The Arabic redaction of the Indian tales which we know under the name of Kalila wa Dimna had two unquestionably genuine Introductions, that of the compilator Ibn Moqaffa himself who died in 142 A.H., and that of Burzoe who in the time of King Khusrow I, (A.D. 531 to 579) brought the book from India and translated it into the written Persian language of the time, the Pehlevi. The circumstances regarding the mission of Burzoe to India are still not clear. At any rate Ibn Moqaffa did not write as we read them now.
Nevertheless it is by no means improbable that he had affixed to his book a report which, however, wan subsequently mutilated, of necessity, in diverse ways. The preface by Ala-ibn-Shah or Behbod, which has also been printed by de Sacy, which is found in a few manuscripts and which is not known to the ancient translations is a later and entirely valueless excrescence.
The Introduction of Burzoe stood in the Pehlevi work which Ibn Moqaffa had before him. According to certain manuscripts this Introduction has been compiled—or however we translate the ambiguous term tarjuma—by Burzgmihir, the prime minister of Khusrow, much better known in polite literature than in history.
[Naturally I do not deny altogether that Burzgmihir was a historical personage but he possessed by no means the importance which the tradition in question ascribes to him. The ascription is purely an erroneous inference from the above-mentioned report of the circumstances touching the mission of Burzoe, has not the slightest inherent probability, and is besides wanting not only in other manuscripts but also in all the older translations.]
We cannot question the fact that this section of the Arabic work in the main reproduces the Introduction composed by the Chief physician Burzoe himself to the book translated by him into Pehlevi from an Indian language. That language as Hertel has shown was Sanskrit, which fact, however, does not preclude the possibility of an Indian interpreter translating the original text to the Persian who spoke a modern Indian tongue. Several passages speak to the fact that the author of the Introduction is the physician. Why should Ibn Moqaffa pretend that Burzoe earnestly studied medicine and practised it? Moreover, the section is familiar with those principles of Indian medicine of which Ibn Moqaffa could otherwise know little and the exposition of which he had no call to deal with. The entire situation seems to me to harmonise with the circumstances of the Persian physician. Specially noteworthy is the encomium on the Persian sovereign.
[Sidenote: Ibn Moqaffa took liberties with the Pehlevi.]
This is, however, not equivalent to saying that the Arabic text is an exact replica, down to details, of the original of Burzoe. In the first place it has to be observed that Ibn Moqaffa was no pure translator at all but a regular redactor of his model. His object was to prepare a work suitable to the taste of his highly educated readers and at the same time entertaining and instructive. He proceeded, therefore, not only with a tolerably free hand as an artist in words but added good many things of his own. Above all here we have to bear in mind the trial of Dimna. That this chapter is an addition by a Muslim who would not let pass in silence the acknowledgement of clever but demeaning intrigue was already recognised by Benfey and we need not doubt but that it originated with Ibn Moqaffa. I would also claim, for Ibn Moqaffa the somewhat unimportant history of the anchorite and his guest. The manner of his narrative we learn from his own preface. It is especially to be noted that here also as in the trial of Dimna he recounts anecdotes after the Indian fashion.
[Sidenote: Ibn Moqaffa's religious scepticism.]
It is accordingly not impossible that in our Burzoe chapter there are a few things which have originated not with the Persian physician of old but with Ibn Moqaffa; and this, I presume, as I showed long ago, specially from the disquisition on enquiry into the uncertainty of religions. It appears much more to fit in with Ibn Moqaffa than Burzoe.
Ibn Moqaffa exchanged the religion of his Persian fathers for Islam only in his mature years,—certainly not because he saw in the latter perfect verity but because probably he was not satisfied with Zoroastrianism with which he was intimately familiar or with any of the other religions which in his time flourished openly or in secret in Iraq which was "the heart of the Empire". To such a man the scepticism of our section is natural, a fact which does not make it impossible that certain principles which were common to all the religions intimately known to the author remained also self-evident to Ibn Moqaffa,—such as God as the Creator, and the next world with its reward and penalties. Had Ibn Moqaffa, in his own name confessed to such religious doubts publicly no patron could have saved him from capital punishment. On the other hand he ran no risk in ascribing the questionable exposition to the Persian long since dead, who, however, supposing that he harboured such doubts could not have given expression to them as a physician attached to the Imperial Court of Persia. The belief in an inexorable fate which is evident in this chapter as well as in the entire portion attributable to Ibn Moqaffa could have been cherished, no doubt, also by a Mazdyasnian. This doctrine, therefore, speaks neither for nor against the authorship of Ibn Moqaffa. Equally far from decisive is the exhortation to pure morality which finds expression there.