Bidpai, also PILPAY, the reputed author of a collection of fables and stories widely circulated both in the East and West, of which the earliest extant form exists in an Arabic version of about 750 A.D. The original was an Indian collection of tales which are not now in existence, but of which the Panchatantra (q.v.), and to a lesser degree the Mahābhārata (q.v.) and the Hitopadesa (q.v.), contain each a part, though in a modernised and artificially elaborated form. Of this Indian original, the classical and elegant Arabic version, Kalilah wa Dīmanah, already spoken of, is a substantially faithful reproduction. It was not made, however, direct from the Sanskrit, but from a lost Pehlevi version, the parent also of an incomplete old Syriac version, dating from about 570, which was discovered in the episcopal library at Mardin at the time of the Vatican Council, and published in 1876 by Bickell with an introduction by Benfey. Save this, every known version of the book descended directly or indirectly from the Arabic version of Abdullah-ibn-Almokaffa of 750. This work as it exists is made up of three elements: Indian, Persian, and Arabic, three chapters being Persian, and six appearing first in the Arabic version, while twelve chapters are of Indian and Buddhist origin. Of these last, five correspond to the five chapters composing the Panchatantra, two appear in the first book thereof, three are found in the Mahābhārata, and two seem to have fallen out of the Indian literature altogether. However, if Buddhism originated the book, it was Islam which transmitted it to Europe, for no fewer than five different translations were made from the Arabic version—into Syriac (10th or 11th century); Greek (about 1080 by Symeon Seth); Persian (about 1120, a somewhat free translation, known as that of Nasrullah); Hebrew (13th century by Jacob ben Eleazar); and Old Spanish (1251, from which Raimund's Latin version was made in 1313). A somewhat earlier Hebrew version formed the basis of the Directorium (about 1270) of John of Capua, a converted Jew; which in turn gave rise to German by Graf Eberhard (about 1480); Spanish, the Exemplario (1493); Italian, (Doni's Moral Filosofia (1552), and Firenzuola's Discorsi degli Animali (1548); French; English (1570); Danish (1618); and Dutch (1623) versions. The English edition was a rendering by Sir Thomas North (1570) of the Italian Moral Filosofia of Doni. The Persian of Nasrullah gave birth to the Anwâri-Suhaili, or 'Nights of Canopus the Star' (late in 15th century), of Husain Wâ'iz, which in turn gave rise to the Turkish Humâyûn Nâmah, or 'Imperial Book' (early in 16th century).
As to the original transmission of the book from India, the story is told that the Persian king Khosrû Nûshirvân (531-79), hearing of its existence in India, despatched his physician Barzöye to India to procure and translate a copy of it into Pehlevi, the literary dialect of Persia. Its translator into the older Syriac version was an ecclesiastic named Bûd (or Bôd); into Arabic, the elegant and accomplished but ill-fated scholar, 'Abdullah Ibn-al-Mokaffa.' Of this work each chapter forms a story which is supposed to have been related to a king of India by his philosopher, Baidaba or Bidpai, to point some moral. The story itself is simple in form, but usually branches out into a number of parenthetical stories, conversations, and sayings. In many of the stories animals play parts, and act as if men and women. With the chapter on the lion and the ox, or how two friends may be set at variance by a crafty interloper—the fifth in De Sacy's text—we enter on the original Indian book. The name given to the book, in Arabic Katilah and Dimnah, in Syriac Katilag and Dumnah, is derived from the Indian names of the two jackals who take a principal part in this story. Perhaps the most pleasing story in the book is that of the ringdove, or the love of sincere friends. The 14th chapter in De Sacy, the story of the king and his dreams, is unmistakably Buddhist, the Brahmins in it being presented in the most odious light. In this story none of the parts are taken by animals. The account of the mission of Barzöye to India, and his biography, are given in all the versions except the later Syriac just before the story of the lion and the ox, and after the table of contents. The prominent part which asceticism plays in this biography Benfey connects with Buddhism, then in full vigour in India.
An eclectic text of the Arabic version was edited by Silvestre de Sacy (Paris, 1816), and has been translated into English by Knatchbull (Oxford, 1819), and into German by Phillip Wolff (2 vols. Stutt. 1839). The later Syriac version was edited by Professor Wright (1884), and was translated into English, with an excellent introduction, by the late I. G. N. Keith-Falconer (1885).—See also Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai sur les Fables Indiennes (Paris, 1838); Max Müller, 'On the Migration of Fables,' in vol. iii. (1880) of Chips from a German Workshop; and Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories (1880).