Burzoe

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Burzoe (Bozorgmehr or Borzoyeh or Borzuy) (from Arabic برزويه is the Arabicized form of the Persian بزرگمهر pron. Bozorgmehr) was a wise Iranian physician and politician who lived during the Persian Sassanid Empire in the sixth century. He was the vizier of Khosrau I.

He translated the Indian Panchatantra from Sanskrit into the Middle Persian language of Pahlavi. But both his translation and the original Sanskrit version he worked from are now lost. Before it was lost,however, his Pahlavi version was translated in Arabic by Ibn al-Mafuqqa under the title of Kalila and Dimna or The Fables of Bidpai and became one the Arabs' greatest prose classics. The book Kalila and Dimna contains fables in which animals interact in complex ways to convey teachings to princes in polity. Burzoe was a chess master and is said to have created the game "Backgammon" in its ancient version.