Felix Lope de Vega y Carpio (1562-1635), author of many comedias de
santos, finished this Historia de Barlán y Josafat, comedia in
three acts and in verse at home „En Madrid a primero de febrero
de 1611.“ This complete manuscript contains numerous corrections
and revisions by the author. This story of a conversion is more
than an authentic Christian legend (then attributed to Saint John
of Damascus) — it is above all a Christianized story. In the
prince, who first gives up his palace in order to learn about the
plagues of the world and then leaves his throne for the meditative
life of an ascetic, one certainly recognizes Buddha. The edifying
Christian story, set at the banks of the Ganges, is nothing other
than an adaptation of Vie du Bodhisattva, a 2nd-4th century
Sanskrit text, which over centuries was translated and adapted
first by the Manichaeans, then by the Arabs, Georgians and
Byzantines, until it finally reached the far distant people of the
Western World: Lope de Vega’s work thus (without the author’s
having been aware of this) is part of one of the most impressive
chains of intellectual transmission in history.
Rights
e-codices - Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland
