Kalīla wa-Dimna or Kelileh o Demneh (Persian: کلیله و دمنه) is a collection of fables.
A remarkable animal character is the lion, who plays the role of the king; he has a servant ox Shetrebah, while the two jackals of the title, Kalila and Dimna, appear both as narrators and as protagonists.
[5] His work, later edited by his mentor Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani, has been used as a reference while determining the possible original text, along with an earlier unfinished translation by King David I of Kakheti.
[10] Ibn al-Muqaffa's translation of the Middle Persian manuscript of Kalila and Dimna is considered a masterpiece of Arabic and world literature.
La Fontaine, in the preface to his second collection of Fables, explicitly acknowledged his debt to "the Indian sage Pilpay".