Kalilag and Damnag
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Kelileh va Demneh manuscript copy dated 1429, from Herat, depicts the Jackal trying to lead the lion astray. |
Kalilag and Damnag in
Syriac or
Kalila wa Dimna كليلة و دمنة in
Arabic, is the name of the translation into
Syriac of the
Sanskrit Panchatantra literary work of fables originating in
India. It was translated to
Pahlavi Persian then into Syriac, then into
Arabic, and from there to
European languages. Thomas Irving (
1980) further states that from
North Africa the stories were carried south to
Sub-saharan Africa, and on to
North America by African slaves.
The book is about symbolic wisdom fables put in the mouths of animals. All the tales have a moral message, and many have a political undertone.
Two main figures are the
jackals Kalila and Dimna (Sanskrit:
Karataka and Damanaka). The main narrator is the philosopher (
Hakim)
Bidpai (Arabic:
Baydaba, French
Pilpay), who is asked for a fable by the king
Dabshalim.
The fables originated around 200 BC in a Sanskrit collection of animal stories called the
Panchatantra. In the
6th century, at the command of the
Sassanian King
Khosrau I of Persia, a translation was made into
Pahlavi, the literary language of
Persia at the time.
By the end of the
6th century, a Syriac translation from Pahlavi was made (Kalilag and Damnag), and then another one into Arabic (Kalila wa Dimna) in the
8th century by
Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa in
Baghdad.
Around
1080, a translation from Arabic into
Greek was done, then one into
Hebrew about
1240, and old
Castilian (
Calila e Dimna) in
1250.
From the Hebrew translation came the version into
Latin (
Calila et Dimna), made by
John of Capua, dating from about
1270 and called
Directorium Humanae Vitae, or "Directory of Human Life."
From this Latin version came the
German translation, first printed about
1481 at the instance of
Duke Eberhard.
From the Latin version came the
English version of
Sir Thomas North,
1570.
La Fontaine, the great French fabulist, in the second edition of his Fables, 1678, confesses his indebtedness to '
Pilpay', the "Indian Sage":
"This is a second book of fables that I present to the public... I have to acknowledge that the greatest part is inspired from Pilpay, an Indian Sage" ("Je dirai par reconnaissance que j'en dois la plus grande partie à Pilpay sage indien") Jean de La Fontaine
In the Fable entitled "Le Milan, le Roi et le Chasseur" (XII, 12) La Fontaine explains that
"Pilpay has the Adventure start near the Ganges" ("Pilpay fait près du Gange arriver l'aventure").
*
Persian literature*
Indian literature*
Ion Keith-Falconer — translator (1885)
*
A brief summary of translations
