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They were supposed to have proceeded entirely from two sources; one the Directorium Humanae Vitae of John of Capua, translated between 1262-78 from a Hebrew version, which again came from an Arabic version of the 8th century, which came from a Pehlvi version made by one Barzouyeh, at the command of Chosrou Noushirvan, King of Persia, in the 6th century, which again came from the Pantcha Tantra, a Sanscrit original of unknown antiquity.
Let this be the prize; whoever beats the other in a race, let him have them all'. 'So be it', said the two fools, and set off running, but Putraka put on the shoes at once, and flew away with the staff and bowl up into the clouds'. Well, this is a story neither in the Pantcha Tantra nor the Hitopadesa, the Sanscrit originals of Calila and Dimna.
A single question will prove this. How did the fables and apologues which are found in Aesop, and which are also found in the Pantcha Tantya and the Hitopadesa come West? That they came from the East is certain; but by what way, certainly not by translations or copying, for they had travelled west long before translations were thought of.
Here too, as in so many other things, we have a proof that the world is older than we think it. The Beast-Fables in the Pantcha Tantra and the Hitopadesa, the Indian parallels to Aesop, reveal, in the connection in which they occur, and in the moral use to which they are put, a state of society long past that simple early time in which such fictions arise.
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