NDA (II) 2022 General Ability Test · Question 121 of 150

Correct — B, Panchatantra. Kalila wa Dimna is the Arabic version of the Sanskrit Panchatantra, produced by Ibn al-Muqaffa around 750 CE. It did not come straight from Sanskrit: a Persian physician, Borzuy, had first rendered the text into Middle Persian in the sixth century, and Ibn al-Muqaffa worked from that. The title itself is the proof of descent — Kalila and Dimna are the Persian and Arabic forms of Karataka and Damanaka, the two jackals of the Panchatantra's first book, whose names came to stand for the whole collection.

• (a)Hitopadesha — The Hitopadesha is a later Sanskrit collection of animal fables in the same didactic tradition, and it is the sharpest distractor because it looks so much like the Panchatantra in form. But the Arabic Kalila wa Dimna traces to the Panchatantra, and the two jackals whose names give the Arabic book its title come from the Panchatantra's frame story.
• (c)Suryasiddhanta — The Suryasiddhanta is a Sanskrit treatise on astronomy, dealing with planetary motion and calculation. It is not a story collection at all, so it could not be the source of a book of talking-animal fables.
• (d)Kathasaritsagar — The Kathasaritsagara is a vast Sanskrit collection of tales compiled by Somadeva of Kashmir between 1063 and 1081 CE. It is far too late — the Arabic Kalila wa Dimna already existed by about 750 CE, roughly three centuries earlier.

The Panchatantra is a Sanskrit collection of interlinked animal fables framed as instruction in niti, the practical art of conduct and statecraft, given to three dull princes. Its prelude names a Brahmin, Vishnusharma, as the author, though scholars treat this as a fictitious attribution, and the current scholarly consensus places the text around 300 CE. It travelled further than almost any other Indian book, passing through Middle Persian and Arabic into Syriac, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and the modern European languages.

This question rewards knowing a transmission chain rather than a single fact, and the chain is short enough to memorise: Sanskrit Panchatantra, then Middle Persian by Borzuy in the sixth century, then Arabic as Kalila wa Dimna by Ibn al-Muqaffa around 750 CE. Both the Sanskrit manuscript that Borzuy used and his Persian version are lost, which is why the Arabic text is the pivotal surviving link for the whole later tradition. If the chain does not come to mind in the hall, the title is the clue — a book named after two jackals must come from the collection whose first and longest book is the story of those two jackals.

• Kalila wa Dimna is the Arabic version of the Panchatantra, made by Ibn al-Muqaffa around 750 CE.
• It was translated from a Middle Persian version produced by the physician Borzuy in the sixth century, not directly from Sanskrit.
• Kalila and Dimna are the altered forms of Damanaka and Karataka, the two jackals of the Panchatantra's first book.
• The Panchatantra's prelude attributes it to Vishnusharma, and scholarly consensus places the work around 300 CE.
• The Kathasaritsagara is a separate Sanskrit collection, compiled by Somadeva of Kashmir between 1063 and 1081 CE.

• Choosing the Hitopadesha because it is also a collection of animal fables in Sanskrit.
• Assuming the Arabic version was made directly from Sanskrit — it came through Middle Persian.
• Placing the Kathasaritsagara early; it is an eleventh-century compilation, later than the Arabic text.

As this source-of-a-translation item, as an author-and-work matching list, or as a chronology question ordering Sanskrit literary works.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Panchatantra is traditionally attributed to

  • (a)Somadeva
  • (b)Vishnusharma
  • (c)Bhasa
  • (d)Banabhatta

  Answer(b) Vishnusharma — the prelude names him as the Brahmin who composed the fables to instruct three princes, though scholars regard the attribution as fictitious.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Kathasaritsagara, a large Sanskrit collection of tales, was compiled by

  • (a)Kalidasa
  • (b)Somadeva
  • (c)Ibn al-Muqaffa
  • (d)Vishakhadatta

  Answer(b) Somadeva — a Shaiva Brahmin of Kashmir who compiled it in the eleventh century.