Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/72

lxvi a choice of caskets was a familiar motif in Buddhistic Legend, and thus make more probable the Buddhistic origin of the Casket Story.

But even without this confirmatory evidence the Buddhistic origin of the story can scarcely be doubted upon the evidence before us. It occurs in the Arabic and Georgian versions, as well as in the Greek, and was, therefore, in the Pehlevi and its Indian original. It is enframed in what is after all only a Life of Buddha, and is closely connected with the Trumpet of Death, the Buddhistic original of which has already been shown. One can have little hesitation in adding it to the store of Buddhistic parables, even though, up to the present, modern research has failed to discover it in Buddhistic literature. Of the former spread of the legend in the form in which it appears in the Barlaam Dr. Braunholtz gives full evidence. He has managed to put his elaborate researches in a pedigree, which I repeat in a modified form for the benefit of my readers. He combines with his inquiry a somewhat similar Folktale of The Treasure in the Tree, which develops into a story of two blind men, to one of whom a loaf of bread is given