Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/87

lxxxi original would almost be proven by the fact that it occurs in all the four earliest versions, Arabic, Georgian, Hebrew, and Greek. Benfey (in his Einleitung, p. 380) compares the Indian story of the bird who promises a hunter some treasure if he will release him, and goes on to point out that in some Indian stories a piece of advice is often regarded as equal to treasure-trove. These indications serve only to show that the story is not inconsistent with Indian ideas. But, on the other hand, there is nothing specifically Indian in those ideas. But for the fact that the story occurs for the first time in the Barlaam we could not be certain of its Indian origin. But it must be remembered that when we prove the Indian provenance of some of the tales in the book, this adds considerably to the weight of probability of the same origin in cases where we can only indicate probability. As I have elsewhere remarked, the strength of the chain of tradition depends on that of its strongest link, though this be against the catenary laws of physicists.

6. Language of Animals.—This story only occurs in one of the early versions of Barlaam, the Hebrew Prince and Dervish. But the