Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4: Essays Chiefly on the Science of LanguageMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4: Essays Chiefly on the Science of Language
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Comparative linguistics; Folklore; Literature -- History and criticism; Mythology; Religions
identified Theudas, the sorcerer in “Barlaam and Joasaph,” with the
Devadatta of the Buddhist scriptures.[50]
How palpable these coincidences are between the two stories is best
shown by the fact that they were pointed out, independently of each
other, by scholars in France, Germany, and England. I place France
first, because in point of time M. Laboulaye was the first who called
attention to it in one of his charming articles in the “Debats.”[51]
A more detailed comparison was given by Dr. Liebrecht.[52] And, lastly,
Mr. Beal, in his translation of the “Travels of Fa Hian,”[53] called
attention to the same fact--viz., that the story of Josaphat was
borrowed from the “Life of Buddha.” I could mention the names of two or
three scholars besides who happened to read the two books, and who could
not help seeing, what was as clear as daylight, that Joannes Damascenus
took the principal character of his religious novel from the “Lalita
Vistara,” one of the sacred books of the Buddhists; but the merit of
having been the first belongs to M. Laboulaye.
This fact is, no doubt, extremely curious in the history of literature;
but there is another fact connected with it which is more than curious,
and I wonder that it has never been pointed out before. It is well known
that the story of “Barlaam and Josaphat” became a most popular book
during the Middle Ages. In the East it was translated into Syriac(?),
Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Hebrew; in the West it exists in Latin,
French, Italian, German, English, Spanish, Bohemian, and Polish. As
early as 1204, a King of Norway translated it into Icelandic, and at a
later time it was translated by a Jesuit missionary into Tagala, the
classical language of the Philippine Islands. But this is not all,
Barlaam and Josaphat have actually risen to the rank of saints, both in
the Eastern and in the Western churches. In the Eastern church the 26th
of August is the saints’ day of Barlaam and Josaphat; in the Roman
Martyrologium, the 27th of November is assigned to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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