Panchatantra is a collection of attractively told stories about the five ways that help the human being succeed in life. Pancha means five and tantra means ways or strategies or principles.

The five strategies are:

Discord among friends
Gaining friends
Of crows and owls
Loss of gains
Imprudence

For more than two and a half millennia, the Panchatantra tales have regaled children and adults alike with a moral at the end of every story. Some believe that they are as old as the RigVeda.

A king, worried that his three sons are without the wisdom to live in a world of wile and guile, asks a learned man called Vishnu Sharman to teach them the ways of the world.

Vishnu Sharman decides to pass on wisdom to them in the form of stories. In these stories, he makes animals speak like human beings.

The story form appeals to children while the wisdom in them attracts adults.

The stories will appear in five sections, each representing a strategy for getting over problems in life.

The series begins with a parent story that unfolds story after story; each strung to the other by a narrator.