100 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH you?royal power, and the capacity of the courtiers to strike back, perme-
ates the fables. Intertwined with that reading is the argument that the
jackal is not suited for kingship because he is a jackal. This argument
is developed in a series of other tales.
For example, in the framing story of the third book (3-01), birds-
geese, cranes, cuckoos, peacocks, owls, pigeons, partridges, skylarks,
etc.-come together to elect a king because Garuda the bird king is
preoccupied and negligent in his duty to care for his subjects. The so-
ciety of birds debates and decides to elect the owl, who has convinced
them of his wisdom. However, just as they are about to crown him
king, a crow interrupts the procession. The crow points out that the
owl's nature is fierce, cruel,.terrifying, and evil minded: he will be un-
able to protect his subjects. The collective of birds decides ·against
electing the owl.^41 Similar to the story of the indigo jackal, the tale
of the owl addresses the ruler's character, foregrounding the capacity of
the ruled to counsel and to confederate to protect the greater good.
This recognition of mutual difference between the ruler and the ruled
and the incommensurability between the nature of one animal and
that of another is demonstrated throughout Pancatantra. Pancatan-
tra's tales and its mode of advice may have entered Chachnama di-
rectly in Sind and Gujarat, or it could have come via translation from
Arabic. 'Awfi, for example, also translated Arabic advice literature
into Persian.
The route for Panctantra through Arabic is better known but bears
repetition here, for it solidifies our picture of a vibrant advice tradition.
These tales, with their divergent meanings and gentle assertions of
difference, first entered the Pahlavi Sassanian court of Khusru Anush-
irwan (d. 579) and then were transcreated into Arabic by Abdallah ibn
Muqaffa in 750 CE as Kalila wa Dimna. Ibn Muqaffa' (d. ca. 756), trans-
lated the framing story of King Amrasakti to King Khusr and his phi-
losopher physician Burzoy, who travels to India to acquire scientific
knowledge and wisdom about governance. The tales concern the jackal
Dimna, who is striving to acquire power by any means necessary, and
his brother Kalila, who tries to dissuade him through moral teachings.
The two are advisors to the king of the beasts-the lion-and they
eventually are tried and executed after Kalila's scheme to become king
fails. In Kalila wa Dimna, Muqaffa'-who wrote a series of other works