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CHAP. XV.   HISTORY OF BUDDHA CHRISTIANISED

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When the prince was sixteen he was married to the beautiful Yasodhara, daughter of the King of Koli, and 40,000 other princesses also became the inmates of his harem. " Whilst living in the midst of the full enjoyment of every kind of pleasure,

Siddhárta one day commanded his principal charioteer to prepare his festive chariot ; and in obedience to his commands four lily-white horses were yoked. The prince

leaped into the chariot, and proceeded towards a garden at a little distance from the palace, attended by a great retinue. On his way he saw a decrepit old man, with broken teeth, grey locks, and a form bending towards the ground, his trembling steps supported by a staff (a Deva had taken this form). . . . The prince enquired what strange figure it was that he saw ; and he was informed that it was an old man. He then asked if the man was born so, and the charioteer answered that he was not, as he was once young like themselves. ` Are there,' said the prince, many such beings in the world ? ' ' Your highness,' said the charioteer, ` there are many.' The prince again enquired, ` Shall I become thus old and decrepit ?' and he was told that it was a state at which all beings must arrive."

The prince returns home and informs his father of his intention to become an ascetic, seeing how undesirable is life tending to such decay. His father conjures him to put away such th,,ughts, and to enjoy himself with his princesses, and he strengthens the guards about the palaces. Four months later like circumstances recur, and the prince sees a leper, and after the same interval a dead body in corruption.

Lastly, he sees a religious recluse, radiant with peace and tranquillity, and resolves to delay no longer. He leaves his palace at night, after a look at his wife Yasodhara

and the boy just born to him, and betakes himself to the forests of Magadha, where he passes seven years in extreme asceticism. At the end of that time he attains the Buddhahood. (See Hardy's Manual, p. 151 sego.) The latter part of the story told by Marco, about the body of the prince being brought to his father, etc., is erroneous. Sakya was So years of age when he died under the sál trees in Kusinára.

The strange parallel between Buddhistic ritual, discipline, and costume, and those which especially claim the name of CATHOLIC in the Christian Church, has been often

noticed ; and though the parallel has never been elaborated as it might be, some of the more salient facts are familiar to most readers. Still many may be unaware that Buddha himself, Siddhárta the son of Súddodhana, has found his way into the Roman martyrology as a Saint of the Church.

In the first edition a mere allusion was made to this singular story, for it had recently been treated by Professor Max Müller, with characteristic learning and grace. (See Contemporary Review for July, 187o, p. 588.) But the matter is so curious and still so little familiar that I now venture to give it at some length.

The religious romance called the History of BARLAAM and JOSAPHAT was for several centuries one of the most popular works in Christendom. It was translated

into all the chief European languages, including Scandinavian and Sclavonic tongues.

An Icelandic version dates from the year 1204 ; one in the Tagal language of the Philippines was printed at Manilla in 1712.* The episodes and apologues with which

the story abounds have furnished materials to poets and story-tellers in various ages and of very diverse characters ; e.g. to Giovanni Boccaccio, John Gower, and to the compiler of the Gesta Ronzanorum, to Shakspere, and to the late W. Adams, author of the King's Messengers. The basis of this romance is the story of Siddhárta.

The story of Barlaam and Josaphat first appears among the works (in Greek) of St. John of Damascus, a theologian of the early part of the 8th century, who, before he devoted himself to divinity had held high office at the Court of the Khalif Abu Jáfar Almansúr. The outline of the story is as follows :-

St. Thomas had converted the people of India to the truth ; and after the eremitic life originated in Egypt many in India adopted it. But a potent pagan King e,rose,

* In 1870 I saw in the Library at Monte Cassino a long French poem on the story, in a MS. of our traveller's age. This is perhaps one referred to by Migne, as cited in Hist. Litt. de la France, XV. 4g4• [It " has even been published in the Spanish dialect used in the Philippine Islands ! " (Rhys Davids, Jataka l'ales, p. xxxvii.) In a MS. note, Yule says : " Is not this a mistake ? "—H. C.]

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