st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

2l8 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
king, or, renouncing the throne and embracing the
life of a hermit, become a Buddha. The great
object of his father is to prevent this. He therefore
keeps the young prince, when he grows up, in his
garden and palaces, surrounded by all pleasures
which might turn his mind from contemplation to
enjoyment. More especially, he is to know nothing
of illness, old age, and death, which might open his
eyes to the misery and unreality of life. After a time,
however, the prince receives permission to drive out ;
and then follow the three drives so famous in Bud
dhist history."
Without following out the parallel
in all its details, it may be added, in brief, that on
his first drive, through the Eastern gate, the youthful
Buddha is met by a decrepit old man, and turns back.
On his second drive, through the Southern gate, he
is met by a sick man ;
on his third through the
Western, by a corpse and on his
;
fourth, through the
Northern gate, by a religious mendicant, or devotee,
whose example he resolves to follow. The towers
commemorating these drives are said to have been
standing as late as the seventh century.
No doubt there are minor discrepancies. Josap hat
is described as meeting two men on his first excur
sion, one blind, the other maimed (or,
as it is in the
Latin version, a leper) ;
and as not making any third
journey. The monk Barlaam is sent, instead, to
visit him. Still, the general similarity remains. Each
ends by converting his royal father, and each dies a
saint. And, if it should come to be regarded as
certain, that in this "Profitable History, brought
from the interior region of the Ethiopians, called
India,"
we have indeed only another version of the
Life of Buddha, it will furnish matter (as
Max Miiller
points out) for very instructive reflection, that Bar
laam and Josaphat should have been canonized both
in the Eastern and Western Church.