Book Presentation: Dynamics of Transmission of ›Barlaam and Ioasaph‹

Sergio Basso, Dynamics of Transmission of ›Barlaam and Ioasaph‹: Along the Silk Road to Byzantium. Berlin – New York (De Gruyter) 2026. The spiritual crisis of a pagan prince, Ioasaph, is allayed only by the preaching of the Christian ascetic Barlaam. The standard claim is that the core of the novel was the Christianisation of the life of the Buddha. Basso’s approach recurs to a new alternative explanation theory: the Karussell-Modell.