Post No. 13,782
Date uploaded in London – 15 October 2024
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One cannot clap with one hand means nothing can be done successfully by a single person. It also means it takes two to make a quarrel . It also means in anyone of misconduct between a man and a woman nobody can blame only one party . These points are found in Chinese, Malay, Sanskrit and Tamil proverbs.
In Pancha Tantra the following sloka illustrates this point,
Yathaikena na hastena taalikah samprapadyate
Tathodhamapariyaktam na phalam karmanah smrtam
यथैकेन न हस्तेन तालिका संप्रपद्यते ।
तथोद्यम-परित्यक्तं न फलं कर्मणः स्मृतम् ॥
Meaning is,
As no clapping results from one hand, fate will also not bring fruits for men without working.
The corresponding proverb is found in at least 21 Asian languages.
In Tamil
Our kai thattinaal osai ezumbumaa?
ஒரு கை தட்டினால் ஓசை எழும்புமா?
Can clapping be effected by one hand ?
In Japanese,
Kosho narashi gatashi meaning one hand can hardly clap.
In German,
Mit einer hand allein kann man nicht klatschen
In Hindustani
एक हाथ से ताली नहीं बजती • (ek hāth se tālī nahī̃ bajtī) (Urdu spelling ایک ہاتھ سے تالی نہیں بجتی)
“one cannot clap with just one hand”: it takes two to make a quarrel.
*****
Another Pancha Tantra Proverb is also found worldwide
A frog in the well cannot see the ocean
It is found in at least 12 Asian languages.
In China it is found 2000 years ago.
Panchatantra sloka says,
Yo na nirgatya nihsesham aalokayati medinim
Anekaascarya sampuurnaam sa narah kuupaadardurah
He who does not leave his home and doe not behold the earth full oof many wonders, this man is like the frog in the well.
In Tamil
What has the frog in the well to do with the news of the country ?
கிணற்றுத் தவளைக்கு ஏன் நாட்டு வளப்பம்?
In Mongolian
The frog of the well does not know the vastness of the ocean
The frog of the ocean does not know the smallness of the well
In Japanese
Seia wa motte umi no katarubekarazu, meaning
There is no point in talking about the ocean to a frog in a well.
Story
A frog lived at the bottom of a well and was fully content to be the master of this area. Once a turtle came from the sea and talked about the wonderful life there. hearing this, the frog fell silent, staring at the turtle.
Indian story is slightly different.
Why we disagree? Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda told this story at the Parliament of the World’s Religions on 15 September 1893. It was his second lecture at the Parliament. He told—
“I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, “Let us cease from abusing each other,” and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance.
But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course, the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story’s sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.
“Where are you from?”
“I am from the sea.”
“The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?” and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.
“My friend,” said the frog of the sea, “how do you compare the sea with your little well?”
Then the frog took another leap and asked, “Is your sea so big?”
“What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!”
“Well, then,” said the frog of the well, “nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out.”
That has been the difficulty all the while.
I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well and thinks that is the whole world. I have to thank you of America for the great attempt you are making to break down the barriers of this little world of ours, and hope that, in the future, the Lord will help you to accomplish your purpose.
*****
Kupamanduka/ Kupamanduka-nyaya (कूपमण्डूक)
Kupamanduka/ Kupamanduka-nyaya (कूपमण्डूक) is a Sanskrit language expression, meaning “frog in a well”.[1] In Sanskrit, Kupa means a well and Manduka means a frog. The phrase is used for a small-minded person who foolishly imagines the limits of his knowledge to form the limit of all human knowledge (much as a frog might imagine the well in which it lived to be the largest body of water possible, being completely unable to conceive of anything as vast as an ocean). Equally, if such a frog looked up from its well, and saw but a small circle of sky, it might imagine this tiny disc to be the entirety of the heavens, unaware of the existence of other beings existing beyond the walls of the well and able to see the whole sky bounded by the true horizon.
—-subham—Tags- Tamil Sanskrit, Pancha tantra, Proverbs, Frog in the well, clap, one hand, Kupa manduka
Tamil and Vedas 