Labdhapranasha — "Loss of Gains" — is one of the books of the Panchatantra, the Indian collection of animal fables, and the stories gathered under it share a single theme: what foolishness can cost a creature that had already won what it wanted. It stands fourth among the five books of the collection, and is usually counted as fourteen stories.
The frame tale is among the best known in the whole Panchatantra. Raktamukha, a monkey, lives in a jambu tree by the seashore. Karalamukha, a crocodile, becomes his friend, until the crocodile's wife decides that she wants to eat the monkey's heart. Carried out to sea on the crocodile's back and told plainly what is intended, the monkey replies that he keeps his heart in the tree and must go back for it. From the exchanges that follow, further stories open out one inside another, in the manner the Panchatantra uses throughout.
This edition is the work of Ven. Dr. Kanumuldeniye Chandasoma Thera, published by Godage International Publishers.
The text is in Sinhala. It is not a bilingual edition and carries no English translation, so a reader outside Sri Lanka will need Sinhala to use it. For Sinhala readers abroad, for households keeping the language alive with children, and for anyone building a shelf of Sri Lankan editions of the classical Indian story collections, it offers the Labdhapranasha stories in a locally published form rather than in English retelling.
- Author: Ven. Dr. Kanumuldeniye Chandasoma himi
- Publisher: Godage International Publishers
- Language: Sinhala
- Pages: 188
- ISBN: 9789553085443
Browse the rest of our book collection.
