THE CHARACTER OF BARZAWAYH IN AN ANONYMOUS SYRIAC TRANSLATION OF IBN AL-MUQAFFAC’S KALĪLA AND DIMNA
THE CHARACTER OF BARZAWAYH IN AN ANONYMOUS SYRIAC TRANSLATION OF IBN AL-MUQAFFAC’S KALĪLA AND DIMNA

Summary/Abstract: This paper is meant to look into the manner in which the character of Barzawayh, the Persian physician who reputedly brought from India and translated into Middle Persian the book whose Arabic version would become, under the title Kalīla wa-Dimna, a fixture of high and popular literature in the Arab world and, through subsequent translations, beyond, is portrayed in an anonymous Syriac translation of the Arabic version of the book authored by cAbd Allāh b. al-Muqaffac. We will be looking at the significant changes that the text has incurred in the process of its translation and have a bearing on the way in which the “Syriacized” Barzawayh acquires distinctive features that set him aside from his counterpart in the text of Ibn al-Muqaffac, with the aim of also determining the extent to which these changes can be correlated with stylistic choices or proclivities of the translator or can be traced back to ideological leanings specific to his cultural and/or religious background.

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