Rejecting enlightenment? The medieval Christian transformation of the Buddha-legend in Jacobus de Voragine's Barlaam and josaphat

Abstract

By the time the story of the Buddha became popular in medieval Europe as the story of the Christian saints Barlaam and Josaphat it had been subjected to many significant changes, one of the most intriguing of which is the apparent removal of the protagonist's enlightenment. How does this removal relate to the re-crafting of the religious message of the text? Paying special attention to the most widely disseminated medieval version of the tale, that in the Golden Legend, I conclude that Barlaam and Josaphat is remarkable both for what it omits and what it retains. It certainly omits the formal attainment of Buddhahood, and in doing so it suggests that the answers to our questioning of the world cannot come through cognition alone. But it retains and even highlights the insight into the flawed nature of the world—an insight central to the Buddha—legend—and treats it as a prerequisite to spiritual fulfilment.