Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/57

 Rh light of dispassionate calm." Again, at the end of the book, when Abenner becomes converted, a great multitude of his people are baptized, "both rulers and civil officers, soldiers and people," a distinct reference to the four castes of India.

But it is especially in the recently printed Bombay text of the Arabic version that we find the clearest and most conclusive proof of the complete identification of Josaphat and Barlaam in the original. Here we find, not alone the Great Renunciation, in which Josaphat, like Buddha, leaves power, wealth, love, and family ties behind him at the dead of night, but even the meditation under the Bo-Tree. In this version, indeed, the Buddha and his doctrines are especially referred to by name, as "al-Budd," and the dying Budasaph, like the dying Buddha, breathes his last in the arms of his favourite disciple Anand. Dr. Kuhn suggests that these details and references are due to interpolations by the Arabic translators from some of the lost Arabic books relating to Buddha, mentioned in the Fihrist. But this is all conjecture, and is mainly urged by Dr.