Sur le texte et les versions orientales du
Livre de Barlaam et Joasaph, Not. et Ext. XXVIII. Pt. I. pp. 1-166; G.
Paris, Saint Josaphat in Rev. de Paris, 1'er Juin, 1895, and Poemes et
Legendes du Moyen Age, pp. 181-214.)
Mr. Joseph Jacobs published in London, 1896, a valuable little book,
Barlaam and Josaphat, English Lives of Buddha, in which he comes to this
conclusion (p. xli.): "I regard the literary history of the Barlaam
literature as completely parallel with that of the Fables of Bidpai.
Originally Buddhistic books, both lost their specifically Buddhistic
traits before they left India, and made their appeal, by their parables,
more than by their doctrines. Both were translated into Pehlevi in the
reign of Chosroes, and from that watershed floated off into the
literatures of all the great creeds. In Christianity alone,
characteristically enough, one of them, the Barlaam book, was surcharged
with dogma, and turned to polemical uses, with the curious result that
Buddha became one of the champions of the Church. To divest the
Barlaam-Buddha of this character, and see him in his original form, we must
take a further journey and seek him in his home beyond the Himalayas."
[Illustration: Sakya Muni as a Saint of the Roman Martyrology.
"Wie des Kunigs Son in dem aufscziechen am ersten sahe in dem Weg eynen
blinden und eyn aufsmoerckigen und eyen alten krummen Man."[7]]
Professor Gaston Paris, in answer to Mr. Jacobs, writes (Poemes et Leg.
du Moyen Age, p. 213): "Mr. Jacobs thinks that the Book of Balauhar and
Yudasaf was not originally Christian, and could have existed such as it is
now in Buddhistic India, but it is hardly likely, as Buddha did not
require the help of a teacher to find truth, and his followers would not
have invented the person of Balauhar-Barlaam; on the other hand, the
introduction of the Evangelical Parable of The Sower, which exists in
the original of all the versions of our Book, shows that this original was
a Christian adaptation of the Legend of Buddha. Mr. Jacobs seeks vainly to
lessen the force of this proof in showing that this Parable has parallels
in Buddhistic literature." - H.C.]
NOTE 3. - Marco is not the only eminent person who has expressed this view
of Sakyamuni's life in such words. Professor Max Mueller (u.s.) says:
"And whatever we may think of the sanctity of saints, let those who doubt
the right of Buddha to a place among them, read the story of his life as
it is told in the Buddhistic canon. If he lived the life which is there
described, few saints have a better claim to the title than Buddha; and no
one either in the Greek or the Roman Church need be ashamed of having paid
to his memory the honour that was intended for St. Josaphat, the prince,
the hermit, and the saint."
NOTE 4. - This is curiously like a passage in the Wisdom of Solomon:
"Neque enim erant (idola) ab initio, neque erunt in perpetuum ... acerbo
enim luctu dolens pater cito sibi rapti filii fecit imaginem: et ilium qui
tune quasi homo mortuus fuerat nunc tamquam deum colere coepit, et
constituit inter servos suos sacra et sacrificia" (xiv. 13-15). Gower
alludes to the same story; I know not whence taken: -
"Of Cirophanes, seith the booke,
That he for sorow, whiche he toke
Of that he sigh his sonne dede,
Of comfort knewe none other rede,
But lete do make in remembrance
A faire image of his semblance,
And set it in the market place:
Whiche openly to fore his face
Stood euery day, to done hym ease;
And thei that than wolden please
The Fader, shuld it obeye,
Whan that thei comen thilke weye."
- Confessio Amantis.[8]
NOTE 5. - Adam's Peak has for ages been a place of pilgrimage to Buddhists,
Hindus, and Mahomedans, and appears still to be so. Ibn Batuta says the
Mussulman pilgrimage was instituted in the 10th century. The book on the
history of the Mussulmans in Malabar, called Tohfat-ul-Majahidin (p.
48), ascribes their first settlement in that country to a party of
pilgrims returning from Adam's Peak. Marignolli, on his visit to the
mountain, mentions "another pilgrim, a Saracen of Spain; for many go on
pilgrimage to Adam."
The identification of Adam with objects of Indian worship occurs in various
forms. Tod tells how an old Rajput Chief, as they stood before a famous
temple of Mahadeo near Udipur, invited him to enter and worship "Father
Adam." Another traveller relates how Brahmans of Bagesar on the Sarju
identified Mahadeo and Parvati with Adam and Eve. A Malay MS., treating of
the origines of Java, represents Brahma, Mahadeo, and Vishnu to be
descendants of Adam through Seth. And in a Malay paraphrase of the
Ramayana, Nabi Adam takes the place of Vishnu. (Tod. I. 96; J.A.S.B.
XVI. 233; J.R.A.S. N.S. II. 102; J. Asiat. IV. s. VII. 438.)
NOTE 6. - The Patra, or alms-pot, was the most valued legacy of Buddha.
It had served the three previous Buddhas of this world-period, and was
destined to serve the future one, Maitreya. The Great Asoka sent it to
Ceylon. Thence it was carried off by a Tamul chief in the 1st century,
A.D., but brought back we know not how, and is still shown in the Malagawa
Vihara at Kandy. As usual in such cases, there were rival reliques, for
Fa-hian found the alms-pot preserved at Peshawar. Hiuen Tsang says in his
time it was no longer there, but in Persia. And indeed the Patra from
Peshawar, according to a remarkable note by Sir Henry Rawlinson, is still
preserved at Kandahar, under the name of Kashkul (or the Begging-pot),
and retains among the Mussulman Dervishes the sanctity and miraculous
repute which it bore among the Buddhist Bhikshus.
