Pt. I.) in
1886 to prove that the Greek Text is not a translation but the original of
the Legend. There are many MSS. of the Greek Text of the Book of Barlaam
and Joasaph in Paris, Vienna, Munich, etc., including ten MSS. kept in
various libraries at Oxford. New researches made by Professor E. Kuhn, of
Munich (Barlaam und Joasaph. Eine Bibliographisch-literargeschichtliche
Studie, 1893), seem to prove that during the 6th century, in that part of
the Sassanian Empire bordering on India, in fact Afghanistan, Buddhism and
Christianity were gaining ground at the expense of the Zoroastrian faith,
and that some Buddhist wrote in Pehlevi a Book of Yudasaf (Bodhisatva); a
Christian, finding pleasant the legend, made an adaptation of it from his
own point of view, introducing the character of the monk Balauhar (Barlaam)
to teach his religion to Yudasaf, who could not, in his Christian disguise,
arrive at the truth by himself like a Bodhisatva. This Pehlevi version of
the newly-formed Christian legend was translated into Syriac, and from
Syriac was drawn a Georgian version, and, in the first half of the 7th
century, the Greek Text of John, a monk of the convent of St. Saba, near
Jerusalem, by some turned into St. John of Damascus, who added to the story
some long theological discussions. From this Greek, it was translated into
all the known languages of Europe, while the Pehlevi version being rendered
into Arabic, was adapted by the Mussulmans and the Jews to their own
creeds. (H. Zotenberg, Mem. 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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 326 of 701
Words from 169352 to 169966
of 370046
