| Josaphat (saint) |
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According to legend, a King Abenner or Avenier in India persecuted the Christian church in his realm, founded by the Apostle Thomas . When astrologers predicted that his own son would someday become a Christian, Abenner had the young prince Josaphat isolated from external contact. Despite the imprisonment, Josaphat met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. Josaphat kept his faith even in the face of his father's anger and persuasion. Eventually, Abenner himself converted, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into reclusion with his old teacher Baarlam. The story of Josaphat and Baarlam was popular in the Middle Ages , appearing in such works as the '' Golden Legend ''. Although Josaphat and Barlaam were Canonized in the Roman Catholic Church (feast day 27 November ) and recognized among the Eastern Orthodox , there is no evidence that either ever existed. Wilfred Cantwell Smith traced the story from a second to fourth-century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, to a Manichee version, to an Arabic Muslim version, to an Eleventh Century Christian Georgian version, to a Christian Greek version, and from there into Western European languages. He traced Josaphat's name from the Sanskrit term '' Bodhisattva '' via the Middle Persian ''bodasif''. Recent linguistic and geographic research of the spread of Buddha's tale across Asia and Europe also points toward the saint's name and tale originating with Buddha. Investigation by researchers at the Korean Seoul National University indicates that the name ''Buddha'' or ''Bodhisatta'' in Sanskrit changed to ''Bodisav'' in Persian texts in the sixth or seventh century, then to ''Budhasaf'' or ''Yudasaf'' in an eighth-century Arabic document, and ''Iodasaph'' in Georgia in the 10th century. That name was then adapted to ''Ioasaph'' in Greece in the 11th century, and ''Iosaphat'' or ''Josaphat'' in Latin since then. Besides their names, the stories of the two individuals are strikingly similar. {Link without Title} Author , a holy figure identified with Jesus by the Ahmadi s. This idea, which proposes Jesus escaped crucifixion and died in India, was first introduced to the west by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad . However, "Yuz Asaf" is simply the Urdu and Farsi pronunciation of the Arabic Yūdhasaf, and does not go back any farther than the Arabic story, which is itself demonstrably derived from Buddhist stories. The story of Josaphat was re-told as an exploration on Free Will against fate in the Spanish 17th-century play '' La Vida Es Sueño '' ("Life is a dream") by Pedro Calderón De La Barca . Texts
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