ART. II.-Book of the King's Son and the Ascetic. By E. REHATSEK.

THE striking fact that the Buddha has been officially enrolled in the list of the saints of the Christian Church has very naturally attracted much attention to the book to which this strange result is due. This book, a romance in Greek, founded on some unknown Buddhist life of the Buddha, was ascribed in some of the later MSS. to St. John of Damascus, and this was the view held by scholars until the publication in 1886 of the masterly monograph by M. H. Zotenberg (Notices sur la livre de Barlaam et Joasaph). He there shows conclusively that the John who was the author of the romance was not John of Damascus, but a monk of the convent of St. Saba near Jerusalem, who wrote it in the commencement of the seventh century A.D. This romance, whose hero, though really the Buddha, appealed so strongly to the sympathies of the Christians, that they raised him to the rank of a saint, contains, besides the description of the life and character of the hero, a number of fables, some of which have been traced back to the Buddhist Jātaka book, while the source of others is still unknown. This being so, it becomes of great importance to ascertain the earliest form of the story. Now it is admitted that the numerous versions of it in various European languages (of which a list is given in my 'Buddhist Birth Stories,' vol. i. pp. xcv and foll.) are all derived from the Greek of John of St. Saba. There is VOL. XXII.-[NEW SERIES.]

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also an Arabic version, written in prose by a Christian, which M. Zotenberg has shown to have been based on the Greek text (loc. cit. pp. 79-81). This was imitated in an Arabic poem written by a Muhammadan, and now lost, and this again gave rise to a Hebrew prose work called 'The Prince and the Ascetic.'

At the Oriental Congress held at Vienna in 1888, Dr. Fritz Hommel read a paper on a prose Arabic version of the story, written by a Muhammadan, and described already in 1858 by Dr. Blau from a MS. in the possession of the German Oriental Society. In the Transactions of the Congress Dr. Hommel published the text of this version (also entitled The King's Son and the Ascetic "), which he believes to be translated directly from an original Pahlavi version, and to be entirely independent of the Greek romance. M. Zotenberg, on the other hand, holds this version also to be based on the Arabic poem mentioned above. This work is now presented in English to our readers in a version by Mr. Rehatsek, of Bombay, and following, it is to be presumed, the Arabic text as published by Dr. Fritz Hommel.

It would be unnecessary to point out either the utility or the interest of this labour for which we are indebted to Mr. Rehatsek. It can of course throw no light on the still unsolved problem as to when and where the hero of the story, the Buddha, was canonized as a Christian saint. But on the other two questions which await solution, that is to say, the early migration of the romance itself, and the relation of the fables it contains to the Buddhist Jātaka stories, it is of the greatest importance.

I would venture to call attention here to a very interesting discussion of the history of the romance, written from

the strictly Catholic point of view by M. Emmanuel Cosquin, in the 'Revue des questions historiques' for October, 1880. Professor Max Müller's paper on it in his 'Selected Essays,' and my own summary in the Introduction to my Buddhist Birth Stories,' may also be mentioned.

T. W. RHYS DAVIDS.

Book of the King's Son and the Ascetic.

In the name of Allah the merciful the clement! This is an abridgment from the book of one of the distinguished philosophers of India. It is a book of eloquent allusions, pleasing instructions, and beautiful meanings [or ideas]; may Allah cause us to profit thereby. Amen!

The author of it has recorded that there was in the country of India a great king, who, on account of his extreme love for the world, was turned away from contemplating eternity so ardently towards [the affairs of] his kingdom, that there was no one who dared to find fault with him. He alienated the adherents of the [Buddhist ?] religion, and attracted the adherents of the idols. Having one day made inquiries about a man of the people of his kingdom whom he had been in the habit of consulting, he was informed that he had verily abandoned the world, his family, his property, and had joined the [community of] ascetics. This greatly astonished the king, who then sent for the man, who on making his appearance, and being seen in the condition of asceticism, was reproved by the king as follows: "Whereas thou hast been one of the grandees of my kingdom, thou hast [now] debased thy soul, hast separated thyself from thy family and hast sought vanity." The ascetic replied: "O king! Although thou art under no obligation to me, it is nevertheless incumbent upon thee to listen to my words without anger, and then to act as thou deemest suitable; because anger is a foe to intellect, since it is a bar between

him who is under its influence, and between what he is to hear and to understand." The king replied: "Speak!" The ascetic then continued: "Is the guilt of which thou accusest me to redound upon me, or upon thee?" He said: "Upon thee and upon me; for, when any man wishes to commit suicide, I must not leave him the option to do so. I consider the destruction of his life [to be] like the destruction of any other man's life, because I am his protector and the judge for and against him. Accordingly I judge thee and punish thee for destroying a life of my subjects, which is thy own life; for the loss and grief thou hast brought upon thy family." The ascetic rejoined: "I do not think thou canst punish me except by arguing, and an argument can be established only by judges. Although at present no human judges can trouble thee, thou possessest two of them, to one of whom I agree to submit." He asked: "Who are these two?" The ascetic continued: "He to whose decision I shall submit is thy intellect, but he from whom I desire to be excused is thy wrath." The king replied: "Say what thou listest, but give me some information, and tell me since when thou art of this opinion, and who has helped thee thereto ?" The ascetic continued: "As to my information, it is that in my young years I heard one word which fell into my soul, and became like seed sown; it then grew and prospered till it became the tree which thou beholdest. I had namely heard a speaker say that a fool considers that which is a thing to be nothing, and that which is nothing to be a thing. He who does not scorn that which is nothing will not obtain that which is a thing. He who does not look upon that which is a thing, will not rejoice his soul by abandoning that which is nothing. The thing is eternity, and that which is nothing is the world.' This statement had impressed me, but it, and the prompting thereby, as well as the contemplation thereof, were overpowered by lusts, until the world appeared to me, as I believed it in my folly to be, a thing, whereas it is nothing; since it has shown to me that its life is death, its wealth is poverty, its joy is grief, its satiety is hunger, its health is disease, its strength is weak