Introduction

The Sanskrit literature as a whole is a treasure house of numerous branches of knowledge. One of the branches, though appeared to be less important, is the Niti-katha-sahitya or fable literature. The Katha sahitya or narrative literature may be divided into two parts; one is Katha type, and the other being Akhyayika type. In the history of mankind, the narration of the stories has been in practice for the last several centuries; as such, the human history from the antique period can be traced to the Vedas themselves, as they are the first and foremost sacred texts on the human development. A bird's eye-view of Indian fable literature gives an apprehension that it is spread over into two streams : 1) Stories of educative values 2) Stories of entertainment or recreation. Evidently, it can be said that the sacred texts of Vedas are them-selves the place of origin of the Katha-sahitya in Sanskrit literature. Further, the stories narrated in the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, Upanisads, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the

2 Jatakas, the Pancatantra, the Hitopadesa, etc. come under the first stream of Katha-sahitya. And the stories narrated in the Brhatkatha, the Kathasaritsagara, the Dvatrimsat-simhasanaputtalika, Vasavadatta, the Kadambari, the Dasakumaracarita, etc. come under the second stream of Katha literature in Sanskrit. the The characteristic feature of the fable literature in Sanskrit is to highlight the importance of the science of polity and the science of ethics which has been preserved in the text of postVedic literature. In this connection, Wilson's remark is notable. "Each fable is designed to illustrate and exemplify some reflection on wordly vicissitudes or some precept for human conduct, and the illustration is frequently drawn from the intercourse of human beings, as from an imaginary adventure of animal existence and this mixture is in some degree a pecularity in the Hindu plan of fabling or story telling."