Friend, Enemy, Frenemy: The Hitopadeśa on Making and Breaking Friendship

Abstract

What did friendship mean in the shifty landscape of politics in medieval India? This article seeks to answer this question by looking at the illustrative animal stories of the Sanskrit anthology Hitopadeśa (800–950 CE). As a text belonging to the nīti genre, the Hitopadeśa emulates the Pañcatantra (300 CE) and reiterates the following significant thought in Indian political wisdom: As an affective relationship, friendship provides a vital ground for the political and ethical progress of an individual. It also conveys that precisely because of its emotional content, friendship can also turn into a source of deception and treachery. We will see how the animals appearing in the Hitopadeśa act as perfect metaphors for individuals who must find a balance between their natural dispositions and cultivated aspirations as they navigate the terrain of friendship. We will also read about the diverse markers of friendship as well as the circumstances under which strangers become friends and friends become enemies. Above all, we will explore the rich ambivalence in the stories and the poignant message that the interlocutors of the theories of friendship can be as unpredictable as friendship itself.

Brothers, friends, and enemies: averting intimacy on Facebook in western India

“…Exploiting the ability to accumulate and display connections with others on social media, they gift their networks through praising the birthday celebrant – incorporating the deference that brotherhood requires – in exchange for the reciprocity that exists between brothers. It is exactly this strategy of privileging acts of political self‐interest over passionate sacrifice on Facebook that protects young men against the threat where ‘enemies pose as friends’ (Patil 2017: 15).…”

“…From the tale in the Panchatantra of the monkey who ends his friendship with the crocodile after learning of the crocodile's intention to eat him to the Hitopadesha ’s story of the camel eaten by the lion, the jackal, and the wolf whom he mistakenly takes to be his friends, 11 stories of friendship in Indian mythology are haunted by the underlying threat of deceit. These cautionary tales convey friendship as ‘especially gullible to manipulative mediation’ (Patil 2017: 24) through metaphors such as the milk‐covered pot of poison illustrating the intentions of deceit that lie beneath openly verbalized expressions of friendship (Patil 2017: 21).…”