Homer in India: the Birth of the Buddha

Extract

This study has a limited object, but it touches upon a pregnant theme. Not long ago it was supposed that Indian texts which resembled Western were either so clearly older than the latter that, if contact could be posited, the latter must have learnt from the former, or the themes must be testimony to a common inheritance of the sundered portions of an Indo-European “race”. The relative dates of texts have come into question, and the prospect that Indian authors could have been inspired, at least in part, by Western authors (obvious in some contexts) is no longer alarming. That Buddhist authors could have learned from Judaeo-Christian stories is no longer surprising, or baffling.A later movement of Buddhist stories westwards is proved (as is well known) by the story of Barlaam and Ioasaph attributed to St John Damascene; and I recently stumbled across a piece of Buddhist mythology adapted to a Jewish situation. 4 Since this is the immediate cause of the present disclosure a very brief summary is needed.