Worldwide Dispersal and Diffusion
It is impossible to say how far back in time teaching stories go. Shah's collection World Tales includes the Tale of Two Brothers, an ancient Egyptian story from around the 12th century BC. Jataka tales from India as far back as the 3rd century BC have travelled westwards via the Panchatantra and have long been recognised as having a teaching function. An example is The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal which made its first appearance In Europe some 900 years ago in Petrus Alphonsi's collection of tales, the Disciplina Clericalis (which, according to E.L. Ranelagh, could be translated as "a course of study for the reader").
The Blind men and an elephant is a well-known tale that has been used among Jainists, Buddhists and Hindus in India, as well as by Persian Sufi writers Sanai of Ghazni, Attar of Nishapur and Rumi. Shah's Tales of the Dervishes, a collection of narratives gathered from classical Sufi texts and oral sources spanning a period from the 7th to the 20th centuries, gives Sanai's version.
Parallels with other religious traditions are obvious, wherever narratives are used instructionally rather than to generate or perpetuate belief or conformity. Examples might be Zen koans, Hasidic tales, and the parables of Jesus. Sometimes, as in The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal or The Blind men and an elephant, versions of the same story are put to use. Even the term teaching stories has begun to have some wider currency.
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