Book subtitle | Ryder's translation[33] | Olivelle's translation[34] |
1. Mitra-bheda | The Loss of Friends | On Causing Dissension among Allies |
2. Mitra-lābha | The Winning of Friends | On Securing Allies |
3. Kākolūkīyam | On Crows and Owls | On War and Peace: The story of the crows and the owls |
4. Labdhapraṇāśam | Loss of Gains | On Losing What You have Gained |
5. Aparīkṣitakārakaṃ | Ill-Considered Action | On Hasty Actions |
See also pages 69 – 72 for his vivid summary of Ibn al-Muqaffa's historical context.On the surface of the matter it may seem strange that the oldest work of Arabic prose which is regarded as a model of style is a translation from the Pahlavi (Middle Persian) of the Sanskrit work Panchatantra, or The Fables of Bidpai, by Ruzbih, a convert from Zoroastrianism, who took the name Abdullah ibn al-Muqaffa. It is not quite so strange, however, when one recalls that the Arabs had much preferred the poetic art and were at first suspicious of and untrained to appreciate, let alone imitate, current higher forms of prose literature in the lands they occupied.Leaving aside the great skill of its translation (which was to serve as the basis for later translations into some forty languages), the work itself is far from primitive, having benefited already at that time 750 CE from a lengthy history of stylistic revision. Kalilah and Dimnah is in fact the patriarchal form of the Indic fable in which animals behave as humans — as distinct from the Aesopic fable in which they behave as animals. Its philosophical heroes through the initial interconnected episodes illustrating The Loss of Friends, the first Hindu principle of polity are the two jackals, Kalilah and Dimnah.It seems unjust, in the light of posterity's appreciation of his work, that Ibn al-Muqaffa was put to death after charges of heresy about 755 CE.