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A History of Sanskrit Literature c24.s2: 2. The Translations of the Pañcatantra

A History of Sanskrit Literature c24.s2

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English

2. The Translations of the Pañcatantra

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The enterprise of the physician Burzōe, who under Chosrau Anōsharwān (531-79) translated a version of the *Pañcatantra* into Pahlavi, was a work of the utmost importance for the Indian fable literature.² It is lost, but by A.D. 570 it was rendered by one Būd into Syriac, and about 750 an Arabic version was made by Abdallah ibn al-Moqaffaʻ from which the western versions are derived. The Syriac version is preserved in one manuscript and is imperfect, the Arabic is clearly expanded from the original, which seems to have consisted of five books corresponding to the *Pañcatantra*, five or eight other books taken from a different source³—whether or not the fusion was accomplished in India before Burzōe—and two books regarding his mission and his introduction. Of these fifteen chapters the Syriac has only ten, while the Arabic has twenty-two in all. The title of the work was clearly derived from Karaṭaka and Damanaka, the two jackals who figure in the first book of the *Pañcatantra*, variants of whose names occur regularly as the title of the translations, while the character of the work was somewhat altered by the inclusion of tales which were distinctly of a moral character.

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² Hertel, *Das Pañcatantra* (1914); ZDMG. lxxii. 65 ff.; lxxiv. 95 ff.; lxxv. 129 ff.

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³ From the *Mahābhārata*, xii. 138. 13 ff.; 139. 47 ff.; 111. 3 ff., three are taken; one is Buddhist (cf. A. Schiefner, *Bharatae Responsa* (1875) in Tibetan; Zachariae, *Kl. Schriften*, pp. 49 ff.); one the tale of the man in the well (see Nöldeke, *Burzōes Einleitung zu dem Buche Kalīla wa Dimna*, 1912); one of the lion and jackal also probably Buddhist; one of grateful beasts and ungrateful men; one of four friends, perhaps Buddhist; one of the mouse king and his minister is Indian in spirit.

c24.s2.4

From the Arabic version came in the tenth or eleventh century a fresh Syriac translation, and at the close of the eleventh century the Greek version of Simeon, son of Seth, which in its turn produced an Italian version of 1583 by Giulio Nuti, two Latin and one German versions, and various Slav reproductions. But more importance attaches to the Hebrew version of the Rabbi Joel (*c.* 1100), whence was made by John of Capua between 1263 and 1278 the *Liber Kelilae et Dimnae, Directorium vitae humanae*, of which two printed editions appeared in 1480. From a manuscript was made by Anthonius von Pforr the German translation, *Das buch der byspel der alten wysen*, which was repeatedly printed from 1483 onwards, and in addition to influencing deeply German literature was rendered into Danish, Icelandic, and Dutch. A Spanish version appeared in 1493, based on it, an Italian by Agnolo Firenzuola in 1546 which was translated into French in 1556, while a direct Italian version, that of A. Doni, came out in two parts in 1552, and the first part was translated into English by Sir Thomas North as *The Morall Philosophie of Doni* in 1570.

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Another important translation was that made from the Arabic in 1142 or 1121 by Abu 'l-Maālī Naṣrallāh ibn Muhammed ibn ‘Abd al-Hamīd, for it produced the Persian *Anwāri Suhailī* by Ḥusain ibn ‘Alī al-Wā‘iẓ between 1470 and 1505, whence came numerous translations into eastern languages, and which became known in France in 1644 by the translation by David Sahid and Gaulmin; this, again, was soon rendered into English, German, and Swedish. Moreover, the Persian original was rendered into Turkish by ‘Alī bin Ṣāliḥ between 1512 and 1520, and it was rendered into French by Galland and Cardonne, the French then being translated into German, Dutch, Hungarian, and even Malay.

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Other renderings from the Arabic were less fertile; the Hebrew version of Jacob ben Eleazer in the thirteenth century is only in part preserved, the old Spanish version (*c.* 1251) and John of Capua's work afforded material to Raimundus de Biterris who prepared his *Liber de Dina et Kalila* for Johanna of Navarre. The Italian Baldo in the early twelfth century used some version for his *Novus Esopus*. La Fontaine in the second edition of his *Fables* in 1678 expressly states that the greater part of his new matter is derived from the Indian sage Pilpay, in whose name we may recognize the Sanskrit Vidyāpati, lord of learning.

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