consulted before initiating any impor-
tant activity.
Pancharatra
(“five nights,” of uncertain meaning)
The name denotes a particular group of
Vaishnavas (devotees of the god
Vishnu). Although there is plenty of evi-
dence that the Pancharatra community
is very old, very little is known about its
origins. In the earliest Vaishnava sectari-
an texts, the Pancharatra community is
unfavorably compared to another
group, the Bhagavatas, with the former
described as marginal and the latter as
“Vedic” and respectable. Despite this
seeming disapprobation, in their earli-
est appearances Pancharatras do not
seem theologically different from the
Bhagavatas, although their differences
may have been rooted in differing
practices. In their later history, the
Pancharatras become associated with
an elaborate theory of creation, final-
ized somewhere around the sixth century
and based on the successive appearance
of four divine emanations: Vishnu-
Narayana, Sankarshana, Pradyumna,
and Aniruddha. The successive activity
of these divine emanations brings the
world into being, but each is also associ-
ated with a particular facet of spiritual
life through which human beings can
reverse the process of creation and gain
liberation. The Pancharatra school is
also important for its theory of primary
and secondary avatars, in which the lat-
ter can include any properly consecrat-
ed image of the deity. The doctrine of
secondary avatars has become a pivotal
idea in the later Shrivaishnavacommu-
nity, through which Pancharatra ideas
have continued to influence modern
Hindu life.
Panchatantra
(“Five Treatises”) A collection of moralis-
tic fables intended to impart practical
and worldly wisdom. The fables them-
selves are framed by the story of a king
who is distressed by his sons’ lack of
learning and good moral character,
which gives him grave misgivings about
their ability to rule well after his death.
He resolves this problem by hiring a per-
son to teach the boys through fables,
each of which usually has several shorter
fables embedded in it to give moral
lessons along the way. These fables are
intended to provide pragmatic advice
about how to be successful in the real
world, particularly in the art of state-
craft. This pragmatic focus can lead one
to characterize the text’s advice as
opportunistic, particularly since it
encourages caution and self-interest as
the keys to success. The Panchatantra
exists in several versions, of which the
most famous is the Hitopadesha. The
text has been translated numerous
times; a version found its way to Europe,
where it became the basis for the fables
of La Fontaine.Panchavati
In the Ramayana, the earlier of the
two great Indian epics, the place where
three of the epic’s central characters—
the god-king Rama, his wife Sita, and
his brother Lakshmana—live during
much of their fourteen years of forest
exile. It is from here that Sita is kid-
napped by Ravana, the demon-king of
Lanka. Although the events in the
Ramayanacannot be definitively set in
any specificplace, there is a village
named Panchavati, outside the city of
Nasik in the state of Maharashtra,
which is identified with the mythic site.Panchayat
In traditional India, a group of five (pan-
cha) elders from a particular community,
who were the final authority for the
members of that community. Each jati
(endogamous subcommunity, often
defined by hereditary occupation) was a
self-governing body, for which the pan-
chayat would make all the important
decisions. In modern India this institu-
tion is being hailed as a paradigm for
decentralized government, in which thePanchayat