So, lets talk about one of the great world classics, the Panchatantra. Compiled sometime between 30BCE-200CE, the work is likely the most widely circulated text of the pre-global age. By the year 1200, the Sanskrit original was in: Latin, Persian, Arabic, Pali, and more! 1/

The work is a collection of fables, with links to Buddhist Jatakas, and several notable stories shared with Aesop. To get a sense of this book, just consider this insane translation chart (source- wikipedia): 2/

I came to it through trying to figure out something about our @UCLALSC copy, which is the same as the Herzog August copy linked to this ISTC entry: https://data.cerl.org/istc/ij00268000 
I was pulled in by a early Spanish translation at the LOC with adorable manicules https://www.loc.gov/item/49039595/  3/

At UCLA, we also have a Persian MS edition (likely a 16th century Safavid copy), and the first Italian vernacular translation, which served as the source for the English version.

Now the question is: how can we think through this for #globalbookhistory?

Some notable features of this work make it a useful case study. It spread throughout the Arabographic, Perisiographic, Europe and South and SE Asia (what do we call the South Asian derived script world?)anyways all Phoenician derived scripts have the stories) )

But interestingly, even though versions of the text have been excavated in Xinjiang, the book never made it into East Asia via classical Chinese (literary Sinitic) (individual tales did filter through in Buddhist texts).
5/

Anyhow, this is a pattern I see constantly. Just two further examples, if you consider stories of Alexander the Great - or the word daftar (meaning register), you find the same sorts of patterns 6/

Now, for fear of saying anything else stupid, I will end this thread with the simple - "Hmmm, I wonder why?" and leave it so some silk road language monsters to explain.