Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/69

Rh induce his brother and heir to try on the Royal Robes and sit upon the throne while he himself was at the Bath. The King, however, managed to catch his brother in his compromising attitude on the throne, and ordered him as a punishment to be treated as a King for a week, except that behind the throne was placed all the time the Royal Executioner with his Warning Bell. After the week was over the King asked his brother how he had managed so well to overcome his passions without resorting to asceticism. Vityasoka replied that he could think of nothing but the impending death with which the Executioner kept threatening him. "If you could be so influenced by the thought of one death," said the King, "how much more we Buddhists, who have to think of an innumerable series of deaths through all the phases of our existence." The brother was convinced, and joined the new Creed. (Bournouf, Introduction à l'Histoire de Buddhisme: Paris 1876, p. 370.)

That this is the original of the Barlaam Parable no one will deny; whether it is itself derived from an earlier Indian original of the