And now comes the strangest part of the story. So popular did St. John’s tale become, that it was translated into every European language. Barlaam and Josaphat were canonized both in the Eastern and Western Churches. In the Greek Church the 26th of August is their saints’ day, in the Western Church the 27th of November. “If all that is human and personal in the life of St. Josaphat is taken from the Lalita Vistara, what follows? It follows ... that Josaphat is the Buddha of the Buddhist canon. It follows that Buddha has become a saint in the Roman Church; it follows that, though under a different name, the sage of Kapilavastu, the founder of a religion which, whatever we may think of its dogma, is in the purity of its morals nearer to Christianity than any other religion, and which counts even now, after an existence of 2,400 years, 455,000,000 of believers, has received the highest honours that the Christian Church can bestow. 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 in the Buddhist canon. If he lived the life that is there described, few saints have a better claim to the title than Buddha; and no one, either in the Greek or Roman Church, need be ashamed of having paid to Buddha’s memory the honour that was intended for St. Josaphat, the prince, the hermit, and the saint.”[3] One night, when the palace was hushed in sleep, the prince roused his faithful charioteer Chandana, and bade him to saddle his horse Kantaka and prepare to follow him. He passed through the many halls where the women, beautiful and graceful by day, were lying asleep in careless and ugly attitudes. It was the reverse of the medal, the repulsive side of luxury, and the sight filled him with loathing. Accompanied by Chandana, he left the palace and entered the slumbering streets of the city. By a miracle they cheated the watchfulness of the guard at the gate and rode out into the open country. When they had gone some way the prince took off all his jewels and sent Chandana back with injunctions to give them to Prajapati Gautami, who had been a mother to him when her sister Maya died. Then he went on alone into the wilderness. By the way he met a hunter, with whom he exchanged his stately attire for rough countryman’s clothes, and in this fashion entered upon the six years of an asceticism such as the world has perhaps never seen. In his loneliness five men came and joined him as his disciples, sharing the hardships of his self-imposed penance.