It is possible, also, that the Æsopean fables of the Latin poet PHÆDRUS, who in the title of his work calls himself a freedman of Augustus, were known to Planudes. But the work of Phædrus, which is based on that of Babrius, existed only in very rare MSS. till the end of the sixteenth century,' and may therefore have easily escaped the notice of Planudes.

On the other hand, we have seen that versions of Buddhist Birth Stories, and other Indian tales, had appeared in Europe before the time of Planudes in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Spanish; and many of his stories have been clearly traced back to this source. Further, as I shall presently show, some of the fables of Babrius and Phædrus, found in Planudes, were possibly derived by those authors from Buddhist sources. And lastly, other versions of the Jātakas, besides those which have been mentioned as coming through the Arabs, had reached Europe long before the time of Planudes; and some more of his stories have been traced back to Buddhist sources through these channels also.

It was first edited by Pithou, in 1596; also by Orelli, Zürich, 1831. Comp. Oesterley, Phædrus und die Esop. Fabel im Mittelalter.'

2 By Silvestre de Sary, in his edition of Kalilah and Dimnah, Paris, 1816; Loiseleur Deslongchamps, in his Essai sur les Fables Indiennes, et sur leur Introd. en Europe,' Paris, 1838; Professor Benfey, in his edition of the Pañca Tantra, Leipzig, 1859; Professor Max Müller, On the Migration of Fables,' Contemporary Review, July, 1870; Professor Weber, Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit Griechischen,' Indische Studien, iii. 337 and foll.; Adolf Wagener, Essai sur les rapports entre les apologues de l'Inde et de la Grèce,' 1853; Otto Keller, Ueber die Geschichte der Griechischen Fabeln,' 1862.

What is at present known, then, with respect to the so-called Esop's fables, amounts to this-that none of them are really Æsopean at all; that the collection was first formed in the Middle Ages; that a large number of them have been already traced back, in various ways, to our Buddhist Jātaka book; and that almost the whole of them are probably derived, in one way or another, from Indian sources.

It is perhaps worthy of mention, as a fitting close to the history of the so-called Æsop's Fables, that those of his stories which Planudes borrowed indirectly from India have at length been restored to their original home, and bid fair to be popular even in this muchaltered form. For not only has an Englishman translated a few of them into several of the many languages spoken in the great continent of India, but Narayan Balkrishna Godpole, B.A., one of the Masters of the Government High School at Ahmadnagar, has lately published a second edition of his translation into Sanskrit. of the common English version of the successful spurious compilation of the old monk of Constantinople!

1

J. Gilchrist, The Oriental Fabulist, or Polyglot Translations of Æsop's and other Ancient Fables from the English Language into Hindustani, Persian, Arabic, Bhakka, Bongla, Sanscrit, etc., in the Roman Character,' Calcutta, 1803.

THE BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT LITERATURE.

A complete answer to the question with which the last digression started can only be given when each one of the two hundred and thirty-one fables of Planudes and his successors shall have been traced back to its original author. But-whatever that complete answer may bethe discoveries just pointed out are at least most strange and most instructive. And yet, if I mistake not, the history of the Jātaka Book contains hidden amongst its details a fact more unexpected and more striking still.

In the eighth century the Khalif of Bagdad was that Almansur at whose court was written the Arabic book Kalilah and Dimnah, afterwards translated by the learned Jews I have mentioned into Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. A Christian, high in office at his court, afterwards became a monk, and is well known, under the name of St. John of Damascus, as the author in Greek of many theological works in defence of the orthodox faith. Among these is a religious romance called 'Barlaam and Jōasaph,' giving the history of an Indian prince who was converted by Barlaam and became a hermit. This history, the reader will be surprised to learn, is taken from the life of the Buddha; and Joasaph is merely the Buddha under another name, the word Joasaph, or Josaphat, being

simply a corruption of the word Bodisat, that title of the future Buddha so constantly repeated in the Buddhist Birth Stories. Now a life of the Buddha forms the introduction to our Jātaka Book, and St. John's romance also contains a number of fables and stories, most of which have been traced back to the same source.2

This book, the first religious romance published in a Western language, became very popular indeed, and, like the Arabic Kalilah and Dimnah, was translated into many other European languages. It exists in Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, English, Swedish, and Dutch. This will show how widely it was read, and how much its moral tone pleased the taste of the Middle Ages. It was also translated as early as 1204 into Icelandic, and has even been published in the Spanish dialect used in the Philippine Islands!

Now it was a very ancient custom among Christians to recite at the most sacred part of their most sacred service (in the so-called Canon of the Mass, immediately

1 Joasaph is in Arabic written also Yudasatf; and this, through a confusion between the Arabic letters Y and B, is for Bodisat. See, for the history of these changes, Reinaud, Memoire sur l'Inde,' 1849, p. 91; quoted with approbation by Weber, Indische Streifen,' iii. 57.

The Buddhist origin was first pointed out by Laboulaye in the Debats, July, 1859; and more fully by Liebrecht, in the Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur,' 1860. See also Littré, Journal des Savans, 1865, who fully discusses, and decides in favour of the romance being really the work of St. John of Damascus. I hope, in a future volume, to publish a complete analysis of St. John's work; pointing out the resemblances. between it and the Buddhist lives of Gotama, and giving parallel passages wherever the Greek adopts, not only the Buddhist ideas, but also Buddhist expressions.

1

before the consecration of the Host) the names of deceased saints and martyrs. Religious men of local celebrity were inserted for this purpose in local lists, called Diptychs, and names universally honoured throughout Christendom appeared in all such catalogues. The confessors and martyrs so honoured are now said to be canonized, that is, they have become enrolled among the number of Christian saints mentioned in the Canon,'

whom it is the duty of every Catholic to revere, whose intercession may be invoked, who may be chosen as patron saints, and in whose honour images and altars and chapels may be set up.1

For a long time it was permitted to the local ecclesiastics to continue the custom of inserting such names in their Diptychs,' but about 1170 a decretal of Pope Alexander III. confined the power of canonization, as far as the Roman Catholics were concerned,2 to the

Pope himself. From the different Diptychs various martyrologies, or lists of persons so to be commemorated in the 'Canon,' were composed to supply the place of the merely local lists or Diptychs. For as time went on, it began to be considered more and more improper

1 Pope Benedict XIV. in 'De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonisatione,' lib. i. cap. 45; Regnier, 'De ecclesià Christi,' in Migne's Theol. Curs. Compl. iv. 710.

2 Decret. Greg., Lib. iii. Tit. xlvi., confirmed and explained by decrees of Urban VIII. (13th March, 1625, and 5th July, 1634) and of Alexander VII, (1659).