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New Spotlight: Kalila wa-Dimna – Wisdom Encoded

Kalīla and Dimna has been one of the most widespread and influential books in the history of humanity. A collection of tales teaching political wisdom, it transcended languages, cultures and religions. Throughout the centuries, the book travelled from India via the Middle East to Europe. In its course it was translated from Sanskrit via Middle Persian and Arabic to Hebrew, Latin (under the title Directorium vitae humanae) and most European vernaculars, as well as Near Eastern, South Asian and South-East Asian languages. Its religious and social context changed from Hinduism via Zoroastrianism to Islam, and from there to Christianity.

News vom 13.11.2018

Kalīla and Dimna, translated and redacted in AD 757, is one of the first Arabic books to reflect its own epistemology. It also is considered the first secular fiction in the Arabic language.

The extant versions of Kalīla and Dimna cannot be reduced to a single text. Aiming at a digital edition, the project has broken new ground. It acknowledged the many Arabic versions in their diversity as coexisting texts, and investigated them for the different aspects. The innovative approach tackled the problematic state of the sources that so far prevented a conventional critical edition. Through digital means the diverging manuscripts could be compared on the different levels. The digital tools allowed to chart the text’s metamorphosis without reduction or simplification.

The work’s very success has made its study complex due to the emergence of multiple versions. To date, the Arabic versions remain without a proper critical edition whereas in Europe Kalīla and Dimna is largely unknown today.

Because of its structure and variety, the chapters of Kalīla and Dimna are especially apt for the training of Arabic manuscript reading, transcription and translation skills.