Not a Big Deal, but...

A standard description of the text - which I've known and enjoyed for 40+ years ...

The story is a Christianized version of one of the legends of Buddha, as even the name Josaphat would seem to show. This is said to be a corruption of the original Joasaph, which is again corrupted from the middle Persian Budasif (Budsaif=Bodhisattva). Still it is of historical value, since it contains the "Apology" presented by the Athenian philosopher Aristides to the Emperor Adrian (or Antoninus Pius). The Greek text of the legend, written probably by a monk of the Sabbas monastery near Jerusalem at the beginning of the seventh century, was first published by Boissonade in "Anecdota Graeca" (Paris, 1832), IV, and is reproduced in Migne, P.G., XCVI, among the works of St. John Damascene. The legend cannot, however, have been a work of the great Damascene, as was proved by Zotenberg in "Notices sur le livre de Barlaam et Josaphat" (Paris, 1886) and by Hammel in "Verhandl. des 7 internat. Orientalisten Congresses", Semit. Section (Vienna, 1888). Another edition of the Greek was made by Kechajoglos (Athens, 1884). From the original Greek a German translation was made by F. Liebrecht (Münster, 1847). Latin translations (Minge, P.L., LXXIII), were made in the twelfth century and used for nearly all the European languages, in prose, verse and in miracle plays. Among them is prominent the German epic by Rudolph of Ems in the thirteenth century (Königsberg, 1818, and somewhat later at Leipzig). From the German an Icelandic and Swedish version were made in the fifteenth century. At Manila the legend appeared in the Tagala language of the Philippines. In the East it exists in Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Hebrew.

The Hebrew version of the tale was identified by Steinschneider ("Z. D. M. G." v. 91) under the title ("Prince and Dervish"), translated or adapted by Abraham ibn Ḥasdai, the first edition of which appeared in Constantinople, 1518, and others at Mantua 1557, Wandsbeck 1727, Frankfort-on-the-Oder 1766 (with German translation), Frankfort-on-the-Main 1769, Zolkiev 1771, Fürth 1783, Leghorn 1831, Lemberg 1870, Jitomir 1873, and Warsaw 1884. A German paraphrase by W. A. Meisel appeared at Stettin in 1847, and a second edition at Budapest in 1860. An earlier translation into German is contained in a Munich manuscript, written in Hebrew characters, No. 345. A Yiddish version appeared at Lublin in 1874. The exact origin of Ibn Ḥasdai's version is difficult to trace, though several Arabic translations and one Georgian have been recently discovered.

Balavariani the Georgian version of the legend, well known in world literature, of Barlaam and Josaphat. It contains a Christianized story of the life of Buddha. The Georgian version has been preserved in two texts: a long text (ninth-tenth centuries) and a short text (11th century). Euthymius the Hagiorite (955–1028) edited and translated the Balavariani from Georgian into Greek. The work was known in Russian as The Tale of Barlaam and Josaphat (translated from Greek in 1637 and 1680).

and for the benefit of SuperTramp

In 1591, Jesuit missionaries in Japan produced one of the first books in Japanese to be printed in movable type, albeit in Latin script¹. What they printed was a compendium of the Acts of the Saints (»Sanctos no Gosagveono Vchinvqigaqi«), which included »The Life of the Blessed Confessors Saint Barlaam and Saint Josaphat« (»Tattoqi Confessores S. Barlan to, S. Iosaphat no gosagueo«). It is the oldest such book, copies of which are still extant today.

Rosie Perera said:

But traditions do have reasons for being so entrenched. They usually aren't made up out of thin air. But in this case, the newer scholarship might indeed be correct.

Don't we all know that newer scholarship obviously knows more about any situation than those who lived closest to the actual events? [;)]