Is this a fable? An allegory? A satire? A philosophical novel disguised as animal theatre?
Yes—and not quite.
The Panchatheertha: Part 1 lives in the uneasy space between parable and allegory. Between the parable’s simplicity and the allegory’s shadow, this book chooses not to walk a straight line. If you choose to walk alongside, be prepared.
First published in 2018, The Panchatheertha returns in this extensively rewritten 2025 edition—its language sharpened, its philosophical reach expanded, and its satire stripped of all mercy.
Inspired by The Panchatantra, the ancient Indian compendium of fables attributed to Vishnu Sharma, composed between 1200 BCE and 300 CE, this is not a revival of talking animals and moral lessons. It is an interrogation of them. The familiar stories of friendship, cunning, and betrayal are resurrected in a darker, more self-aware world—one where the animals have grown conscious of their confinement in narrative.
They are no longer content to perform. They question, resist, and judge. They watch one another with suspicion—and they watch the humans, too. Patiently. Precisely. Without illusion. What was once a stage for instruction has become a theatre of consequence, where every act—political, personal, or primal—reveals the cost of power.
At the heart of this transformation stands Shiva Varma, the reincarnated narrator who revives the parampara—the ancient lineage of teacher and student. But this time, the lessons are not meant to comfort or instruct. They are meant to expose. Each tale unfolds like an autopsy of morality, not to prescribe how one should live, but to reveal how survival reshapes virtue.
Here, lions rule with weary authority; jackals whisper from the shadows; bulls cling to their illusions of virtue; and humans, stripped of their supposed supremacy, appear as creatures of habit and hunger. The lines between ruler and ruled, predator and prey, storyteller and story blur—until all that remains is instinct, cunning, and consequence.
What begins as fable mutates into philosophy. What seems moral turns surgical. What appears comic becomes scripture. You may laugh—but the laughter will linger. Satire here doesn’t exaggerate; it reveals.
The Panchatheertha is both homage and heresy: it honours the ancient form even as it dismantles it. It speaks to the enduring relevance of The Panchatantra—its understanding of power, governance, deception, and the delicate art of survival—but refuses to leave these ideas embalmed in history. Instead, it brings them forward, into a world that pretends to be more civilised but remains just as cunning, hierarchical, and hungry for spectacle.
For readers of Orwell, La Fontaine, or Kafka, The Panchatheertha will feel at once familiar and disquieting. It offers wit without comfort, reflection without resolution. Beneath every parable, a trapdoor. Behind every conversation, a quiet transaction.
This is not a collection of moralistic tales. It is a mirror held to the machinery of instinct and governance, a diagnostic manual for those who wish to understand power—and survive it.
Among the many lessons these stories offer, few are as quietly persistent as the loss of friends.