Talking to the animals
Early Persian Painting: Kalila wa Dimna Manuscripts of the Late Fourteenth Century, Bernard O'Kane,Cairo: the American University
in Cairo Press,
2003. pp336
Ibn Al-Muqaffa's Kalila and Dimna is perhaps the best-known work of prose fiction in mediaeval classical Arabic literature. First put together as a collection of fables about talking animals, the tales were Indian in origin and were originally written in Sanskrit. The fables were later translated from Sanskrit into Pahlavi (Old Persian), and it was this version that Al-Muqaffa, himself of Persian origin, rendered into Arabic. With additions of his own, and under the title Kalila and Dimna, the work became famed for the eloquent style in which its fables were couched.
The work was soon made available through translations into Latin, Syriac, Greek, Spanish, Turkish and Hebrew. Strangely, despite its status as a classic of world literature, there is no definite text of the work in Arabic; in fact, in the middle of the last century, a newly discovered manuscript of it was edited by Abdul-Wahhab Azzam and was produced by Dar Al-Shorouk with illustrations specially commissioned for the edition. To the best of my knowledge, the only complete translation of the book into English was published in London as long ago as 1819.
The book under review, as its title indicates, deals not so much with Ibn Al-Muqaffa's book of tales from which morals are drawn as with the illustrations made for various editions of it in manuscript form. The ones illustrated and discussed in full in Professor O'Kane's book are mainly those from seven Persian manuscripts dating from the latter half of the 14th century. These manuscripts were chosen because they contain examples of the highest achievements of Persian painting.
In the text accompanying the illustrations, Professor O'Kane points out that Kalila and Dimna was a unique text in that -- unlike say the Maqamat, available only in Arabic, or the Persian epic the Shahnama -- it was often illustrated in manuscripts in both languages. He explains that the particular manuscripts dealt with in this book include several undoubted masterpieces of Persian painting and that the period when these were achieved was of special importance in that it saw "a shift from realism to a more theatrical world", and thus "set the stage for Persian manuscript painting for several centuries to come".
In the first chapter, in which he deals primarily with the texts of the stories that compose the book that came to be known as Kalila wa Dimna, Professor O'Kane makes the point that animal fables today are primarily written for the entertainment of children and quotes as a notable exception George Orwell's Animal Farm. However, the original Sanskrit text of entertaining fables about animals was written with the declared aim of providing advice to kings and princes about how to deal with some of the snares with which, by virtue of being rulers, they would be faced.
Many of the stories revolve around two jackals, called Kalila and Dimna, who are viziers at the court of the Lion King: Kalila is a pleasant, honest character, while Dimna is full of lies and intrigues and is continually making trouble for himself and others. It is interesting to read that Ibn Al-Muqaffa, a secretary at the Abbasid court, added several stories of Indian origin to the five stories that had been translated into Pahlavi, at least one of which is generally regarded as having been composed by the translator himself.
The early popularity of the book is evidenced by the number of imitations that were made of it, both in Arabic and Persian. Also, a number of authors plagiarised the work. The interesting work entitled The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity contains a chapter which deals in some length with a debate between man and the animals and the question of how legitimate it is for man to regard himself as being superior to the animals and thus legitimately in charge of them; one of the representatives of the animals in this debate is none other than Kalila. Rumi's mystical poetic masterpiece, the Masnavi, written in the 13th century, also makes numerous references to characters and incidents from Kalila and Dimna and takes it for granted that his readers are familiar with the book.
In his extensive comments to the many reproductions, the author draws attention to the fact that in many cases the artist shows through his illustration that he has either not read the story concerned or has had it inadequately described to him. This is due in large part to the fact that this book, unlike say the Shahnama, was a prose work and thus did not lend itself to being easily memorised. The comments are useful and often draw one back for a second look at the illustration concerned.
For the ordinary reader much of the scholarship in the book may be unnecessary, but the illustrations, splendidly reproduced, open the door on classical Persian painting, while the stories themselves, if not already known, will show how it is that Kalila and Dimna can continue to delight.
Reviewed by
Denys Johnson-Davies
