Text · Arabic fable collection · Iraq
Kalīla wa Dimna
Also known as Kalila wa Dimna, Kalilah and Dimnah, Anvar-i Suhayli, Fables of Pilpay, Bidpai
Ibn al-Muqaffaʿs Arabic version of the lost Pahlavi Pañcatantra, made at Basra about 750 CE and named after the two jackals of its first book. It became one of the most copied and illustrated books in Arabic, and it is the hinge through which the Indian fables entered every European language.
- Date
- 750–1678
- Function
- Text & inscription
- Confidence
- Not assessed
Worth knowing
The chain runs Arabic to Hebrew, to John of Capua's Latin of about 1270, to German, Italian and Spanish; and separately to the Persian Anvār-i Suhaylī and from that to Les Fables de Pilpay in French in 1644. La Fontaine's second collection of 1678 credits Pilpay, sage indien — Pilpay being the Sanskrit Vidyāpati, worn down through four languages.
Connections (3)
- TransmissionBurzōe
Ibn al-Muqaffa translated Burzoe's Pahlavi into Arabic at Basra about 750 and kept Burzoe's own autobiographical preface inside it, which is why a sixth-century Persian physician's account of his own doubts survives at all. He was executed for heresy in his thirties; the book he made has been copied and illustrated continuously for twelve hundred years.
- TransmissionCórdoba
From Arabic the book went to Hebrew, then to John of Capua's Latin Directorium humanae vitae about 1270, and from that into German, Italian, Spanish and English. Al-Andalus and Sicily are where Arabic learning crossed into Latin, and the Indian numerals and the Indian fables crossed at the same places and in the same centuries, by the same translators.
- TransmissionRome
The Persian Anvar-i Suhayli was turned into French in 1644 as Le Livre des lumieres, ou la conduite des roys, composee par le sage Pilpay indien. La Fontaine's second collection of 1678 credits Pilpay by name. Pilpay is the Sanskrit Vidyapati, worn down through Pahlavi, Arabic and Persian into a French author's name for a book he could not read.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kalila wa-Dimna”. Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, Kalīla wa Dimna; Gilbert Gaulmin and David Sahid, Le Livre des lumières, ou la conduite des roys, composée par le sage Pilpay indien (Paris, 1644); La Fontaine, Fables, books VII–XI, preface.
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