Persian Manuscripts Association Hosts Dr Theodore Beers for Its Fourth Monthly Talk of 2025
A Review of Early Manuscripts of Nasr Allah Munshi’s Kalila va Dimna
The Persian Manuscripts Association is honoured to welcome Dr Theodore Beers as the guest speaker for its April 2025 lecture, the fourth lecture in this year’s monthly talk series. Dr Beers, a distinguished scholar of classical Persian literature, will present a talk titled ‘A Review of Early Manuscripts of Naṣrallāh Munshī’s Kalīla va Dimna’. His work offers fresh insights into one of the foundational texts of Persian prose, and the PMA team is delighted to host him for what promises to be a rich and illuminating session.
A Review of Early Manuscripts of Nasr Allah munshi’s Kalila va Dimna by Dr Theodore Beers, April 2025
This presentation will focus on early manuscripts of the Persian version of Kalīla and Dimna—a book of (mostly) animal fables that is a classic of premodern world literature—by Naṣrallāh Munshī, written at the Ghaznavid court ca. 540/1145–46. Naṣrallāh’s text is considered one of the foundational works of classical Persian prose literature.
Among its noteworthy characteristics is that a few very early manuscript copies have survived, the oldest of which is dated 551/1156. In fact, although this Persian Kalīla and Dimna is based on the Arabic version attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (ca. 750 CE), the very earliest extant copies of the Arabic are more recent, from the seventh/thirteenth century! The talk will discuss the curious phenomenon of the well-preserved codicology of Naṣrallāh Munshī’s work, showing example pages from three or four early manuscripts (as time permits).
Unsurprisingly, these Persian manuscripts from the sixth/twelfth and seventh/thirteenth century have interesting features of their own, in terms of orthography, calligraphic style, text layout, and more.
Dr Theodore Beer
Theodore Beers (PhD, University of Chicago, 2020) is a historian of classical Persian literature, with particular interests in premodern literary exchange between Persian and Arabic, and in the development of digital corpora and tools to strengthen the study of these traditions. He is currently based at Drexel University in Philadelphia as a research software engineer, and he also maintains an affiliation with the Kalīla and Dimna Project at the Freie Universität Berlin.
Dr Theodore Beers, PhD, Drexel University, Philadelphia
17 April 2025, 5 – 7 pm BST
Online Lecture on Zoom
Persian Manuscripts Association (PMA)
The Persian Manuscripts Association (PMA) is an international academic organisation dedicated to the study of manuscripts from the vast Persianate world. This includes Greater Iran, and all regions historically engaged in the Persian language and culture.
The PMA is a welcoming institution supporting interdisciplinary research and discourse in Persian studies across all relevant fields, including but not limited to history, literature, music, art, architecture, archaeology, codicology, paleography, philosophy, and the sciences.
For more information about the PMA’s monthly talks, visit https://persianmanuscripts.org/2025-2/.
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