Calila e Dimna

Compendium of stories of Hindu origin (derived from the work known as Panchatantra), with a beautiful story behind, since the text was stolen, as added in the later introductions of the book itself, by a Persian doctor from the secrets of India and then it arrived in Europe through the hands of an Arabic translation. King Alfonso X of Castile, "the wise king", had it translated into Spanish during his youth at the dawn of the appearance of this language on the face of the earth.

If the story behind this text is fascinating, both the theft mentioned previously, and its creation (of which we deliberately omit any detail so that the reader who does not yet know the work can enjoy it in its fullness, that is, through it itself), the content itself is no less so. The wise man who devised the work decided to use the way of the fable, a noble story, as we well know, to put certain behaviors in the mouths of animals that lead to certain things happening, in a kind of action-reaction effect. These facts are exemplary because from them we can deduce teachings that were originally directed to kings and nobles, but that today we can all enjoy.

The way of the fable was used in this case to promote the diffusion of the work and its understanding; on the one hand, the scholars would know how to extract the underlying juice from the dialogues while the less cultivated would entertain themselves in seeing how the animals spoke and what things happened to them.

It is, in short, a brilliant text, necessary and, as is usually the tradition in these cases, slightly forgotten, or simply because it is a classic among classics, the average citizen does not care about it because he thinks that "there will already be some scholar" who will keep the flame of wisdom that oozes from Calila e Dimna alive.