- Author
- Signore Galilei
- Published
- 30 August 2026
- Kind
- Short personal blog post, with footnoted sources
- Original
- signoregalilei.com/2026/08/30/the-two-christian-saints-who-are-secretly-the-buddha/
- Subject
- Occult, myth and religion
- Themes
- How forms evolve, Belief at work
What it is
A blog post by Signore Galilei. It sets out the saints' legend and the chain of retellings behind it.
What it says
- The legend of Barlaam and Josaphat closely parallels the life of the Buddha.
- It first appears in Christian tradition in the 10th century in Georgia as the Balavariani.
- The name Budhasaf passed from Sanskrit Bodhisattva through Persian Bodisav, per the post.
- The Roman Catholic Church listed the saints in older martyrologies. Some Orthodox churches still mention them.
- Historians noted the similarity for centuries. Only in the mid-19th century was the derivation generally accepted.
- The author concludes that religions have long borrowed from each other. Sacred stories can reach people of any faith.
What evidence it gives
The post gives a chain of names and dates and cites six sources. These include a 1966 translation of the Balavariani and a Martin Palmer book. It gives no detailed argument for each step.
Interests and limits
This is a short popular post. It summarizes the claims and does not test them. The author has no stated stake in the conclusion. Cited sources were not opened. The closing reflection is the author's opinion.
Connections
These links are this wiki's own reading, not claims the sources make.
- Layers of Memory, Layers of Compression. The Buddha's story reached Christian saints through many retellings, and Bodhisattva became Budhasaf. Kellogg treats memory layers as lossy compression. The legend shows what can survive many hand-offs: plot, not provenance. Historians took centuries to accept the source.