[Footnote 47: Minayeff, _Mélanges Asiatiques_, vi. 5, p. 584, remarks: “According to a legend in the _Mahâvastu_ of Yaśas or Yaśoda (in a less complete form to be found in Schiefner, _Eine tibetische Lebensbeschreibung Sâkyamunis_, p. 247; Hardy, _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 187; Bigandet, _The Life or Legend of Gaudama_, p. 113), a merchant appears in Yosoda’s house, the night before he has the dream which induces him to leave his paternal house, and proclaims to him the true doctrine.”] [Footnote 48: _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, vol. iii. p. 21.] [Footnote 49: In some places one might almost believe that Joannes Damascenus did not only hear the story of Buddha, as he says, from the mouth of people who had brought it to him from India, but that he had before him the very text of the _Lalita Vistara_. Thus in the account of the three or four drives we find indeed that the Buddhist canon represents Buddha as seeing on three successive drives, first an old, then a sick, and at last a dying man, while Joannes makes Joasaph meet two men on his first drive, one maimed, the other blind, and an old man, who is nearly dying, on his second drive. So far there is a difference which might best be explained by admitting the account given by Joannes Damascenus himself, viz: that the story was brought from India, and that it was simply told him by worthy and truthful men. But, if it was so, we have here another instance of the tenacity with which oral tradition is able to preserve the most minute points of the story. The old man is described by a long string of adjectives both in Greek and in Sanskrit, and many of them are strangely alike. The Greek γέρων, old, corresponds to the Sanskrit +jîrṇa+; πεπαλαιώμενος, aged, is Sanskrit +vṛddha+; ἐρρικνώμενος τὸ πρόσωπον, shriveled in his face, is +balînicitakâya+, the body covered with wrinkles; παρείμενος τὰς κνήμας, weak in his knees, is +pravedhayamânaḥ sarvângapratyangaiḥ+, trembling in all his limbs; συγκεκυφώς, bent, is +kubja+; πεπολιώμενος, gray, is +palitakeśa+; ἐστερήμενος τοὺς ὀδόντας, toothless, is +khaṇḍadanta+; ἐγκεκομένα λαλῶν, stammering, is +khurakhurâvaśaktakaṇṭha+.] [Footnote 50: _Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, vol. xxiv p. 480.] [Footnote 51: _Débats_, 1859, 21 and 26 Juillet.] [Footnote 52: _Die Quellen des Barlaam und Josaphat, in Jahrbuch für roman. und engl. Litteratur_, vol. ii. p. 314, 1860.] [Footnote 53: _Travels of Fah-hian and Sung-yun, Buddhist Pilgrims from China to India._ (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.) Translated from the Chinese by Samuel Beal. London, Trübner & Co. 1869.] [Footnote 54: Littré, _Journal des Savants_, 1865, p. 337.]