Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I by Konstantin Aleksandrovich Inostrantzev
page 85 of 175 (48%)
page 85 of 175 (48%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
influenced by the Buddhist romance, the original of which has perished
and the best representative of which, is preserved to us in the Arabic _Bilauhar wa Budasf_ (See _Barlaam und Joasaph_ by E. Kuhn). Many a passage of our chapter is strongly reminiscent of the sentences of the romance, for instance, the dangers to the body remind one of those related at p. 53; the four principles or _akhalat_ appear at p. 9, and the parable of the man in the well is common to both. The parable which stands at the close of the chapter is, unless one is greatly mistaken, directly taken from the romance with little modification. It stands in the whole of _Kalila wa Dimna_ isolated, deviates in manner and tendency entirely from the story and also from what has issued from Ibn Moqaffa but is consistent with the monastic predilections of Burzoe. And his appraisement of the life of the recluse does not appear spontaneous but something to which he has laboriously compelled himself. One may surmise that it was really alive only in India. How far it was practised in actual life must remain unproved. We must not omit to mention that Burzoe points out that for an ideal physician his art earns also rich earthly profits. [Sidenote: English translation of the Introduction a desideratum.] So far as I know, of this chapter there is no translation in a European language except in the English by Knatchbull which appeared in 1819, which reproduced the imperfect text of de Sacy and is otherwise defective. Wolff did well to omit it in his German translation of _Kalila wa Dimna_ of 1837, for he could not have produced a correct rendering of de Sacy's text which was not completed till 1873 by Guidi. [Sidenote: Difficulties of translation.] |
|