ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on data drawn from the literary field, not translation studies. It uses the latter to illuminate the current scholarship around the Kalīla and Dimna, an iconic text in the history of Arabic and Persian translations. This chapter analyzes data contained in the authorial prefaces of Ibn al-Muqaffa’, the eighth-century Arabic translator of a putative Pahlavi source text, and of Nasrullāh Munshī, its twelfth-century Persian re-translator, as well as the evidence provided by their texts. It shows what an interesting case study the Kalīla and Dimna can be for concepts and theories developed by current translation scholarship.
