Nizami Ganjavi and Themes of “Kalileh and Demneh”

Abstract

Despite the fact that the 12th century Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi did not portray fairy-tales of “Kalileh and Demneh”, pearls of the ancient Oriental literature known all over the world in detailed form in his works, he has skillfully utilized their idea and demonstrated the most beautiful example to use the power of poetic speech to educate the spiritual-ethic values in each mankind. It is known that the familiarity of great Nizami Ganjavi with the ancient Indian monument was proved in separate moments, his direct address to “Kalileh and Demneh” is realized namely in the novel "Khosrow and Shirin". The article touched upon the issue of influence of themes related to “Kalileh and Demneh” to Nizami Ganjavi’s works and at the same time, the originality of approach of the genius master to the sage treasury containing narrations and stories created by the Indian people having highest educative and ethical importance in his famous love saga. In some fragments, the differences between the philological translation and the scientific-critical text of the poem in the part relating to the tales of “Kalileh and Demneh” have been demonstrated. During the research, the author has used the comparative method and hermeneutics; he has also touched upon the scientifi-cally-critical texts and philological translations of the poem “Khosrow and Shirin”, the texts of “Kalileh and Demneh”, translated into Persian and Azerbaijani languages, as well as the scientific-theoretical literature related to the textual criticism and the Oriental poetics.