Mystical powers of nourishment
are ascribed also to the Grail in the European legends. German scholars
have traced in the romances of the Grail remarkable indications of
Oriental origin. It is not impossible that the alms-pot of Buddha was the
prime source of them. Read the prophetic history of the Patra as Fa-hian
heard it in India (p. 161); its mysterious wanderings over Asia till it is
taken up into the heaven Tushita where Maitreya the Future Buddha
dwells. When it has disappeared from earth the Law gradually perishes, and
violence and wickedness more and more prevail:
- "What is it?
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?
* * * * * If a man
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once,
By faith, of all his ills. But then the times
Grew to such evil that the holy cup
Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear'd."
- Tennyson's Holy Grail
[1] Apollonia (of Macedonia) is made Bolina; so Bolinas = Apollonius
(Tyanaeus).
[2] In 1870 I saw in the Libary at Monte Cassino a long French poem on the
story, in a MS. of our traveller's age. This is perhaps one referred
to by Migne, as cited in Hist. Litt. de la France, XV. 484. [It "has
even been published in the Spanish dialect used in the Philippine
Islands!" (Rhys Davids, Jataka Tales, p. xxxvii.) In a MS. note, Yule
says: "Is not this a mistake?" - H.C.]
[3] Imprynted at London in Flete Strete at the sygne of the Sonne, by
Wynkyn de Worde (1527).
[4] The first Life is thus entitled: [Greek: Bios kai Politeia tou Hosiou
Patros haemon kai Isapostolon Ioasaph tou Basileos taes Indias].
Professor Mueller says all the Greek copies have Ioasaph. I have
access to no copy in the ancient Greek.
[5] Also Migne's Dict. Legendes, quoting a letter of C.L. Struve,
Director of Koenigsberg Gymnasium, to the Journal General de l'Inst.
Publ., says that "an earlier story is entirely reproduced in the
Barlaam," but without saying what story.
[6] The well-known Kanhari Caves. (See Handbook for India, p. 306.)
[7] The quotation and the cut are from an old German version of Barlaam and
Josaphat printed by Zainer at Augsburg, circa 1477. (B.M., Grenv. Lib.,
No. 11,766.)
[8] Ed. 1554, fol. xci. v. So also I find in A. Tostati Hisp. Comment.
in primam ptem. Exodi, Ven. 1695, pp. 295-296: "Idola autem sculpta in
Aegypto primo inventa sunt per Syrophenem primum Idolotrarum; ante
hoc enim pura elementa ut dii colebantur." I cannot trace the tale.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCERNING THE GREAT PROVINCE OF MAABAR, WHICH IS CALLED INDIA THE
GREATER, AND IS ON THE MAINLAND.
When you leave the Island of Seilan and sail westward about 60 miles, you
come to the great province of MAABAR which is styled INDIA THE GREATER; it
is best of all the Indies and is on the mainland.
