Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/64

lviii forms the centre of the whole literature. Its parables, therefore, form a type of a whole literary movement in Europe and Asia, and to them we may now turn.

Taking all the earliest versions of the Barlaam Legend, the Arabic, Georgian, Hebrew, and Greek, there appear to be some three dozen parables contained in them. But, as is the case with more important gospels, those of Barlaam are not entirely synoptic. Some of the parables appear in all forms, and of these we may be sure all could be traced back to India. Others again appear but in two or three of these versions, while a considerable number only make their appearance in one version, e.g., the Hebrew or the Bombay Arabic. I have told them all in Appendix II., and given the details of their occurrences in the earliest versions of Barlaam, as well as the history of their spread outside the specifically Barlaam literature. Here I propose treating of them more generally in the first place, and then descanting at greater length on a few of the parables which happen to be of exceptional interest from their widespread or their important derivates.