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In the long history of translating the Sanskrit 'Panchatantra' in the West, the 'Ringdove' chapter has proven to be the most stable. Only a few minor details were changed by copyists and translators, leading to the question what the reason for its stability might be. This article argues that the unique content of the 'Ringdove', which describes a successful friendship between four different animal species, is the reason for its stability. The overall concept of what ‘true friendship’ consists of appears to have found cross-cultural resonance, leaving no need for changes. To examine this stability, this article compares Ibn al-Muqaffa‘’s Arabic version, 'Kalila wa-Dimnah', that became the source of all successive translations west of India, to its eleventh-century Greek translation, 'Stephanites kai Ichnelates', by Symeon Seth. While certain features of Byzantine literature are found in Stephanites, the overall order of events and the dialectic method in the text that defines true friendship do not change. This leaves the Ringdove in the unique situation of a happy ending in which fate and predetermined enmity between species are overcome by the power of friendship. In this way, a focus entirely on the 'Ringdove' chapter, which is entirely apolitical and life-affirming, challenges traditional views of the 'Panchatantra/Kalila wa-Dimnah' as a Machiavellian political manual for princes told in fables.
