98 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH You?
claims of genre and form. Imagined speakers provide a surface reading
as well as a contradictory deeper reading that is revealed only through
close attention to the text's acrobatics. I find Bronner's observations on
how to read this ninth-century text particularly useful for Chadhnama.
As I have argued above, a whole-text reading of Chachnama allows us
to see the ways in which the Chach narrative cycle and the Qasim nar-
rative cycle dialogue with each other-how they present subtle varia-
tions or provide a foundation for political thought. Drawing on Bronner,
I can make the further argument that one can conceive of Chachnama
as consisting of various interlocked framing narratives, akin to the
Pancatantra tales.
Pancatantra, composed in approximately 300 CE, articulates an-
other example of the Indic advice genre, focusing on how to handle
political life. Pancatantra fables feature nonhumans. They are animals
and birds whose conduct is rooted in natural difference, yet who gather
in conversation to govern, adjudicate, and seek redress. In form, Pan-
catantra addresses a far wider audience than Arthasastra, which re-
stricts itself to the ruling elite. Pancatantra's pedagogic effect relies
upon the affect and the emotional resonances created in the listeners,
and these tales went far afield as oral stories. The sources for some of
these tales are the Buddhist Jataka tales. Others come from various
dharmasastra texts such as Mahabharata and Vikramacarita, though
they sometimes use aphorisms from Arthasastra. Unlike the Ar-
thasastra, where the tone is factual, direct, and pragmatic, these tales
are broadly conversational, with little direct explication of meaning,
allowing for multiple interpretations in their readings. These short
tales spread across Asia in as many guises and forms as any of us can
possibly imagine, with recensions available to us from Tibet to Indo-
nesia and in more than fifty languages.
I want to briefly sketch out the framing story and give an example
of how Pancatantra invokes dialogue before I turn to ways in which
we can conceive of its relationship to Chachnama. The brief framing
story in Pancatantra is the plight of King Amarasakti, who has three
foolish sons in need of training and education. He asks wise Brahmin
Visnusarman to make the sons suitable for kingship. Visnusarman
composes five books illustrating proper conduct (niti) or kingly con-
duct (rajaniti). The advice given in Pancatantra is multivocal and