Abstract

In the course of its history, Kalīla wa-Dimna turns from a mirror of kings and courtiers into a popular manual of practical ethics and philosophy. In this process two of its chapters which speak specifically to the administration of justice, or rather the miscarriage of justice, change under the pens of successive copyists more than others. The topic clearly prompted reactions from copyist-redactors, who deploy long individual additions in certain versions, changing the plot and developing the ethical positions of the characters. In the chapter of Lion and Jackal (which can be compared to its Mahābhārata source) copyist-redactors ventriloquize for the queen and the jackal, lecturing and reprimanding the king. In the chapter of Dimna’s Trail, which is a wholesale addition by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, elements of the former chapter are reused, and copyist-redactors likewise interfere substantially, showing that a ruler’s crime and its cover up with a mock trial was an issue that caught attention and occupied the minds.