Hagiography or Mirror for Princes? Prolegomena to the Study of the ‘Christian’ Legend of the Buddha in Armenian

This introductive study to the Armenian Barlaam and Ioasaph (henceforth, Armenian BJ) intends to draw scholarly attention to the reception and circulation of the Christianized saga of the Buddha within the Armenian world. The contribution tries to identify the broad literary context of transmission of the Armenian BJ, by showing its transverse character across hagiography, fictional storytelling and Fürstenspiegel literature. In this respect, it points out common structural features with ‘ascetic princes’ literature, a cycle of narratives originating in the Syriac tradition and representing a specific model of renouncement and self-abasement that ostensibly differed from ascetic ideals as featured in Early Christianity and the Late Antiquity. The article provides preliminary considerations on the time and place of production, as well as on the patronage of the short and the long recensions of the Armenian BJ with a particular focus on the short recension. Finally, it offers a comparative textual analysis of some literary features of the saga, by considering the Armenian, the Greek, the Georgian, and the Arabic versions.