Painting by Abu'l Hasan, from a manuscript closely resembling panchatantra

Dabshalim visits the sage Bidpay in his cave by Abu’l Hasan from a manuscript of the Anvar-I Suhayli of Husayn Kashifi

The Anvar-i Suhayli (Lights of Canopus) is an updated version of an earlier Persian classic, Nasr Allah’s Kalila and Dimna, which is a version via the Arabic, Syriac, and Pahlavi of an original book of fables in Sanskrit which resembles Panchathantra, a classic book of India, very closely. Though they have passed through many lands, they still retain their Indian character and their names are easily identifiable. Kalila and Dimna find their counterparts in the jackals Karataka and Damanaka who narrate the frame story of one of the books.

The chief narrator Bidpay and his interlocutor Dabshalim are the Sanskrit Vidyapati and Devasarma. This study of a meeting between the young king Dabshalim and the sage Bidpay was done by Abu’l Hasan, the son of Aqa Riza, a renowned painter, for Akbar’s son Salim who later became the emperor Jehangir in A.D. 1605.