that the “primary cause of our childhood fascination with cartoons is” the ability for one to see themselves in the vacuum that is the “cartoon … into which [their] identit[ies] and awareness are pulled”. Concurrently, he says, a hyperreal “photo or … drawing of a face” is perceived as the “face of another” thereby hindering proper reception of the “message” in favour of being “far too aware of the messenger” (36, 37). Analogously; citing “ACK’s Hindu bias”, Chandra calls attention to the fact that the “representations of British colonial officers” are not nearly as fleshed out “as the rough-cut villains of the Mughal period”; could possibly be an attempt at ensuring readers do not identify with the latter (21). It has long been established that the “use of anthropomorphism and symbolism … allows younger readers access to complex and universal issues” and so did residents of the subcontinent understand early, the “intrinsic appeal” that “animal fables” held for children to be employed for a number of use cases (Paludan 1; Olivelle xi).
With the framing of stories absent from the comics as opposed to the translations, the pre- and proscriptions of the individual stories are no longer arrived at by way of opposing viewpoints coming into conversation with each other. In this way, the respective themes of each of the five books are also done away with, regardless of the fact that, for the most part, the stories contained in each comic book correspond to the tee, with those contained in the former. With this the meaning making processes of both diverge. The same for the comics now occurs, between their panels, that is in the “gutters” where “human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (McCloud 66).
There also exist an additional number of both significant and minor differences between the translations and the comic books. First and foremost, come the anachronisms such as the one in Fig. 1 of a lightbulb being used to signify an idea popping into the man’s head. The changes to the titles of the stories too runs much along the same lines for instance, ACK #163’s “The Lion, the Jackal and the Donkey” is known as “Flop-Ear and Dusty” and “The Ass Without Ears or a Heart” as well as “The Dhobi’s Donkey” having the names “The Ass in the Tiger’s Skin”, “The Ass in the Leopard’s Skin” in Ryder and Olivelle’s versions respectively. These examples illustrate the need to keep the specifics of the story under wraps at the start, in the comics (it being a visual medium), to build and sustain suspense and anticipation. While in the translations no such need arises, given that each story is prefaced by a known narrator’s verse introducing much of the story’s specifics, with the listener chiming in with the standard reply, “How did that happen?” (Olivelle 112). Another difference to be noted, is in the changing of certain key elements of stories, such as in ACK #138’s “The Mouse and the Sage”, the girl shall only be married to whom she consents as is seen in Fig. 3 and denoted by the statement: “if she is willing” (Chandrakant and Waeerkar 22). This holds true for Ryder’s version but not for Olivelle’s, in which each of the suitors except for the mouse instructs the sage to seek another. Though, in none of the translations do any of the suitors explicitly agree to be wed to the daughter, as opposed to the mountain in Fig. 4.
In both translations there is an explicit mention of the sage incurring the sin of “becom[ing] low-caste” if the daughter isn’t married off when puberty hits and that marriage should always be “between two of like family and wealth” (Olivelle 132). Olivelle further asserts that the “principle that nature (birth, pedigree) rather than upbringing determines behaviour is” wholeheartedly favoured by the text, time and again. In this story as well, “the cosmos itself represented by the divine beings who reject her as a bride determines her ultimate fate” and it is not the girl, at first, choosing of her own volition, to “return to her native state” (xxxvi). The age of twelve mentioned in both the comics and translations as narrated by an unspecified narrator and always specified narrator respectively, also goes unchanged.
In order for dialogues to better fit and compliment the artwork, Kamala Chandrakant “would often alter” them (Chandra 34). Another editor, Luis Fernandes, led AKC in the direction of the “[minimalization] of text” in an effort to retain the “basic economy” of the medium known as comics (37). Despite all the changes in form, style and ways of engagement employed, and so delineated, the above goes to show that the messages being pre- and proscribed remain the same, unaltered.
Works Cited
Chandrakant, Kamala, and Ram Waeerkar. Panchatantra: The Jackal & the War Drum and Other Stories. 1st ed., India Book House Education Trust, 1978.
Chandrakant, Kamala, and Ram Waeerkar. Panchatantra: How the Jackal Ate the Elephant and Other Stories. 1st ed., India Book House Education Trust, 1978.
Chandrakant, Kamala, and Ram Waeerkar. Panchatantra: The Brahmin & the Goat and Other Stories. 1st ed. India Book House Education Trust, 1978.
Olivelle, Patrick. Pañcatantra: The Book of India’s Folk Wisdom (Oxford World’s Classics). 1st ed., Oxford University Press, 1999.
Ryder, Arthur W. The Panchatantra. Kessinger Publishing, 2005.
Chandra, Nandini. The Classic Popular: Amar Chitra Katha 1967–2007. 1st ed., Yoda Press, 2008.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. 1st ed., Harper Perennial, 1994.
Thompson, John. “Amar Chitra Katha Title List”. Silkqin.Com, 2011, http://www.silkqin.com/13pers/acklist.htm. Accessed 9 May 2020.
Paludan, J. “Hans Christian Andersen’s Use of Anthropomorphism”. Aktualitet — Litteratur, Kultur Og Medier, vol. 13, no. 1, januar 2019, pp. 182–94, https://tidsskrift.dk/aktualitet/article/view/112063.
