Barlaam and Josaphat (Bilawhar wa-Būdhāsaf) is a legend based on Indian biographies of Buddha.

Barlaam and Josaphat (Bilawhar wa-Būdhāsaf) is a legend based on Indian biographies of Buddha. Its Arabic version, Bilawhar wa-Būdhāsaf Barlaam and Josaphat

1. Content (based on the longest Arabic rendering, the so-called Ismaili version)

Janaysar, the idolatrous king of India, persecutes the adherents of asceticism (nusk) (dīn)
After four months of conversing with Bilawhar, Būdhāsaf is convinced of the truth of monotheism, and Bilawhar takes his leave. The king realises that his son has renounced a worldly life and tries to win him back. One of the king’s astrologers assumes Bilawhar’s shape through magical means, in order deliberately to lose a public debate with the king’s pagan theologians. Būdhāsaf, however, discovers the ruse and, by threatening the astrologer, forces him to accept publicly the truth of monotheism. Janaysar again tries to corrupt his son with beautiful women, and this time Būdhāsaf sleeps with a woman who will bear him a son, though he immediately repents this unchaste act. Būdhāsaf eventually persuades his father to convert to monotheism. In a second public disputation Būdhāsaf meets al-Bahwan, a representative of the old pagan religion, who recognises him as the prophesied renewer of religion. Būdhāsaf then becomes a prophet and leaves his kingdom to his uncle. After his and his uncle’s death, Būdhāsaf’s son becomes king.

2. Arabic versions

Three Arabic versions of Barlaam and Josaphat Kitāb Bilawhar wa-Būd̲āsf Ikmāl Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-niʿma 2(mukhtaṣar)
Although this evidence suggests that the Arabic Barlaam and Josaphat Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ Barlaam and Josaphat Fihrist Barlaam and Josaphat al-Farq bayn al-firaq Moslem schisms and sects

3. Sources

Although it is impossible to establish a single source, the story is evidently derived from Indian legends of the life of Gautama Buddha (Almond, 396–7; Toral-Niehoff, 111). The most obvious indications of Buddhist sources are the dream of the prince’s mother; his encounters with the sick man, the blind man, and the old man; his name; and many of the tales (Henning, Sogdian tales, 487; Almond; Bräm; Ikegami). Barlaam and Josaphat
It is not clear how a version of the life of Buddha reached the Arabic-speaking world (Forster). Two means of transmission have been proposed, via the Manicheans of Central Asia or via Pahlavī (Middle Persian). The Manicheans might have approved of the legend’s appraisal of asceticism and its use of parables (Toral-Niehoff, 113). That the Manicheans knew the story of Buddha is evident from fragments found in Turfan (in western China), notably one in Old Turkic (ed. Albert von Le Coq, Ein christliches und ein manichäisches Manuskriptfragment in türkischer Sprache aus Turfan (Chinesisch-Turkistan), in Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Classe A locust’s leg. Studies in honour of S. H. Taqizade Barlaam and Josaphat Kalīla wa-Dimna

4. Reception

The text was translated from Arabic into Georgian; Hebrew (by Abraham ben Ḥasday of Barcelona, d. 1240); Persian (by Niẓām al-Dīn-i Shāmī, fl. late eighth/fourteenth-early ninth/fifteenth centuries, and by Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī, d. 1110/1699 or 1111/1700, who not only included Ibn Bābawayh’s Arabic version in his Biḥār al-anwār
There are translations from Greek into several languages (Brunhölzl et al.), including Christian Arabic (Leroy; Agémian; Toral-Niehoff, 128) and Latin (Sonet; Forster). The Latin versions, in turn, served as bases for adaptations in many European vernaculars (e.g., the languages of the Iberian Peninsula, French, Italian, Czech, Polish, Russian, German, and English; Brunhölzl et al.).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indo-Muslim Culture in Hyderabad: Old City Neighborhoods in the 19th Century

Hyderabad city’s culture was Indo-Muslim or Mughlai, terms that need definition here. I use Indo-Muslim in preference to Islamic, Indo-Persian, Persianate, or Islamicate. I prefer Indo-Muslim to the other four commonly-used alternatives because, first, Muslim rather than Islamic emphasizes a civilizational and not a religious culture (Islamicate has the same meaning but probably not to the general reader). Certainly Hyderabad was not an Islamic state: the Nizams never tried to impose Islamic law or to convert people.Second, IndoMuslim puts the emphasis on the Indian location, although undeniably the Bahmani sultanate in the Deccan from the mid-fourteenth century, its five successor Deccani sultanates (Bijapuri, Golconda, Bidar, Berar, and Ahmednagar) from the early sixteenth century, and the Nizams, starting as Mughal governors after the conquests of Bijapuri and Golconda by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1686 and 1687, modeled their court culture on that of Persia. I use the term Mug...
Read more

Skull Imagery and Skull Magic in the Yoginī Tantras

The Buddhist tantras constitute a unique class of Buddhist literature. While developing from earlier trends in Buddhist thought and practice, they also constituted a serious challenge to Buddhist identity, largely due to the fact that many of them contain passages that appear to transgress the tenets of Buddhist morality.1 Tantric literature also departed, gradually, from the rhetorical norms of Mahayana Buddhism. While early tantras maintained the rhetorical style of the Mahayana sutras, later tantras, and most notably the Yoginī tantras, radically departed from this style.2 This essay will explore one small facet of the vast array of unusual elements that can be found in this literature, namely, the image of the skull, as well as the use of skulls in tantric ritual. Like other elements, this deployment of skulls in the tantras was disquieting to some, evoking as it does the uncanny atmosphere of the charnel ground. Through this exploration, I will argue that skulls are multifaceted...
Read more

Nature of Patisambhidamagga

The Patisambhidāmagga is insistently practical it expounds the way or path of 'discrimination' in its various a spects and tries to show how understanding can be achieved in an empirical sense instead of theorizing it It talks about what happens and how does "Nana"(knowledge)  happen when someone understand or discriminates the actuality or truth which is real in its aspects as taught by Buddha The theory is of course necessary,the understanding or insight,and is  included in this path,as well as the practice in the limited sense of concentration,the calming Jhana a process to Samatha . The pair ,insight(vipassana) and Calming(Samatha) must therefore be coupled(Yuganandha) and function together ,which are presented as fundamental in Buddhist texts , as even mentioned in Anguttara Nikaya Enlightenment as Ananda said ( which is mentioned in detailed in Yuganandha suttanta in Anguttara Nikaya) ,requires both Samatha and Vipassana  and no one has attained Enlightenment wi...
Read more