The Panchtantra means five sections (panch, five and tantra, sections) and has 87 stories. The stories were most probably written down in the second century BC, although they had been around for a pretty long time by then, as is evinced by various Sanskrit works.
Simple, though brilliant, these fables always have morals (in verse format) in the end. The moral of the story is clearly most important; for the story is made to fit the moral and not the other way around. Many of these maxims are taken from older books, like the Vedas, and are sometimes straight quotations.