the Gesta Romanorum, a mediæval work which, quotes Barlaam and Josaphat, and is otherwise largely indebted in an indirect way to Buddhist sources.[1] It is true that the basis of the judgment in that story is not the love of a mother to her son, but the love of a son to his father. But that very difference is encouraging. The orthodox compilers of the 'Gests of the Romans'[2] dared not have so twisted the sacred record. They could not therefore have taken it from our Bible. Like all their other tales, however, this one was borrowed from somewhere; and its history, when discovered, may be expected to throw some light on this inquiry.
I should perhaps point out another way in which this tale may possibly be supposed to have wandered from the Jews to the Buddhists, or from India to the Jews. The land of Ophir was probably in India. The Hebrew names of the apes and peacocks said to have been brought thence by Solomon's coasting-vessels are merely corruptions of Indian names; and Ophir must therefore have been either an Indian port (and if so, almost certainly at the mouth of the Indus, afterwards a Buddhist country), or an entrepot, further west,
- ↑ No. xlv. p. 80 of Swan and Hooper's popular edition, 1877; No. xlii. p. 167 of the critical edition published for the Early English Text Society in 1879 by S. J. H. Herrtage, who has added a valuable historical note at p. 477.
- ↑ This adaptation of the Latin title is worthy of notice. It of course means 'Deeds'; but as most of the stories are more or less humorous, the word Gest, now spelt Jest, acquired its present meaning.
