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 thoughts, 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 seqq.) 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 80 years of age when he died under the sal trees in Kusinara.

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, Siddharta the son of Suddodhana, 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 Mueller, with characteristic learning and grace. (See Contemporary Review for July, 1870, 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.[2] 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 Romanorum, to Shakspere, and to the late W. Adams, author of the Kings Messengers.  The basis of this romance is the story of Siddharta.

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 Jafar Almansur.  The outline of the story is as follows:—­