A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s7.52

v2.c19.s7.52

On the other hand, it is a fully established fact that one of the favourite books of the whole of Christendom in the Middle Ages, the story of Barlaam and Josaphat, was composed by a devout Christian on the basis of the Buddha legend, with which he might have become acquainted from the Lalita-Vistara.⁵ This story, which is otherwise entirely imbued with the spirit of Christianity, has a Buddhist setting: the main features of the Buddha legend, the three excursions, at which the Bodhisattva becomes acquainted with age, disease and death, recur in it, a few of the interpolated parables (*e.g.* that of the "man in the well") are familiar from Indian literature, and references to India occur in the story itself.¹ In Eastern Iran or in Central Asia, where, as we know through the finds of Sir Aurel Stein, Grünwedel and v. Le Coq in Khotan and Turfan, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Christians and Manicheans lived together in closest proximity, a Christian monk² could easily become acquainted with the Buddha legend, and be stimulated by it to compose a work which was to impart Christian doctrines. This work was presumably written in the 6th or 7th century, first in the Pahlavi language and afterwards translated into Arabic and Syriac. The Georgian and Greek translation might be traced back to the Syriac text. The Greek text gave rise to Arabian, Hebrew, Aethiopian, Armenian, Ecclesiastical-Russian and Rumanian versions, which came into being in later times. The numerous European translations and recensions (Lope de Vega has even dramatised the story) can be traced back to the Latin text translated from the Greek. German recensions have been in existence since 1220 A.D. In course of centuries the characters in this work had grown so familiar to the Christian peoples, that they were regarded as pious Christian men who had really lived and taught, so that the Catholic Church finally made the two heroes of the story, Barlaam and Josaphat, into saints. Josaphat, however, is none other than the Bodhisattva.¹