t but that it
originated with Ibn Moqaffa. I would also claim, for Ibn Moqaffa the
somewhat unimportant history of the anchorite and his guest. The manner
of his narrative we learn from his own preface. It is especially to be
noted that here also as in the trial of Dimna he recounts anecdotes
after the Indian fashion.

[Sidenote: Ibn Moqaffa's religious scepticism.]

It is accordingly not impossible that in our Burzoe chapter there are a
few things which have originated not with the Persian physician of old
but with Ibn Moqaffa; and this, I presume, as I showed long ago,
specially from the disquisition on enquiry into the uncertainty of
religions. It appears much more to fit in with Ibn Moqaffa than Burzoe.

Ibn Moqaffa exchanged the religion of his Persian fathers for Islam only
in his mature years,--certainly not because he saw in the latter perfect
verity but because probably he was not satisfied with Zoroastrianism
with which he was intimately familiar or with any of the other religions
which in his time flourished openly or in secret in Iraq which was "the
heart of the Empire". To such a man the scepticism of our section is
natural, a fact which does not make it impossible that certain
principles which were common to all the religions intimately known to
the author remained also self-evident to Ibn Moqaffa,--such as God as
the Creator, and the next world with its reward and penalties. Had Ibn
Moqaffa, in his own name confessed to such religious doubts publicly no
patron could have saved him from capital punishment. On the other hand
he ran no risk in ascribing the questionable exposition to the Persian
long since dead, who, however, supposing that he harboured such doubts
could not have given expression to them as a physician attached to the
Imperial Court of Persia. The belief in an inexorable fate which is
evident in this chapter as well as in the entire portion attributable to
Ibn Moqaffa could have been cherished, no doubt, also by a Mazdyasnian.
This doctrine, therefore, speaks neither for nor against the authorship
of Ibn Moqaffa. Equally far from decisive is the exhortation to pure
morality which finds expression there.

I am confirmed in my view that the passage on the unconvincing nature of
religions proceeded from Ibn Moqaffa by a few couplets in the
_Shahnama_. (Mohl vol. 5, 53 ff; Macan 1293). The king of India called
Kaid has several dreams which are interpreted to him by the sage Mihran.
The third