UC Riverside

My dissertation explores the role of the translator-as-author in the work, Kalīlah and Dimnah. The material history of the Kalīlah offers a new perspective on translation; while the text we have today originates in Arabic, the different Arabic manuscript versions come from the translation of a Pahlavi text, which itself is a heavily edited translation of multiple mutable Sanskrit texts. This history prompts the question, how do we talk about translation without an original work and author? I examine the works of three translators – Barzawayh in Pahlavi, Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ in Arabic, and Alfonso X in Castilian, whose interventions become part of the Kalīlah’s narrative itself. Barzawayh and Ibn al-Muqaffa‘’s names are retained in most versions of the Kalīlah, which establishes a tradition of authorship that is passed on through translation. I examine how the introductory chapters of Barzawayh and Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ – as instructions for the reader, both reinforce the didactic philosophy of the “original” Kalīlah as well as establish the translators’ interpretations of the work. While Alfonso X has written only a colophon at the end, his epithet El Sabio, “The Learned” king guides us to read his Kalīlah through his sagacity. I specifically focus on how Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and Alfonso X contributed to their respective language traditions through their Kalīlah translations, importing the interpreted wisdom of the translators who came before them; Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and Alfonso X are therefore recognized alongside Barzawayh as the authors, or translator-authors, of the work. Further, especially because the original Persian, Arabic, and Castilian manuscripts are lost, the names of these translators become almost apocryphal. More than historical markers of the text, these three translators have become hermeneutical models of reading. The Kalīlah is a text both in translation and of translation, where translation as the transfer of knowledge is the foundation of the narrative. This understanding does not prioritize an original work or its author in translation, but rather indicates a pluralistic lineage of authorship in Kalīlah and Dimnah.