After much tribulation the young prince's father accepted the Christian faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit.

[2] The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version,[3] then the Arabic Kitāb Bilawhar wa-Būd̠āsaf (Book of Bilawhar and Budhasaf), current in Baghdad in the eighth century, from where it entered into Middle Eastern Christian circles before appearing in European versions.

A Georgian monk, Euthymius of Athos, translated the story into Greek, some time before he died in an accident while visiting Constantinople in 1028.

The story of Josaphat and Barlaam also occupies a great part of book xv of the Speculum Historiale (Mirror of History) by the 13th century French encyclopedist Vincent of Beauvais.

[10] According to the legend, King Abenner in India persecuted the Christian Church in his realm, founded by the Apostle Thomas.

When astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, Abenner had the young prince Josaphat isolated from external contact.

Abuladze, during borrowing from Arabic to Georgian, misplaced i'jām resulted in the misreading of Junaysar as Habeneser, after which the initial H- was omitted.

"But not till the mid-nineteenth century was it recognised that, in Josaphat, the Buddha had been venerated as a Christian saint for about a thousand years.

The best-known version in Europe comes from a separate, but not wholly independent, source, written in Greek, and, although anonymous, attributed to "John the monk".

Basil; "The defence of images, coupled with the denunciation of Idolatry, the enthusiasm for the monastic ideal, and the scant regard shown for the bishops and the secular clergy, almost compel us to place the work in the time of the Iconoclastic Controversy.

[26] Nonetheless, many modern scholars do not accept this attribution, citing much evidence pointing to Euthymius of Athos, a Georgian who died in 1028.

It was included in the edition due to the traditional ascription, but marked "spuria" as the translator is the Georgian monk Euthymius the Hagiorite (ca.

[29] The book was published by Petar Maçukat in Venice in 1708 and titled Xivot S[veto]ga Giosafata obrachien od Barlaama and is currently held in the National and University Library in Zagreb.

[29] Both manuscripts were published in 1913 by Czech slavist Josef Karásek and Croatian philologist Franjo Fancev and reprinted in 1996.