Kashefi's Anvar-e Sohayli (15th c. A.D.) is a Persian rewriting of the timeless and influential Kalila wa-Dimna text, done at the Timurid court. Christine van Ruymbeke offers a first in-depth analysis of the contents and style of this important text and also addresses the Kalila wa-Dimna field across its full rewriting history. This analysis shows how Kashefi's additions function as an invaluable commentary that opens up our understanding and the appreciation of this seminal text. This studies revisits several received ideas and current misapprehensions about the text and shows why it has been such an international best-seller before being unjustly relegated to children's literature. In Van Ruymbeke's words, Kalila wa-Dimna is a grim text, exposing the mechanisms of sophisticated psychological manipulation and exploring universal philosophical themes, known since Antiquity and still relevant today.
Author(s): Christine van Ruymbeke
Series: Studies in Persian Cultural History, 11
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: 428
City: Leiden
Contents
Preface
Research Strategy
Positioning the AS within the KD Field
Mapping Out My Book
Practical Information
Acknowledgments
List of Stories and Taxonomy
Table of Contents of the AS1
Taxonomy
Chapter 1 – Kāshefi Composes the Anvār-e Sohayli
1 The Author and the Patron
2 The Contents of Kāshefi’s Dibācheh
3 Rewriting Nasrollah Monshi’s KD Version
4 The Subject Matter of the AS
5 The Table of Contents
Chapter 2 – Being Pernickety about “Animal Fables”
1 Fussing about “Fables”
2 Nit-picking on Zabān-e Vohush?
3 Animals as Unstable Emblems
4 A Bevy of Human Actors
5 Humans and Animals
6 Why Write Animal Stories for a Political Audience?
Chapter 3 – The Biggest Bees in Kāshefi’s Bonnet: A ThematicAnalysis
1 Mirrors for Princes
2 Seeking Useful Friends and Genuine Comrades
3 Introducing the Trickster-Rhetorician
Chapter 4 – Building Appreciation for “Tasteless Bombast”
1 Kāshefi’s “Degenerate Style”
2 Prosimetrum
3 The Effect of the Verse Quotations and Eqtebās
Chapter 5 – Topical Web, Structural Maze
1 The New Double Outer Frame
2 The Fourteen Main Stories
3 The Embedded Sub-Stories
4 Shiruyeh Knew That the First Bāb is the Book in a Nutshell
Chapter 6 – The Skeleton
1 A Skeleton in the Cupboard of Persian Literary Studies!
2 Sir William’s 1771 Sugarchest
3 A Language Exercise
Chapter 7 – A Collaborative Effort: The “Noble” HereditaryLine of KD Versions and Translations in the PersianTradition
1 Concerns, Doubts and Queries
2 The Lost Sanskrit Text
3 Borzuyeh’s Lost Pahlavi Text
4 The Old Syriac Version
5 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s Arabic KD
6 Balʿami’s and Rudaki’s Opus Geminum
7 Nasrollah Monshi’s KD Prosimetrum
Chapter 8 – Conclusions
Bibliography
Index
