Barlaam and Josaphat
Barlaam and Josaphat, also known as Bilawhar and Budhasaf, are legendary Christian saints. Their life story was based on the life of the Gautama Buddha, and tells of the conversion of Josaphat to Christianity. According to the legend, an Indian king persecuted the Christian Church in his realm. After astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, the king imprisoned the young prince Josaphat, who nevertheless met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. After much tribulation the young prince's father accepted the Christian faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat , and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam. History. The story of Barlaam and Josaphat or Joasaph is a Christianized and later version of the story of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha. The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version, then the Arabic "Kitāb Bilawhar wa-Būd̠āsaf" (Book of Bilawhar and Budhasaf), current in Baghdad in the eighth century, from where it entered into Middle Eastern Christian circles before appearing in European versions. The first Christianized  adaptation was the Georgian epic "Balavariani" dating back to the 10th century. A Georgian monk, Euthymius of Athos, translated the story into Greek, some time before he died in an accident while visiting Constantinople in 1028. There the Greek adaptation was translated into Latin in 1048 and soon became well known in Western Europe as "Barlaam and Josaphat". The Greek legend of "Barlaam and Ioasaph" is sometimes attributed to the 7th century John of Damascus, but F. C. Conybeare argued it was transcribed by Euthymius in the 11th century. The story of Barlaam and Josaphat was popular in the Middle  Ages, appearing in such works as the "Golden Legend", and a scene there involving three caskets eventually appeared, via Caxton's English translation of a Latin version, in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". The poet Chardri produced an Anglo-Norman version, "La vie de seint Josaphaz", in the 13th century. The story of Josaphat and Barlaam also occupies a great part of book xv of the Speculum Historiale (Mirror of History) by the 13th century French encyclopedist Vincent of Beauvais. Two Middle High German versions were produced: one, the "Laubacher "Barlaam"", by Bishop Otto II of Freising and another , "Barlaam und Josaphat", a romance in verse, by Rudolf von Ems. The latter was described as "perhaps the flower of religious literary creativity in the German Middle Ages" by Heinrich Heine. In the 16th century, the story of Josaphat was re-told as a defence of monastic life during the Protestant Reformation and of free will against Protestant doctrines regarding predestination. Legend. According to the legend, King Abenner in India persecuted the Christian Church in his realm, founded by the Apostle Thomas. When astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, Abenner had the young prince  Josaphat isolated from external contact. Despite the imprisonment, Josaphat met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. Josaphat kept his faith even in the face of his father's anger and persuasion. Eventually Abenner converted, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam. Names. The name Josaphat is derived from the Sanskrit "bodhisattva". The Sanskrit word was changed to ' in Middle Persian texts in the 6th or 7th century, then to ' or ' in an 8th-century Arabic document (Arabic  initial "b" changed to "y" by duplication of a dot in handwriting). This became ' in Georgian in the 10th century, and that name was adapted as "Ioasaph" () in Greece in the 11th century, and then was assimilated to "Iosaphat/Josaphat" in Latin. The name Barlaam derives from the Arabic name "Bilawhar" () borrowed through Georgian ( ) into Byzantine Greek ( ). The Arabic "Bilawhar" has historically been thought to derive from the Sanskrit "bhagavan", an epithet of the Buddha, but this derivation is unproven and others have been proposed. Almuth Degener suggests derivation from Sanskrit "purohita" through a hypothetical Middle Persian intermediate. The name  of Josaphat's father, King Abenner, derives from the Greek name "Abenner" (), although another Greek version of the legend gives this name as "Avenir" (). These Greek names were adapted from the Georgian "Abeneser" (; later shortened to , ), which was itself derived from the Arabic version of the legend where he is named King "Junaysar" (). According to I.V. Abuladze, during borrowing from Arabic to Georgian, misplaced "i‘jām" resulted in the misreading of "Junaysar" as "Habeneser", after which the initial "H"- was omitted. The origin of the Arabic name is unclear. Sainthood. In the Middle Ages the two were identified as Christian saints , although they were never formally canonized. Feast days. Barlaam and Josaphat were included in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology with a joint feast day on 27 November, however, they were not included in the Roman Missal. Barlaam and Josaphat were entered into the Greek Orthodox liturgical calendar on 26 August "Julian" (8 September "Gregorian"), and into liturgical calendar of the Slavic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, on 19 November "Julian" (2 December "Gregorian"). Texts. There are a large number of different books in various languages, all dealing with the lives of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat in India. In  this hagiographic tradition, the life and teachings of Josaphat have many parallels with those of the Buddha. "But not till the mid-nineteenth century was it recognised that, in Josaphat, the Buddha had been venerated as a Christian saint for about a thousand years." The authorship of the work is disputed. The origins of the story seem to be a Central Asian manuscript written in the Manichaean tradition. This book was translated into Georgian and Arabic. Greek manuscripts. The best-known version in Europe comes from a separate, but not wholly independent, source, written in Greek, and, although anonymous, attributed  to a monk named John. It was only considerably later that the tradition arose that this was John of Damascus, but most scholars no longer accept this attribution. Instead much evidence points to Euthymius of Athos, a Georgian who died in 1028. The modern edition of the Greek text, from the 160 surviving variant manuscripts (2006), with introduction (German, 2009) is published as Volume 6 of the works of John the Damascene by the monks of the Abbey of Scheyern, edited by Robert Volk. It was included in the edition due to the traditional ascription, but marked "spuria" as the  translator is the Georgian monk Euthymius the Hagiorite (ca. 955–1028) at Mount Athos and not John the Damascene of the monastery of Saint Sabas in the Judaean Desert. The 2009 introduction includes an overview. English manuscripts. Among the manuscripts in English, two of the most important are the British Museum "MS Egerton 876" (the basis for Ikegami's book) and "MS Peterhouse 257" (the basis for Hirsh's book) at the University of Cambridge. The book contains a tale similar to The Three Caskets found in the "Gesta Romanorum" and later in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". Editions. Croatian . Three Croatian versions exist, all translations from Italian. The older Shtokavian untitled version originated in the Republic of Ragusa and was transcribed to a codex from an earlier source in the 17th century, while the younger Chakavian translations, one manuscript and one printed, originated in the beginning of the 18th century. The book was published by Petar Maçukat in Venice in 1708 and titled Xivot S[veto]ga Giosafata obrachien od Barlaama and is currently held in the National and University Library in Zagreb. Both manuscripts were published in 1913 by Czech slavist Josef Karásek and Croatian philologist Franjo Fancev and reprinted  in 1996. The Chakavian translations had a common source while the older Shtokavian one used an earlier Italian version as well as the "Golden Legend". Hungarian Old Norse. Barlaams saga ok Jósafats is an Old Norse rendering of the story of "Barlaam and Josaphat". The saga exists in Old Norwegian and Old Swedish versions. These versions use different source material. The older of the two Old Swedish versions draws on the "Golden Legend"; the younger uses the "Speculum historiale" as its main source. The Old Norwegian version is based on a Latin translation from the 12th century. The saga of  Guðmundur Arason records that the Old Norwegian version was translated by King Haakon III Sverresson (died 1204, not to be confused with King Haakon the Young, d. 1257).