Editing Teaching stories (section)

==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 Egypt]]ian 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,<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Ranelagh
  | first = E.L.
  | title = The Past we Share
  | publisher = Quartet Books Ltd
  | year = 1979
  | location = London, Melbourne, New York
  | page = [https://archive.org/details/pastweshareneare0000rane/page/165 165]
  | isbn = 0-7043-2234-X
  | url = https://archive.org/details/pastweshareneare0000rane/page/165
  }} A cleric here could mean an educated layman as well as an ecclesiastic.</ref> 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 [[Jainism|Jainists]], [[Buddhism|Buddhists]] and [[Hinduism|Hindus]] in India, as well as by [[Persian people|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]] [[koan]]s,  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.