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chap, xlii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 389 read and admired in the assembly of Nushirvan and his nobles. The Indian original and the Persian copy have long since dis- appeared ; but this venerable monument has been saved by the curiosity of the Arabian caliphs, revived in the modern Persic, the Turkish, the Syriac, the Hebrew, and the Greek idioms, and transfused through successive versions into the modern languages of Europe. In their present form the peculiar character, the manners and religion of the Hindoos, are com- pletely obliterated ; and the intrinsic merit of the fables of Pilpay is far inferior to the concise elegance of Phsedrus and the native graces of La Fontaine. Fifteen moral and political sentences are illustrated in a series of apologues ; but the com- position is intricate, the narrative prolix, and the precept obvious and barren. Yet the Brachman may assume the merit of in- venting a pleasing fiction, which adorns the nakedness of truth, and alleviates, perhaps, to a royal ear the harshness of instruc- tion. With a similar design to admonish kings that they are strong only in the strength of their subjects, the same Indians invented the game of chess, which was likewise introduced into Persia under the reign of Nushirvan. cr ' The son of Kobad found his kingdom involved in a war with peace and the successor of Constantine ; and the anxiety of his domestic the W1 situation inclined him to grant the suspension of arms, which A .D m 533 S 539 Justinian was impatient to purchase. Chosroes saw the Koman 620, edit. Roman). 3. In French, from the Turkish, dedicated, in 1540, to Sultan Soliinan : Contes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokman, par MM. Galland et Cardonne, Paris, 1778, 3 vols, in 12mo. Mr. Wharton (History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 129-131) takes a larger scope. [These fables formed the collec- tion entitled the Panchatantra. They are translated from Sanskrit into German by Theodore Benfey, who in the first volume of his famous work (Pantschatantra, 1859) gives a full account of the origin and diffusion of the fables. There is no reason to doubt that they were translated into Pehlevi in Nushirvan's reign (cp. Benfey, op. cit. i. p. 6, footnote) and from this translation was made in the 8th century the extant Arabic version (ed. by Silvestre de Sacy, " Calila et Dimna on fables de Bidpai," 1816 ; English translation by Knatchbull, 1819). Then this Arabic version was translated into Persian (12th century) by Nasr Allah, and a free re- cension of this version by Husain Vai'z was done into English by Eastwick, 1854. In the Greek translation of Seth the title is not Kalilah and Dimnah, but " Stephanites and Ichnelates ". It has been edited critically by V. Puntoni (1889). A Syriac version has been edited by W. Wright (1884), and translated into English by Keith Falconer (1885). See further, Benfey, op. cit.; Krumbaeher, Gesoh. der byz. Litt. p. 895. It may be added that Bidpai was a philosopher who appears in some of the fables ; and their authorship was ascribed to him by the Arabic translator.] 65 See the Historia Shahiludii of Dr. Hyde (Syntagm. Dissertat. torn. ii. p. 61- 69). [Van der Linde, Geschichte und Litteratur des Schachspiels, 1874 ; D. Forbes, History of Chess, I860.]