Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/70

lxiv Story of Damocles, is another and more difficult question.

Curiously enough, however, no Indian original has yet been discovered for the Story of the Four Caskets, which, in the Barlaam, is so closely connected with the Trumpet of Death. Dr. Braunholtz, who has made a most complete study of this parable, has failed to find any- thing nearer than Buddhistic comparisons of man's body to a casket. There is, it is true, a choice of four vessels occurring in the legend of the Buddha. When the Buddha had finished his week's meditation under the Bo-Tree, two merchants, who became his first two converts, approached him and offered him rice and honey in a golden vessel. He refused the refreshment on the ground of the costly nature of the vessel containing it, and continued to do so even after they had changed the vessel for a silver, and then for a copper one. Only when it was placed in the Clay Bowl, so famous in Buddhistic Legend, did he accept it. This case of