BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT. The life of Barlaam and Joasaph (or Josaphat) is a hagiographical legend, found among the writings of St. John of Damascus. It owes its interest and importance to the fact that parts of it correspond to the legend of the Buddha. It begins with the story of an Indian king Abenner, who was idolatrous and persecuted the Christians, especially the monks. A son was born to him and named Joasaph. At the birthday feast some 55 astrologers prophesied his greatness as a king, but one of them said he would be great not in his fath er's kingdom, and would accept the Christian religion. The king therefore had him enclosed in a beautiful palace, so that he should know nothing of the ills of life; but as the prince by being shut up was afflicted, he was at last allowed to go out, and in spite of precautions he saw a maimed man and a blind man. Later on he saw an old man, and learned that nothing but death would relieve his misery. At this he was distressed, but disguised his grief from his father.
So far the story corresponds closely with the legend of the Buddha's youth, but at this point it diverges, and the rest of the narrative is quite different. The prince was visited by a dis guised monk, Barlaam, who instructed him in the Christian doctrine, and finally baptized him. His father tried to reconvert him by holding a public dispute between idolaters and Christians, but failed, and then vainly employed Theudas, a magician, to convert the prince by means of evil spirits and women. Then in despair he divided the kingdom with his son, but after four years was converted and died. Thereupon Joasaph abdicated, made Barachias king, and went to the wilderness to find Barlaam. On the way the devil tempted him with memories of his former glory, and with visions of beasts and monsters. (Here is prob ably another reminiscence of a Buddhist incident, the temptation by Mara.) He found Barlaam after two years, and they lived the rest of their lives in the wilderness. After the death of Joasaph the bodies of both were removed with great pomp by the king to his own country.
The problem of the relationship of this legend to the Buddha's life has increased in complexity with successive discoveries. The resemblances were early noticed, but were brought into promi nence by Liebrecht in 186o. Independent versions of the story have since been discovered, and make it probable that the Indian original was translated into some form of middle Persian and then into Greek as early as the 6th century A.D., and hence before the Mohammedan period. Still more recently fragments of a Manichaean version have been discovered by von Le Coq in Central Asia. It is held by P. Alfaric that the Christian story came through a Manichaean channel, but that there must have been still another intermediate link, which is now lost.
The exact Indian original has never been discovered. There are at least three lives of Buddha, the Sanskrit Lalita-vistara, the Chinese version of a Sanskrit work translated into English by Beal as The Romantic Legend of Sakya Buddha, and the Pali introduction to the Jataka (see JATAKA) . None of these can be put earlier than the 3rd century A.D. The form of the name Joasaph, which is a corruption of the youthful Buddha's title Bodhisattva, shows that the original was in Sanskrit, not Pali, in which the v disappears. Yet the story of the prophecy at the birth of the prince corresponds more closely with the Pali than with the Sanskrit. A peculiarity of the Greek is the insertion of parables related by characters in the tale. This is a distinctly Indian feature, but none of these tales is found in the existing lives of Buddha, and it is probable that the Indian original which reached Persia was a still earlier version which has disappeared. It is inexact to say that Barlaam and Josaphat have ever been canonized. They are recorded in the Roman Martyrology under Nov. 27 on the authority of John of Damascus, and Joasaph alone in a Synaxarion of the Greek Church under Aug. 26. The wide ramifications of the story in mediaeval European literature have been traced by Braunholtz and Jacobs.
The Greek text with English translation is given in Barlaam and loasaph, by G. R. Woodward and H. Mattingly (1914) ; E. Kuhn, Barlaam and Joasaph, eine bibliographisch-literargesch. Studie (Mun chen, 1897) ; E. Braunholtz, Die erste nichtchristliche Parabel des Barlaam and Josaphat (Halle, 1884) ; J. Jacobs, Barlaam and Josaphat (1896) ; Baralam and Yewdse f, Ethiopic text. ed. and trans. by Sir E. A. W. Budge (1923) ; the latest results are summarized by P. Alfaric, "La vie chretienne du Bouddha," in Journal Asiatique (Sept. Oct., 1917) . (E. J. T.)