Translated in over 200 languages, Kalilah Wa Dimna is an ancient collection of fables, which originated in modern-day Pakistan. The book is an educational text intended to educate the readers through allegorical tales featuring animals as its primary characters.
Beyond its origins as a manual for governance, Kalilah wa Dimna transcended its instructional purpose to become a universal literary treasure, influencing folklore, literature, and ethics in dozens of languages and cultures worldwide.
Kalilah wa Dimna was originally composed in Sanskrit, and was known as the Panchatantra or “Five Discourses.” Written in 4th-century Kashmir, it was created to educate three young princes who had proven to be a challenge for their tutors and a source of frustration for their father, the king.
Desperate for a solution, the king turned to his wise minister, who devised these engaging animal fables to impart practical wisdom. Within six months, the princes began to demonstrate the qualities of wise rulers.
About two centuries later, a Persian ruler tasked his physician, Burzoe, with finding a legendary herb said to grant eternal life. Instead of the herb, Burzoe returned with a copy of the Panchatantra, claiming it offered a different kind of immortality through wisdom.
Burzoe then translated it into Pehlavi, and the Sassanid King valued it so much that he preserved the translation in a special chamber of his palace. Following the Arab conquests in Persia and the Near East, the Pehlavi version was discovered by Ibn al-Muqaffa’, a Persian convert to Islam, who translated it into Arabic during the 8th century.
His eloquent style made the book a masterpiece of Arabic prose, and it became known as Kalilah wa Dimna, named after its two jackal protagonists. Initially intended to guide civil servants, the text’s entertaining nature made it popular across all social classes.
The stories embedded themselves in Muslim folklore and travelled to Spain with the North Africans where they were translated into Old Spanish in the 13th century at the Court of King Alfonso. Later, in Italy, the book became one of the earliest printed works after the invention of the printing press.
Folklore, however, suggests a different origin story. When Sikandar conquered parts of the Indian Subcontinent, he appointed one of his men there and returned to Greece. Soon after, the people of the Subcontinent rebelled against him and appointed a new King.
However, he soon turned tyrannical, and no one dared to utter a word against him. A great philosopher at the time tried to make the King see sense, however, he was imprisoned. When the King needed the philosopher, he freed him again, and the scholar then wrote the book, Kalilah Wa Dimna for the King.
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