AVRAHAM IBN HASDAI

(first half of the thirteenth century)

AVRAHAM IBN HASDAI’s major belletristic work, Ben HaMelekh veHaNazir (The Prince and the Monk), reflects the deep if not always conscious curiosity about foreign literature that characterized the Hebrew readership of the day: it adapts and Hebraicizes a Sanskrit tale that was transmitted through Arabic, via old Persian, and tells the story of the life of the young Buddha. The original tale was popular among Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike, and was also translated into Greek (in the seventh century, at the Mar Saba Monastery near Jerusalem), and it eventually made its way into numerous other European languages as well. In the almost entirely universalist worldview of the Hebrew version—with what may well be Sufi influences—we read that once upon a time there was a pagan king in India who persecuted a cult of monotheistic monks, which he soon expelled from his kingdom. When a son was born to the king and astrologers warned that the striking-looking child was destined to become one of these monks, the king banished the son to a tower on a distant island; his guards and servants there were ordered not to utter a word about death or the afterlife, or anything that might encourage the boy to begin thinking of final things. The plan ran aground as the adolescent son began to grow curious about the world beyond the island and asked to see it; at the advice of his wise men, the father relented, allowing the boy a single expedition to the kingdom. Despite the guards’ efforts to shield him, the son saw things during the expedition that caused him to reflect on the nature of existence—an old man and the effects of aging, for instance—and so he began to despair. Word of the prince’s crisis spread through the kingdom and beyond, eventually reaching the expelled monks, one of whom decided to come to the rescue. The monk made his way to the island, where he engaged the prince in extended conversation, educating him through tales told in rhymed prose studded with metered poems and epigrams, all the while preparing him to become a just and wise king for his people. Both the prose frame stories (which are warm and direct) and the poems (which are a tad more awkward than first-rate Spanish-Hebrew verse) seem to rely heavily on their original materials. The translator weaves into his work numerous biblical citations and allusions, though without involving specifically Jewish subject matter. Schirmann notes that it’s doubtful Ibn Hasdai would have undertaken this adaptation had he known of its provenance; but, he adds, the Hebrew alters the original Indian nature of the text much less than did the Christian versions, which in time made their way into European literature as well and are evident in Everyman and in works by Boccaccio, John Gower, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Calderon, and others. In medieval Christian versions of the story the main characters are known as Barlaam and Josaphat (distortions of the original Indian names, Blodar and Budassaf—the latter preserving the name Bodhisattva, the Buddha’s herald).

A resident of Barcelona during the first half of the thirteenth century, and one of the leaders of the Jewish community there, Ibn Hasdai was also a translator of key philosophical works (by Jewish and Muslim writers alike, including Mai-monides and al-Ghazaali) and an ardent supporter of Maimonides in the controversy that took shape around his Guide for the Perplexed.

WATCH OUT

PROPORTION

AGE AS AUTHOR

WHICH IS MORE BITTER

THE LYING WORD

THE MONK’S ADVICE

ADVICE FOR A FUTURE KING

I. WISDOM’S MANTLE

II. DON’T BELIEVE

III. THE HYSSOP AND THE CEDAR