An Indian king, warned that his son will become a Christian, raises Prince Ioasaph in a palace sealed off from sickness, age and death. The prince glimpses them anyway, and the hermit Barlaam comes to him disguised as a merchant, teaching through parables. The tale is a Christian reworking of the legend of the Buddha’s youth, long attributed to John of Damascus.
One of the great travelling stories of the Middle Ages, read in nearly every European language; this is the 1914 Woodward and Mattingly translation. Download the free EPUB.