The Oldest Sanskrit Fables #268434

The publication of the critical edition of the Main? Blzdrata makes available now for the major Parvan-s, especially for the earlier ones, reliable texts of the nidars'ana-s so that they may be studied in their most correct form. We are thus able to distinguish between those fables which always formed an integral part of the epic and those which were added at a later date to one or more of the recensions. Fables which once appeared in the Adiparvan and in the Udyogaparvan are considered later insertions and are relegated to the appendices of the bori edition. Consequently, it is now possible to ascertain exactly which were the oldest literary fables in Sanskrit. It is also possible to assign an approximate date to several of them, a date which indicates more or less the terminus ad quern for the earliest inclusion of them in the epic.