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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
The Date of the Composition of Husayn Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi's Anvār-i Suhaylī is uncertain. It is conjectured that it must have been completed at the end of the ninth/fifteenth century, probably about the time that he wrote another famous work, the Akhlāq-i Muḥsinī. Since Kashifi died in 910/1504-05 “at a ripe old age,” this implies that he had probably already reached an age of experience and wisdom when he started to recast the collection of fables known as Kalīla wa Dimna.
This is not the place to go into detail about the rich and varied history of these fables, and of their adoption in most cultures of the ancient world. It will suffice to recall only the stages of the history of this text that are directly related to the late fifteenth- century Timurid version studied here.
The Pancatantra, the Sanskrit text on which Kalīla wa Dimna was based, was probably composed in Kashmir by an unknown Brahmin around 300 A.D. By using fables which had animals as the main characters, the text aimed at informing youths, who were destined for government posts, about the laws governing political life.
1. G. M. Wickens, “Anwār-e Sohaylī,” EIr, 2: 140.
2. See C. Brockelmann, “Kalīla wa Dimna,” EI 2, 4: 503–506, who cites Th. Benfey, , trans., Pantschatantra, fμnf Bμcher indischer Fabeln, Märchen und Erzählungen, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1859)Google Scholar. Information on the history and filiation of the different versions of these fables is taken from Brockelmann's article. For a complete bibliography, both on the illustrations as well as on the Kalīla wa Dimna and related texts, see E. J. Grube, “Prolegomena for a Corpus Publication of Illustrated Kalilah wa Dimnah Manuscripts,” Islamic Art 4 (1990–91): 454–81.
3. C. Huart, “Ibn al-Mukaffaᶜ,” EI 1, 3: 404–405, and F. Gabrieli, “Ibn al-Mukaffaᶜ,” EI 2, 2: 883–85. Ibn al-Muqaffaᶜ, Kalila wa Dimna, or the Fables of Bidpai, trans. Rev. W. Knatchbull (Oxford, 1819; repr. 1905).
4. Tusi, Asadi, Lughat-i Furs, ed. Dabirsiyaqi, M., 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1356/1977)Google Scholar.
5. Tarjuma-i Kalīla wa Dimna inshā-yi Abu’l-Maᶜālī Nasr Allāh Munshī, ed. M. Minovi (Tehran, 1343/1964).
6. Ibid., 24–25.
7. I have used the following two editions, Kashifi, Husayn Vaᶜiz-i, Anvār-i Suhaylī, ed. Ouseley, J. W. J. (Hertford, 1851)Google Scholar (henceforth Kashifi/Ouseley), and The First Book of the Anvar-i Suheli, The Persian Text, ed. Rev. Keene, H. G. (London, 1867)Google Scholar (henceforth Kashifi/Keene). There are apparently “innumerable” other editions of the text, particularly in India, which I have not used as they do not meet scholarly standards. I am unaware of any modern Iranian edition. The work has been translated into English: Anvar-i Suhaili; or The Lights of Canopus, Being the Persian Version of the Fables of Pilpai, or the Book of “Kalilah wa Dimnah,” Rendered into Persian by Husain Va’iz Kashifi, trans. Eastwick, Edward B., (London, 1854; repr. 1914)Google Scholar (henceforth Kashifi/Eastwick); and The Anwar-i Suhaili. Chapter I, trans. Wollaston, Arthur N. (London, 1878; repr. Bombay, 1925)Google Scholar (henceforth Kashifi/Wollaston). In his “Kāshifī, Kamāl al- Dīn Ḥusayn b. ᶜAlī,” EI 2, 4: 704, Gholam Hosein Yousofi indicates that, “Parts of the book have been printed in text and translation in Europe (see H. Ethé, Cat[alogue of] Pers[ian] M[anu]s[cript]s [in the] India Office Library, No. 757).”
8. Wickens, “Anwār-e Sohaylī,” 141.
9. Wickens, “Anwār-e Sohaylī,” 140.
10. Arberry, A. J., Classical Persian Literature (Richmond, 1958; repr. 1994), 404Google Scholar.
11. Browne, E. G., A Literary History of Persia (Cambridge, 1920), 3: 504Google Scholar.
12. See also Rypka, Jan, “Persian Literature to the Beginning of the 20th Century,” in Rypka, Jan, History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht-Holland, 1968), 313CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who echoes this condemnation: “In itself extremely popular and used moreover as a schoolbook, the Anvar-i Suhayli left an ineffaceable and unfortunately calamitous mark on Persian literary style.”
13. Kashifi/Wollaston, i.
14. Kashifi/Eastwick, vii.
15. Kashifi/Keene.
16. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 2: 352Google Scholar.
17. Ibid., 2: 351; Yousofi, “Kāshifī,” 704.
18. Wickens, “Anwār-e Sohaylī,” 140.
19. Kashifi/Ouseley, 9–11.
20. Steingass, F., A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary (Beirut, 1975; repr. of 1892 ed.), 833Google Scholar.
21. Ibid., 595.
22. Ibid., 47.
23. Subtelny, Maria E., “Scenes from the Literary Life of Timurid Herat,” in Logos Islamikos, ed. Savory, R. and Agius, D. (Toronto, 1984), 137–55Google Scholar.
24. Nasr Allah Munshi, Tarjuma-i Kalīla wa Dimna, 110–12; Kashifi/Keene, 161–68.
25. Nasr Allah Munshi, Tarjuma-i Kalīla wa Dimna, 105; Kashifi/Keene, 138.
26. Browne, A Literary History of Persia 3: 461Google Scholar. See also Subtelny, Maria Eva, “A Taste for the Intricate: The Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 136 (1986): 56–79Google Scholar.
27. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 2: 352–53Google Scholar. Three versions of the story of the fox and the drum are adduced by Browne as examples damning Kashifi's work.
28. Nasr Allah Munshi, Tarjuma-i Kalīla wa Dimna, 70–71.
29. Kashifi/Keene, 52–54.
30. Nasr Allah Munshi, Tarjuma-i Kalīla wa Dimna, 102–106.
31. Kashifi/Keene, 130–51.
32. This is where Kashifi leaves out the story of the bee and the water lily mentioned above.
33. Nasr Allah Monshi, Tarjuma-i Kalīla wa Dimna, 110–12.
34. Kashifi/Keene, 161–68.
35. Sajᶜ is the term denoting the use of prosodic elements in ornate prose. Besides this, the science of rhetoric consisted of ᶜilm-i maᶜānī, dealing with the semantic aspects; ᶜilm-i bayān, studying tropes and its subdivisions; and ᶜilm-i badīᶜ, examining the remaining figures of speech based on phonetic features and on meaning. There are three great names in Persian rhetoric: Raduyani (eleventh–twelfth century), author of the Tarjumān al-balāgha; Rashid al-Din Vatvat (end of the twelfth century), author of Ḥadāᵓiq-i siḥr; and the thirteenth-century Shams-i Qays author of al-Muᶜjam fī maᶜāyir ashᶜār al-ᶜAjam. Kashifi himself has also written on rhetoric (see the paper by Marta Simidchieva in this volume). Unfortunately we were unable to consult this work.
36. Nasr Allah Munshi, Kalīla wa Dimna, 111.
37. Thiesen, Finn, Classical Persian Prosody (Wiesbaden, 1982), xiGoogle Scholar.
