Kashefi's Anvar-E Sohayli: Rewriting Kalila Wa-Dimna in Timurid Herat

Description

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. 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