The Three Princes of Serendip" Synopsis and Comments - Persian fairy tale set in Sri Lanka, the origin of the word "serendipity".
Introduced here is "The Three Princes of Serendip" edited and translated by Yoshio Takeuchi, published by Kaiseisha in 2006.
Let's take a quick look at the book.
The three princes of Serendipitip (now Sri Lanka), who were on a journey, cleared a camel thief's suspicions in the land of Behram with their outstanding resourcefulness, and even saved the emperor's life. Having gained the emperor's trust, the three princes set out on a second journey to India to retrieve the stolen treasure of Behram, the Mirror of Justice. From upper elementary school.
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The Three Princes of Serendip is known as the origin story of the word serendipity.
This word "serendipity" was introduced in the previous article by Mamoru ShonoAdventures in Sri Lanka."The following is explained in the following section.
The word "serendipity" is a neologism created by the 18th century English writer Horace Walpole, inspired by the Persian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip. The story's princes discover by chance and wisdom what they did not seek. ...... The word "serendipity" was created to describe this.
Minamifune Hokumasha, Mamoru Shono, "Adventures in Sri Lanka," p. 8.
"We discover by chance and wisdom that which we do not seek."
This is the meaning of the word serendipity.
And surprisingly, the book "The Three Princes of Serendip" itself was not told in Sri Lanka, but is a Sri Lankan fairy tale that was told in Persia. Sri Lanka is merely the country of origin of the princes and the setting of the story. However, even for the Persians of the time, there must have been something about Sri Lanka that made them long for it and imagine it as a paradise.
At the end of the book, there is a commentary by the editor, Mr. Yoshio Takeuchi, which is also very interesting, so I will introduce part of it here.
In the mid-eighteenth century, Earl Hollis Walpole, a well-known English writer, coined the term "serendipity. It was named after the title of a fairy tale he had read as a child, The Three Princes of Serendip.
According to Walpole, the word means "the discovery of something one has not been looking for by chance and ingenuity. As the word gradually spread, many people began to use it to mean "happy coincidence. If it were just a "happy coincidence," there would be no need to use words like "serendipity" at all.
A classic example of serendipity is the discovery of X-rays, which won the first Nobel Prize in Physics. Professor Röntgen (1845-1923) was absorbed in his research when he happened to notice a fluorescent plate glowing in a place it was not supposed to. "What? He was so curious that he devised various methods to thoroughly investigate the cause of the glowing, and as a result, he discovered a new type of radiation with completely different properties from those he had been studying until then. He named it X-rays. This process of discovery is exactly in line with the meaning of the word "serendipity" that I mentioned earlier.
Thus, serendipity is a very meaningful word that expresses in a single word what would normally require several words to express. Therefore, it is a very useful word if its correct meaning is understood.
However, mere convenience is not as attractive as it sounds. The important point is that it is not just for technologists, but for all of us to experience serendipity. So the question arises, "How can we experience serendipity?" This question also arises.
I first heard these words about 40 years ago. At that time, I was also told that it was so important that I had to teach it to my students. Since then, I have been researching these important and meaningful words and have been fascinated by the stories that gave birth to them, so I decided to find a book of stories and translate them.
Kaiseisha, translation edited by Takeuchi Yoshio, "The Three Princes of Serendip" p188-189
The key to serendipitous discovery is the ability to take advantage of chance. It is necessary to have a mind that is focused, attentive to what is happening around them, and always ready to react to it instantaneously and unselfconsciously.
Preconceived notions are forbidden. If this is a necessary condition for serendipitous discovery, it is a sufficient condition to have the ability and perseverance to analyze the coincidences noticed.
As I have shown in the previous examples, one gets the impression that serendipity is only focused on the field of science. However, as shown in Walpole's letter, the examples he uses to define "serendipity," such as the story of the camel and Lord Shaftesbury, are examples of what can happen in our daily lives.
This means that with the right attitude, we too can experience serendipity in our daily lives. Anyone can experience serendipity, as long as they improve themselves and develop a personality that meets the requirements for serendipitous discovery as described above.
Kaiseisha, translated by Yoshio Takeuchi, "The Three Princes of Serendip," p. 200-201
Serendipity.It's so important that we have to teach it to our students."This commentary is certainly a good example of what I am talking about.
And I myself read it when I was a student.The Thought Organizer."I remember reading about the importance of this very serendipity in a book called
Anyone can experience serendipity, as long as they improve themselves and develop the character necessary for the serendipitous discovery I just described."
This is exactly what was also taught in the book.
It was something poignant to finally be able to read the original story of serendipity more than a decade after I first heard of the term.
The story itself of "The Three Princes of Serendip" is a fairy tale, which makes it very easy to read. And the competence of these three princes is so much more than this. As mentioned in the commentary above, it is not enough to simply wait for a lucky discovery. It is, after all, only through observation and insight that we can make "unexpected discoveries.
In this book, illustrations are inserted and kanji characters are furigana-ed so that even children can read easily. This book is recommended for children's education, as well as for students and adults.
It is quite an exciting experience to be able to read the work that is the originator of the famous word serendipity.
In my case, I also wanted to learn more about Sri Lanka, which made it even more interesting reading.
I would highly recommend this work.
The above is a synopsis of "The Three Princes of Serendip" - the story of Sri Lanka, the origin of the word "serendipity".
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