Josaphat's story qualified on all three counts. He was born to a royal couple in India, at which time it was prophesied that he would become a religious leader rather than succeeding his father as king. Determined to thwart this fate, the king wouldn't allow his son to leave the palace grounds for many years. Finally Josaphat did, and what he saw horrified him: the old, the sick, and the dead. Fortunately, he also encountered Barlaam, a Christian monk from Sennar (or Sri Lanka), whose wise counsel impressed him so much that he too became a monk.
Desperate to win Josaphat back, the king gave him half the kingdom to rule. Josaphat quickly turned this land into a model Christian state. His father was so moved by the results that he himself converted to Christianity. When he died shortly afterward, Josaphat refused to take the throne. Instead, he joined Barlaam as a wandering ascetic and performed many miracles before his peaceful and widely mourned death.
In Josaphat's legend, modern scholars recognize the story of the Buddha, which apparently shape-shifted as it traveled west from region to region. They attribute the name Josaphat to a linguistic contortion of the Buddha's title, Bodhisattva (in an earlier, Arabic version of Josaphat's story, his name was Yudasaf). Even the name Barlaam probably derives from the tern Bhagavan (Blessed One), which is often bestowed on the Buddha. Thus Josaphat's story can be interpreted symbolically to describe Josaphat saving himself—a truly Buddhist concept!
Although Josaphat is no longer liturgically celebrated by the Catholic Church, his name remains in the Roman Martyrology, the official catalog of saints, and his day of worship is still listed as November 27. Because he was made a saint before the canonization process was reformed (1588), and perhaps also because a pope bestowed the honor rather than a lesser authority, Josaphat, like the Buddha, survived the test of time.
~Jack Maguire
No comments:
Post a Comment