Babushka doll-style layering of stories

Stories within stories are a popular plot device in Sanskrit. The Kathasaritsagara is full of stories within stories, as are the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesha. This Babushka doll-style layering forces us to look more carefully and think more deeply about a story, because the stories don’t conclude, but instead loop back to a different one.

A Sanskrit work called the Shukasaptati, for instance, has the opening story of a young woman whose husband is away travelling on business. Since travels took much longer back then, and there was no Zoom, she is bored, and plans to meet a lover. But her pet parrot, determined to keep her from infidelity, begins to narrate an arresting suspenseful story each evening as she is about to leave. The woman in the opening story is so curious about how the story ends that she stays back each day, and by the time the parrot finishes, it is morning again. So far, so good. But things get interesting when you note that each of the stories the parrot tells is about a clever woman committing adultery. Imagine the tension between the frame story, trying to keep a woman from cheating, and the stories within the frame -- telling her about clever women who did cheat and get away with it!

Stories within stories are all the more interesting because authors can play around with earlier ideas, quoting and criticising them, giving alternative explanations, or even parodying them. One such story is that of the phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, usually translated as “The world is one family.” It is so familiar that a translation seems superfluous, and it gets used in so many contexts, be it charitable organisations or international vaccine diplomacy.

This phrase can be traced to the Mahopanishad, of unknown antiquity, but it is also in the Hitopadesha. But it is not meant, as you might think, to be upright, high-minded advice that urges us to adopt an enlightened outlook. In fact, it is the very opposite. It mocks itself. Hear the story of the deer who fell for the platitude and was overcome by fraternal love for a jackal.

A deer and a crow were good friends. Once, when the deer was roaming in the forest, he caught the eye of a jackal who was planning his next few meals. The deer was plump and the jackal was mightily tempted. He decided to befriend the deer and eventually make a meal of it.

The jackal approached the deer to introduce himself. The startled deer wanted to know who he was. The jackal introduced himself as a very lonely animal who had given up on relationships, until he saw the deer and found a new enthusiasm for life. The unsuspecting deer agreed to be his friend and took him home.

The crow, unlike the deer, was sceptical. He insisted: “You should never give shelter to someone who you know nothing about! How could you just agree to be his friend and bring him by?” The crow even told the deer a story of how others got cheated by taking a stranger at his word. At this point, the clever jackal objected: “If one never spoke to strangers, how would one make any friends? When you and the deer first got introduced, were you not strangers, too?” And for good measure, he throws in the clever line: “It is only the narrow-minded who say, ‘This person is my own, this one is a stranger’. For the magnanimous, the whole world is one family!” The deer falls for it.

A few days later, the jackal shows the deer a new field where he could feast, knowing full well that it was a field where hunters set traps regularly. One day, the poor deer gets trapped. When he pleads with the jackal to bite at the net and save him, relieved that his friend is nearby, the jackal decides he is on a fast and cannot bite anything that whole day. Luckily for the deer, the crow swoops in and advises him to play dead when the hunter approaches. As soon as he undoes the net, the crow tells the deer to flee.

So, the next time some clever fellow utters Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, ask yourself: What does he want?