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Updated: June 5, 2025
It is accordingly not impossible that in our Burzoe chapter there are a few things which have originated not with the Persian physician of old but with Ibn Moqaffa; and this, I presume, as I showed long ago, specially from the disquisition on enquiry into the uncertainty of religions. It appears much more to fit in with Ibn Moqaffa than Burzoe.
The circumstances regarding the mission of Burzoe to India are still not clear. At any rate Ibn Moqaffa did not write as we read them now. Nevertheless it is by no means improbable that he had affixed to his book a report which, however, wan subsequently mutilated, of necessity, in diverse ways.
The parable which stands at the close of the chapter is, unless one is greatly mistaken, directly taken from the romance with little modification. It stands in the whole of Kalila wa Dimna isolated, deviates in manner and tendency entirely from the story and also from what has issued from Ibn Moqaffa but is consistent with the monastic predilections of Burzoe.
This is, however, not equivalent to saying that the Arabic text is an exact replica, down to details, of the original of Burzoe. In the first place it has to be observed that Ibn Moqaffa was no pure translator at all but a regular redactor of his model. His object was to prepare a work suitable to the taste of his highly educated readers and at the same time entertaining and instructive.
The preface by Ala-ibn-Shah or Behbod, which has also been printed by de Sacy, which is found in a few manuscripts and which is not known to the ancient translations is a later and entirely valueless excrescence. The Introduction of Burzoe stood in the Pehlevi work which Ibn Moqaffa had before him.
And his appraisement of the life of the recluse does not appear spontaneous but something to which he has laboriously compelled himself. One may surmise that it was really alive only in India. How far it was practised in actual life must remain unproved. We must not omit to mention that Burzoe points out that for an ideal physician his art earns also rich earthly profits.
That language as Hertel has shown was Sanskrit, which fact, however, does not preclude the possibility of an Indian interpreter translating the original text to the Persian who spoke a modern Indian tongue. Several passages speak to the fact that the author of the Introduction is the physician. Why should Ibn Moqaffa pretend that Burzoe earnestly studied medicine and practised it?
Again the passage does not fit in with the tenor of the entire section. For Burzoe who was at a loss with regard to the physician's art, the main question is, whether he should or should not become an ascetic, a question which must concern Ibn Moqaffa but little.
We cannot question the fact that this section of the Arabic work in the main reproduces the Introduction composed by the Chief physician Burzoe himself to the book translated by him into Pehlevi from an Indian language.
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