“Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one’s
mind, that is the teaching of the Awakened....
“Better than Sovereignty over the earth, better than going
to heaven, better than lordship over all the worlds is
the reward of the first step in holiness.”--_Dhammapada_,
verses 178-183.
Creator, where are these tribunals, where do these courts
proceed, where do these courts assemble, where do the
tribunals meet to which the man of the embodied world gives
an account for his soul?--_Persian Vendidad_, xix. 89.
Hail to thee O Man, who art come from the transitory place
to the imperishable!--_Vendidad_, farg. vii., 136.
To the true believer, truth, wherever it appears, is
welcome, nor will any doctrine seem the less true or the
less precious, because it was seen not only by Moses or
Christ, but likewise by Buddha or Lao-tse.--MAX MÜLLER.
Unluckily for those who would have been glad to render justice to
the ancient and modern religious philosophies of the Orient, a fair
opportunity has hardly ever been given to them. Of late there has
been a touching accord between philologists holding high official
positions, and missionaries from heathen lands. Prudence before
truth when the latter endangers our sinecures! Besides, how easy to
compromise with conscience. A State religion is a prop of government;
all State religions are “exploded humbugs”; therefore, since one is
as good, or rather as bad, as another, _the_ State religion may as
well be supported. Such is the diplomacy of official science.
Grote in his _History of Greece_, assimilates the Pythagoreans to
the Jesuits, and sees in their Brotherhood but an ably-disguised
object to acquire political ascendancy. On the loose testimony of
Herakleitus and some other writers, who accused Pythagoras of craft,
and described him as a man “of extensive research... but artful
for mischief and destitute of sound judgment,” some historical
biographers hastened to present him to posterity in such a character.
How then if they must accept the Pythagoras painted by the satirical
Timon: “a juggler of solemn speech engaged in fishing for men,” can
they avoid judging of Jesus from the sketch that Celsus has embalmed
in his satire? Historical impartiality has nought to do with creeds
and personal beliefs, and exacts as much of posterity for one as
for the other. The life and doings of Jesus are far less attested
than those of Pythagoras, if, indeed, we can say that they are
attested at all by any _historical_ proof. For assuredly no one
will gainsay that as a real personage Celsus has the advantage as
regards the credibility of his testimony over Matthew, or Mark, or
Luke, or John, who never wrote a line of the _Gospels_ attributed to
them respectively. Withal Celsus is at least as good a witness as
Herakleitus. He was known as a scholar and a Neo-platonist to some
of the Fathers; whereas the very existence of the four Apostles must
be taken on blind faith. If Timon regarded the sublime Samian as “a
juggler,” so did Celsus hold Jesus, or rather those who made all the
pretenses for him. In his famous work, addressing the Nazarene, he
says: “Let us grant that the wonders were performed by you ... but
are they not common with those who have been taught by the Egyptians
to perform in the middle of the forum for a few oboli.” And we know,
on the authority of the _Gospel according to Matthew_, that the
Galilean prophet was also a man of solemn speech, and that he called
himself and offered to make his disciples “fishers of men.”
Let it not be imagined that we bring this reproach to any who revere
Jesus as God. Whatever the faith, if the worshipper be but sincere,
it should be respected in his presence. If we do not accept Jesus as
God, we revere _him as a man_. Such a feeling honors him more than
if we were to attribute to him the powers and personality of the
Supreme, and credit him at the same time with having played a useless
comedy with mankind, as, after all, his mission proves scarcely less
than a complete failure; 2,000 years have passed, and Christians do
not reckon one-fifth part of the population of the globe, nor is
Christianity likely to progress any better in the future. No, we aim
but at strict justice, leaving all personality aside. We question
those who, adoring neither Jesus, Pythagoras, nor Apollonius, yet
recite the idle gossip of their contemporaries; those who in their
books either maintain a prudent silence, or speak of “our Saviour”
and “our Lord,” as though they believed any more in the made-up
theological Christ, than in the fabulous Fo of China.
_There were no Atheists in those days of old; no disbelievers or
materialists, in the modern sense of the word, as there were no
bigoted detractors._ He who judges the ancient philosophies by their
external phraseology, and quotes from ancient writings sentences
_seemingly_ atheistical, is unfit to be trusted as a critic, for he
is unable to penetrate into the inner sense of their metaphysics.
The views of Pyrrho, whose rationalism has become proverbial, can be
interpreted only by the light of the oldest Hindu philosophy. From
Manu down to the latest Swâbhâvika, its leading metaphysical feature
ever was to proclaim the reality and supremacy of spirit, with a
vehemence proportionate to the denial of the objective existence of
our material world--passing phantom of temporary forms and beings.
The numerous schools begotten by Kapila, reflect his philosophy no
clearer than the doctrines left as a legacy to thinkers by Timon,
Pyrrho’s “Prophet,” as Sextus Empiricus calls him. His views on the
divine repose of the soul, his proud indifference to the opinion
of his fellow men, his contempt for sophistry, reflect in an equal
degree stray beams of the self-contemplation of the Gymnosophists
and of the Buddhist _Vaibhâshika_. Notwithstanding that he and
his followers are termed, from their state of constant suspense,
“skeptics,” “doubters,” inquirers, and ephectics, only because they
postponed their final judgment on dilemmas, with which our modern
philosophers prefer dealing, Alexander-like, by cutting the Gordian
knot, and then declaring the dilemma a superstition, such men as
Pyrrho cannot be pronounced atheists. No more can Kapila, or Giordano
Bruno, or again Spinoza, who were also treated as atheists; nor yet,
the great Hindu poet, philosopher, and dialectician, Veda-Vyasa,
whose principle that all is illusion--save the Great Unknown and His
direct essence--Pyrrho has adopted in full.
These philosophical beliefs extended like a net-work over the
whole pre-Christian world; and, surviving persecution and
misrepresentations, form the corner-stone of every now existing
religion outside Christianity.
Comparative theology is a two-edged weapon, and has so proved itself.
But the Christian advocates, unabashed by evidence, force comparison
in the serenest way; Christian legends and dogmas, they say, do
somewhat resemble the heathen, it is true; but see, while the one
teaches us the existence, powers, and attributes of an all-wise,
all-good Father-God, Brahmanism gives us a multitude of minor gods,
and Buddhism none whatever; one is fetishism and polytheism, the
other bald atheism. Jehovah is the one true God, and the Pope and
Martin Luther are His prophets! This is one edge of the sword, and
this the other: Despite missions, despite armies, despite enforced
commercial intercourse, the “heathen” find nothing in the teachings
of Jesus--sublime though some are--that Christna and Gautama had not
taught them before. And so, to gain over any new converts, and keep
the few already won by centuries of cunning, the Christians give
the “heathen” dogmas more absurd than their own, and cheat them by
adopting the habit of their native priests, and practicing the very
“idolatry and fetishism” which they so disparage in the “heathens.”
Comparative theology works both ways.
In Siam and Burmah, Catholic missionaries have become perfect
Talapoins to all external appearance, _i.e._, minus their virtues;
and throughout India, especially in the south, they were denounced
by their own colleague, the Abbé Dubois.[1038] This was afterward
vehemently denied. But now we have living witnesses to the
correctness of the charge. Among others, Captain O’Grady, already
quoted, a native of Madras, writes the following on this systematic
method of deception:[1039] “The hypocritical beggars profess
total abstinence and horror of flesh to conciliate converts from
Hinduism.... I got one father, or rather, he got himself gloriously
drunk in my house, time and again, and the way he pitched into
roast beef was a caution.” Further, the author has pretty stories
to tell of “black-faced Christs,” “Virgins on wheels,” and of
Catholic processions in general. We have seen such solemn ceremonies
accompanied by the most infernal cacophony of a Cingalese orchestra,
tam-tam and gongs included, followed by a like Brahmanic procession,
which, for its picturesque coloring and _mise en scène_, looked far
more solemn and imposing than the Christian saturnalias. Speaking
of one of these, the same author remarks: “It was more devilish
than religious.... The bishops walked off Romeward,[1040] with a
mighty pile of Peter’s pence gathered in the minutest sums, with
gold ornaments, nose-rings, anklets, elbow bangles, etc., etc., in
profusion, recklessly thrown in heaps at the feet of the grotesque
copper-colored image of the Saviour, with its Dutch metal halo and
gaudily-striped cummerbund and--shade of Raphael!--blue turban.”[1041]
As every one can see, such voluntary contributions make it quite
profitable to mimic the native Brahmans and bonzes. Between the
worshippers of Christna and Christ, or Avany and the Virgin Mary,
there is less substantial difference, in fact, than between the two
native sects, the Vishnavites and the Sivites. For the _converted_
Hindus, Christ is a slightly modified Christna, that is all.
Missionaries carry away rich donations and Rome is satisfied. Then
comes a year of famine; but the nose-rings and gold elbow-bangles are
gone and people starve by thousands. What matters it? They die in
Christ, and Rome scatters her blessings over their corpses, of which
thousands float yearly down the sacred rivers to the ocean.[1042] So
servile are the Catholics in their imitation, and so careful not to
give offense to their parishioners, that if they happen to have a few
higher caste converts in a Church, no pariah nor any man of the lower
castes, however good a Christian he may be, can be admitted into the
same Church with them. And yet they dare call themselves the servants
of Him who sought in preference the society of the publicans and
sinners; and whose appeal--“Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest” has opened to him the hearts of millions of
the suffering and the oppressed!
Few writers are as bold and outspoken as the late lamented Dr. Thomas
Inman, of Liverpool, England. But however small their number, these
men all agree unanimously, that the philosophy of both Buddhism
and Brahmanism must rank higher than Christian theology, and teach
neither atheism or fetishism. “To my own mind,” says Inman, “the
assertion that Sakya did not believe in God is wholly unsupported.
Nay, his whole scheme is built upon the belief that there are powers
above which are capable of punishing mankind for their sins. It is
true that these gods were not called Elohim, nor Jah, nor Jehovah,
nor Jahveh, nor Adonai, nor Ehieh, nor Baalim, nor Ashtoreth--yet,
for the son of Suddhadana, there was a Supreme Being.”[1043]
There are four schools of Buddhist theology, in Ceylon, Thibet, and
India. One is rather pantheistical than atheistical, but the other
three are purely _theistical_.
On the first the speculations of our philologists are based. As to
the second, third, and the fourth, their teachings vary but in the
external mode of expression. We have fully explained the spirit of it
elsewhere.
As to practical, not theoretical views on the Nirvana, this is what
a rationalist and a skeptic says: “I have questioned at the very
doors of their temples several hundreds of Buddhists, and have not
found one but strove, fasted, and gave himself up to every kind of
austerity, to perfect himself and acquire immortality; not to attain
final annihilation.
“There are over 300,000,000 of Buddhists who fast, pray, and toil....
Why make of these 300,000,000 of men idiots and fools, macerating
their bodies and imposing upon themselves most fearful privations
of every nature, in order to reach a fatal annihilation which must
overtake them anyhow?”[1044]
As well as this author we have questioned Buddhists and Brahmanists
and studied their philosophy. _Apavarg_ has wholly a different
meaning from annihilation. It is but to become more and more
like Him, of whom he is one of the refulgent sparks, that is the
aspiration of every Hindu philosopher and the hope of the most
ignorant is _never to yield up his distinct individuality_. “Else,”
as once remarked an esteemed correspondent of the author, “mundane
and separate existence would look like God’s comedy and our tragedy;
sport to Him that we work and suffer, death to us to suffer it.”
The same with the doctrine of metempsychosis, so distorted by
European scholars. But as the work of translation and analysis
progresses, fresh religious beauties will be discovered in the old
faiths.
Professor Whitney has in his translation of the _Vedas_ passages in
which he says, the assumed importance of the body to its old tenant
is brought out in the strongest light. These are portions of hymns
read at the funeral services, over the body of the departed one. We
quote them from Mr. Whitney’s scholarly work:
“Start onward! bring together all thy members;
let not thy limbs be left, nor yet thy body;
Thy spirit gone before, now follow after;
Wherever it delights thee, go thou thither.”
* * * * *
Collect thy body; with its every member;
thy limbs with help of rites I fashion for thee.
* * * * *
If some one limb was left behind by Agni,
When to thy Fathers’ world he hence conveyed you,
That very one I now again supply you;
rejoice in heaven with all your limbs, ye Fathers![1045]
The “body” here referred to is not the physical, but the _astral_
one--a very great distinction, as may be seen.
Again, belief in the individual existence of the immortal spirit
of man is shown in the following verses of the Hindu ceremonial of
incremation and burial.
“They who within the sphere of earth are stationed,
or who are settled now in realms of pleasure,
The Fathers who have the earth--the atmosphere--the heaven for
their seat,
The “fore-heaven” the third heaven is styled,
and where the Fathers have their seat.”--(_Rig-Veda_, x.)
With such majestic views as these people held of God and the
immortality of man’s spirit, it is not surprising that a comparison
between the Vedic hymns and the narrow, unspiritual Mosaic books
should result to the advantage of the former in the mind of every
unprejudiced scholar. Even the ethical code of _Manu_ is incomparably
higher than that of the _Pentateuch_ of Moses, in the literal meaning
of which all the uninitiated scholars of two worlds cannot find a
single proof that the ancient Jews believed either in a future life
or an immortal spirit in man, or that Moses himself ever taught it.
Yet, we have eminent Orientalists who begin to suspect that the “dead
letter” conceals something not apparent at first sight. So Professor
Whitney tells us that “as we look yet further into the forms of
the modern Hindu ceremonial we discover not a little of the same
discordance between creed and observance; the one is not explained by
the other,” says this great American scholar. He adds: “We are forced
to the conclusion either that India derived its system of rites from
some foreign source, and practiced them blindly, careless of their
true import, or _else that those rites are the production of another
doctrine of older date_, and have maintained themselves in popular
usage after the decay of the creed of which they were the original
expression.”[1046]
This creed has not decayed, and its hidden philosophy, as understood
now by the initiated Hindus, is just as it was 10,000 years ago. But
can our scholars seriously hope to have it delivered unto them upon
their first demand? Or do they still expect to fathom the mysteries
of the World-Religion in its popular exoteric rites?
No orthodox Brahmans and Buddhists would deny the Christian
incarnation; only, they understand it in their own philosophical
way, and how could they deny it? The very corner-stone of their
religious system is periodical incarnations of the Deity. Whenever
humanity is about merging into materialism and moral degradation, a
Supreme Spirit incarnates himself in his creature selected for the
purpose. The “Messenger of the Highest” links itself with the duality
of matter and soul, and the triad being thus completed by the union
of its Crown, a saviour is born, who helps restore humanity to the
path of truth and virtue. The early Christian Church, all imbued
with Asiatic philosophy, evidently shared the same belief--otherwise
_it would have neither erected into an article of faith the second
advent, nor cunningly invented the fable of Anti-Christ as a
precaution against possible future incarnations_. Neither could they
have imagined that Melchisedek was an avatar of Christ. They had only
to turn to the _Bagavedgitta_ to find Christna or Bhagaved saying to
Arjuna: “He who follows me is saved by wisdom and even by works....
_As often as virtue declines in the world, I make myself manifest to
save it._”
Indeed, it is more than difficult to avoid sharing this doctrine
of periodical incarnations. Has not the world witnessed, at rare
intervals, the advent of such grand characters as Christna,
Sakya-muni, and Jesus? Like the two latter personages, Christna
seems to have been a real being, deified by his school at some
time in the twilight of history, and made to fit into the frame of
the time-honored religious programme. Compare the two Redeemers,
the Hindu and the Christian, the one preceding the other by some
thousands of years; place between them Siddhârtha Buddha, reflecting
Christna and projecting into the night of the future his own luminous
shadow, out of whose collected rays were shaped the outlines of the
mythical Jesus, and from whose teachings were drawn those of the
historical Christos; and we find that under one identical garment
of poetical legend lived and breathed three real human figures. The
individual merit of each of them is rather brought out in stronger
relief than otherwise by this same mythical coloring; for no unworthy
character could have been selected for deification by the popular
instinct, so unerring and just when left untrammeled. _Vox populi,
vox Dei_ was once true, however erroneous when applied to the present
priest-ridden mob.
Kapila, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Basilides, Marcian, Ammonius
and Plotinus, founded schools and sowed the germs of many a noble
thought, and disappearing left behind them the refulgence of
demi-gods. But the three personalities of Christna, Gautama, and
Jesus appeared like true gods, each in his epoch, and bequeathed to
humanity three religions built on the imperishable rock of ages.
That all three, especially the Christian faith, have in time become
adulterated, and the latter almost unrecognizable, is no fault
of either of the noble Reformers. It is the priestly self-styled
husbandmen of the “vine of the Lord” who must be held to account by
future generations. Purify the three systems of the dross of human
dogmas, the pure essence remaining will be found identical. Even
Paul, the great, the honest apostle, in the glow of his enthusiasm
either unwittingly perverted the doctrines of Jesus, or else his
writings are disfigured beyond recognition. The _Talmud_, the record
of a people who, notwithstanding his apostasy from Judaism, yet
feel compelled to acknowledge Paul’s greatness as a philosopher and
religionist, says of Aher (Paul),[1047] in the _Yerushalmi_, that
“he corrupted the work of that man”--meaning Jesus.[1048]
Meanwhile, before this smelting is completed by honest science and
future generations, let us glance at the present aspect of the
legendary three religions.
THE LEGENDS OF THREE SAVIOURS.
CHRISTNA.
_Epoch_: Uncertain. European science fears to commit itself.
But the Brahmanical calculations fix it at about 6,877
years ago.
Christna descends of a royal family, but is brought up by
shepherds; is called the _Shepherd God_. His birth and
divine descent are kept secret from Kansa.
An incarnation of Vishnu, the second person of the Trimurti
(Trinity), Christna was worshipped at Mathura, on the
river Jumna (See _Strabo_ and _Arrian_ and _Bampton
Lectures_, pp. 98-100.
Christna is persecuted by Kansa, Tyrant of Madura, but
miraculously escapes. In the hope of destroying the child,
the king has thousands of male innocents slaughtered.
Christna’s mother was Devaki, or Devanagui, an immaculate
virgin (but had given birth to eight sons before Christna).
Christna is endowed with beauty, omniscience, and
omnipotence from birth. Produces miracles, cures the lame
and blind, and casts out demons. Washes the feet of the
Brahmans, and descending to the lowest regions (hell),
liberates the dead, and returns to _Vaicontha_--the
paradise of Vishnu. Christna was the God Vishnu himself in
human form.
Christna creates boys out of calves, and _vice versa_
(Maurice’s _Indian Antiquities_, vol. ii., p. 332). He
crushes the Serpent’s head. (Ibid.)
Christna is Unitarian. He persecutes the clergy, charges
them with ambition and hypocrisy to their faces, divulges
the great secrets of the Sanctuary--the Unity of God and
immortality of our spirit. Tradition says he fell a victim
to their vengeance. His favorite disciple, Arjuna, never
deserts him to the last. There are credible traditions
that he died on the cross (a tree), nailed to it by an
arrow. The best scholars agree that the Irish Cross at
Tuam, erected long before the Christian era, is Asiatic.
(See _Round Towers_, p. 296, _et seq._, by O’Brien; also
_Religions de l’Antiquité_; Creuzer’s _Symbolik_, vol. i.,
p. 208; and engraving in Dr. Lundy’s _Monumental
Christianity_, p. 160.
Christna ascends to Swarga and becomes Nirguna.
GAUTAMA-BUDDHA.
_Epoch_: According to European science and the Ceylonese
calculations, 2,540 years ago.
Gautama is the son of a king. His first disciples are
shepherds and mendicants.
According to some, an incarnation of Vishnu; according to
others, an incarnation of one of the Buddhas, and even of
Ad’Buddha, the Highest Wisdom.
Buddhist legends are free from this plagiarism, but the
Catholic legend that makes of him St. Josaphat, shows his
father, king of Kapilavastu, slaying innocent young
_Christians (!!)_. (See _Golden Legend_.)
Buddha’s mother was Maya, or Mayadeva; married to her
husband (yet an immaculate virgin).
Buddha is endowed with the same powers and qualities, and
performs similar wonders. Passes his life with mendicants.
It is claimed for Gautama that he was distinct from all
other Avatars, having the entire spirit of Buddha in him,
while all others had but a part (ansa) of the divinity in
them.
Gautama crushes the Serpent’s head, _i.e._, abolishes the
Naga worship as fetishism; but, like Jesus, makes the
Serpent the emblem of divine wisdom.
Buddha abolishes idolatry; divulges the Mysteries of the
Unity of God and the Nirvana, the true meaning of which
was previously known only to the priests. Persecuted and
driven out of the country, he escapes death by gathering
about him some hundreds of thousands of believers in his
Buddhaship. Finally, dies, surrounded by a host of
disciples, with Ananda, his beloved disciple and cousin,
chief among them all. O’Brien believes that the Irish
Cross at Tuam is meant for Buddha’s, but Gautama was never
crucified. He is represented in many temples, as sitting
under a cruciform tree, which is the “Tree of Life.” In
another image he is sitting on Naga the Raja of Serpents
with a cross on his breast.[1049]
Buddha ascends to Nirvana.
JESUS OF NAZARETH.
_Epoch_: Supposed to be 1877 years ago. His birth and royal
descent are concealed from Herod the tyrant.
Descends of the Royal family of David. Is worshipped by
shepherds at his birth, and is called the “Good Shepherd”.
(See _Gospel according to John_).
An incarnation of the Holy Ghost, then the second person of
the Trinity, now the third. But the Trinity was not invented
until 325 years after his birth. Went to Mathura or Matarea,
Egypt, and produced his first miracles there. (See _Gospel
of Infancy_).
Jesus is persecuted by Herod, King of Judæa, but escapes
into Egypt under conduct of an angel. To assure his
slaughter, Herod orders a massacre of innocents, and 40,000
were slain.
Jesus’ mother was Mariam, or Miriam; married to her husband,
yet an immaculate virgin, but had several children besides
Jesus. (See _Matthew_ xiii. 55, 56.)
Jesus is similarly endowed. (See _Gospels and the Apocryphal
Testament_.) Passes his life with sinners and publicans.
Casts out demons likewise. The only notable difference
between the three is that Jesus is charged with casting out
devils by the power of Beelzebub, which the others were not.
Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, dies, descends to
hell, and ascends to heaven, after liberating the dead.
Jesus is said to have crushed the Serpent’s head, agreeably
to original revelation in _Genesis_. He also transforms boys
into kids, and kids into boys. (_Gospel of Infancy_.)
Jesus rebels against the old Jewish law; denounces the
Scribes, and Pharisees, and the synagogue for hypocrisy and
dogmatic intolerance. Breaks the Sabbath, and defies the
Law. Is accused by the Jews of divulging the secrets of the
Sanctuary. Is put to death on a cross (a tree). Of the
little handful of disciples whom he had converted, one
betrays him, one denies him, and the others desert him at
the last, except John--the disciple _he loved_. Jesus,
Christna, and Buddha, all three Saviours, die either on or
under _trees_, and are connected with crosses which are
symbolical of the three-fold powers of creation.
Jesus ascends to Paradise.
RESULT.
About the middle of the present century, the followers of these three
religions were reckoned as follows:[1050]
OF CHRISTNA.
Brahmans, 60,000,000.
OF BUDDHA.
Buddhists, 450,000,000.
OF JESUS.
Christians, 260,000,000.
Such is the present aspect of these three great religions, of which
each is in turn reflected in its successor. Had the Christian
dogmatizers stopped there, the results would not have been so
disastrous, for it would be hard, indeed, to make a bad creed out of
the lofty teachings of Gautama, or Christna, as _Bhagaved_. But they
went farther, and added to pure primitive Christianity the fables of
Hercules, Orpheus, and Bacchus. As Mussulmans will not admit that
their _Koran_ is built on the substratum of the Jewish _Bible_, so
the Christians will not confess that they owe next to everything
to the Hindu religions. But the Hindus have chronology to prove it
to them. We see the best and most learned of our writers uselessly
striving to show that the extraordinary similarities--amounting
to identity--between Christna and Christ are due to the spurious
_Gospels of the Infancy_ and of _St. Thomas_ having “probably
circulated on the coast of Malabar, and giving color to the story
of Christna.”[1051] Why not accept truth in all sincerity, and
reversing matters, admit that St. Thomas, faithful to that policy of
proselytism which marked the earliest Christians, when he found in
Malabar the original of the mythical Christ in Christna, tried to
blend the two; and, adopting in his gospel (from which all others
were copied) the most important details of the story of the Hindu
Avatar, engrafted the Christian heresy on the primitive religion of
Christna. For any one acquainted with the spirit of Brahmanism, the
idea of Brahmans accepting anything from a stranger, especially from
a foreigner, is simply ridiculous. That they, the most fanatic people
in religious matters, who, during centuries, cannot be compelled to
adopt the most simple of European usages, should be suspected of
having introduced into their sacred books unverified legends about
a foreign God, is something so preposterously illogical, that it is
really waste of time to contradict the idea!
We will not stop to examine the too well-known resemblances between
the external form of Buddhistic worship--especially Lamaism--and
Roman Catholicism, for noticing which poor Huc paid dear--but proceed
to compare the most vital points. Of all the original manuscripts
that have been translated from the various languages in which
Buddhism is expounded, the most extraordinary and interesting are
_Buddha’s Dhammapada_, or _Path of Virtue_, translated from the Pâli
by Colonel Rogers,[1052] and the _Wheel of the Law_, containing the
views of a Siamese Minister of State on his own and other religions,
and translated by Henry Alabaster.[1053] The reading of these two
books, and the discovery in them of similarities of thought and
doctrine often amounting to identity, prompted Dr. Inman to write
the many profoundly true passages embodied in one of his last works,
_Ancient Faith and Modern_.[1054] “I speak with sober earnestness,”
writes this kind-hearted, sincere scholar, “when I say that after
forty years’ experience among those who profess Christianity, and
those who proclaim ... more or less quietly their disagreement with
it, I have noticed more sterling virtue and morality amongst the
last than the first.... I know personally many pious, good Christian
people, whom I honor, admire, and, perhaps, would be glad to emulate
or to equal; but they deserve the eulogy thus passed on them, in
consequence of their good sense, having ignored the doctrine of
faith to a great degree, and having cultivated the practice of good
works.... In my judgment the most praiseworthy Christians whom I know
are _modified Buddhists_, though probably, not one of them ever heard
of Siddârtha.”[1055]
Between the Lamaico-Buddhistic and Roman Catholic articles of faith
and ceremonies, there are fifty-one points presenting a perfect and
striking similarity; and four diametrically antagonistic.
As it would be useless to enumerate the “similarities,” for the
reader may find them carefully noted in Inman’s work on _Ancient
Faith and Modern_, pp. 237-240, we will quote but the four
dissimilarities, and leave every one to draw his own deductions
therefrom:
1. “The Buddhists hold that 1. “The Christians will
nothing which is contradicted accept any nonsense, if
by sound reason can be a promulgated by the Church as
true doctrine of Buddha.” a matter of faith.”[1056]
2. “The Buddhists do not 2. “The Romanists adore the
adore the mother of Sakya,” mother of Jesus, and prayer
though they honor her as a is made to her for aid and
holy and saint-like woman, intercession.” The worship
chosen to be his mother of the Virgin has weakened
through her great virtue. that of Christ and thrown
entirely into the shadow
that of the Almighty.
3. “The Buddhists have no 3. “The papal followers have
sacraments.” seven.”
4. The Buddhists do not 4. The Christians are
believe in any pardon for promised that if they only
their sins, except after an believe in the “precious
adequate punishment for each blood of Christ,” this blood
evil deed, and a offered by Him for the
proportionate compensation expiation of the sins of the
to the parties injured. whole of mankind (read
Christians) will atone for
every mortal sin.
Which of these theologies most commends itself to the sincere
inquirer, is a question that may safely be left to the sound judgment
of the reader. One offers light, the other darkness.
The _Wheel of the Law_ has the following:
“Buddhists believe that every act, word, or thought has its
consequence, which will appear sooner or later in the present or in
the future state. Evil acts will produce evil consequences,[1057]
good acts will produce good consequences: prosperity in this world,
or birth in heaven ... in some future state.”[1058]
This is strict and impartial justice. This is the idea of a Supreme
Power which cannot fail, and therefore, can have neither wrath nor
mercy, but leaves every cause, great or small, to work out its
inevitable effects. “With what measure you mete, it shall be measured
to you again”[1059] neither by expression nor implication points to
any hope of future mercy or salvation by proxy. Cruelty and mercy
are finite feelings. The Supreme Deity is infinite, hence it can
only be JUST, and Justice must be blind. The ancient Pagans held on
this question far more philosophical views than modern Christians,
for they represented their Themis blindfold. And the Siamese author
of the work under notice, has again a more reverent conception of
the Deity than the Christians have, when he thus gives vent to his
thought: “A Buddhist might believe in the existence of a God, sublime
above all human qualities and attributes--a perfect God, above
love, and hatred, and jealousy, calmly resting in a quiet happiness
that nothing could disturb; and of such a God he would speak no
disparagement, not from a desire to please Him, or fear to offend
Him, but from natural veneration. But he cannot understand a God with
the attributes and qualities of men, a God who loves and hates, and
shows anger; a Deity, who, whether described to him by Christian
missionaries, or by Mahometans, or Brahmans, or Jews, falls below his
standard of even an ordinary good man.”[1060]
We have often wondered at the extraordinary ideas of God and His
justice that seem to be honestly held by those Christians who blindly
rely upon the clergy for their religion, and never upon their own
reason. How strangely illogical is this doctrine of the Atonement.
We propose to discuss it with the Christians from the Buddhistic
stand-point, and show at once by what a series of sophistries,
directed toward the one object of tightening the ecclesiastical yoke
upon the popular neck, its acceptance as a divine command has been
finally effected; also, that it has proved one of the most pernicious
and demoralizing of doctrines.
The clergy say: no matter how enormous our crimes against the laws
of God and of man, we have but to believe in the self-sacrifice of
Jesus for the salvation of mankind, and His blood will wash out every
stain. God’s mercy is boundless and unfathomable. It is impossible
to conceive of a human sin so damnable that the price paid in
advance for the redemption of the sinner would not wipe it out if a
thousandfold worse. And, furthermore, it is never too late to repent.
Though the offender wait until the last minute of the last hour of
the last day of his mortal life, before his blanched lips utter the
confession of faith, he may go to Paradise; the dying thief did it,
and so may all others as vile. These are the assumptions of the
Church.
But if we step outside the little circle of creed and consider
the universe as a whole balanced by the exquisite adjustment of
parts, how all sound logic, how the faintest glimmering sense of
Justice revolts against this Vicarious Atonement! If the criminal
sinned only against himself, and wronged no one but himself; if by
sincere repentance he could cause the obliteration of past events,
not only from the memory of man, but also from that imperishable
record, which no deity--not even the Supremest of the Supreme--can
cause to disappear, then this dogma might not be incomprehensible.
But to maintain that one may wrong his fellow-man, kill, disturb
the equilibrium of society, and the natural order of things, and
then--through cowardice, hope, or compulsion, matters not--be
forgiven by believing that the spilling of one blood washes out the
other blood spilt--this is preposterous! Can the _results_ of a crime
be obliterated even though the crime itself should be pardoned?
The effects of a cause are never limited to the boundaries of the
cause, nor can the results of crime be confined to the offender
and his victim. Every good as well as evil action has its effects,
as palpably as the stone flung into a calm water. The simile is
trite, but it is the best ever conceived, so let us use it. The
eddying circles are greater and swifter, as the disturbing object
is greater or smaller, but the smallest pebble, nay, the tiniest
speck, makes its ripples. And this disturbance is not alone visible
and on the surface. Below, unseen, in every direction--outward and
downward--drop pushes drop until the sides and bottom are touched
by the force. More, the air above the water is agitated, and this
disturbance passes, as the physicists tell us, from stratum to
stratum out into space forever and ever; an impulse has been given to
matter, and that is never lost, can never be recalled!...
So with crime, and so with its opposite. The action may be
instantaneous, the effects are eternal. When, after the stone is once
flung into the pond, we can recall it to the hand, roll back the
ripples, obliterate the force expended, restore the etheric waves to
their previous state of non-being, and wipe out every trace of the
act of throwing the missile, so that Time’s record shall not show
that it ever happened, then, _then_ we may patiently hear Christians
argue for the efficacy of this Atonement.
The Chicago _Times_ recently printed the hangman’s record of the
first half of the present year (1877)--a long and ghastly record of
murders and hangings. Nearly every one of these murderers received
religious consolation, and many announced that they had received
God’s forgiveness through the blood of Jesus, and were going that
day to Heaven! _Their conversion was effected in prison._ See how
this ledger-balance of Christian Justice (!) stands: These red-handed
murderers, urged on by the demons of lust, revenge, cupidity,
fanaticism, or mere brutal thirst for blood, slew their victims, in
most cases, without giving them time to repent, or call on Jesus to
wash them clean with his blood. They, perhaps, died sinful, and, of
course,--consistently with theological logic--met the reward of their
greater or lesser offenses. But the murderer, overtaken by human
justice, is imprisoned, wept over by sentimentalists, prayed with
and at, pronounces the charmed words of conversion, and goes to the
scaffold a redeemed child of Jesus! Except for the murder, he would
not have been prayed with, redeemed, pardoned. Clearly this man did
well to murder, for thus he gained eternal happiness? And how about
the victim, and his or her family, relatives, dependants, social
relations--has Justice no recompense for them? Must they suffer in
this world and the next, while he who wronged them sits beside the
“holy thief” of Calvary and is forever blessed? On this question the
clergy keep a prudent silence.
Steve Anderson was one of these American criminals--convicted of
double murder, arson, and robbery. Before the hour of his death
he was “converted,” but, the record tells us that “_his clerical
attendants objected to his reprieve, on the ground that they felt
sure of his salvation should he die then, but could not answer for
it if his execution was postponed_.” We address these ministers,
and ask them to tell us on what grounds they felt sure of such a
monstrous thing. How they could feel _sure_, with the dark future
before them, and the endless results of this double murder, arson,
and robbery? They could be sure of nothing, but that their abominable
doctrine is the cause of three-fourths of the crimes of so-called
Christians; that these terrific causes must produce like monstrous
effects, which in their turn will beget other results, and so roll on
throughout eternity to an accomplishment that no man can calculate.
Or take another crime, one of the most selfish, cruel, and heartless,
and yet the most frequent, the seduction of a young girl. Society, by
an instinct of self-preservation, pitilessly judges the victim, and
ostracizes her. She may be driven to infanticide, or self-murder, or
if too averse to die, live to plunge into a career of vice and crime.
She may become the mother of criminals, who, as in the now celebrated
Jukes, of whose appalling details Mr. Dugdale has published the
particulars, breed other generations of felons to the number of
hundreds, in fifty or sixty years. All this social disaster came
through one man’s selfish passion; shall he be forgiven by Divine
Justice until his offense is expiated, and punishment fall only upon
the wretched human scorpions begotten of his lust?
An outcry has just been made in England over the discovery that
Anglican priests are largely introducing auricular confession and
granting absolution after enforcing penances. Inquiry shows the
same thing prevailing more or less in the United States. Put to the
ordeal of cross-examination, the clergy quote triumphantly from the
English _Book of Common Prayer_ the rubrics which clearly give them
the absolving authority, through the power of “God, the Holy Ghost,”
committed unto them by the bishop by imposition of hands at their
ordination. The bishop, questioned, points to _Matthew_ xvi., 19, for
the source of his authority to bind and loose on earth those who are
to be blessed or damned in heaven; and to the apostolic succession
for proof of its transmission from Simon Barjona to himself. The
present volumes have been written to small purpose if they have
not shown, 1, that Jesus, the Christ-God, is a myth concocted two
centuries after the real Hebrew Jesus died; 2, that, therefore, he
never had any authority to give Peter, or any one else, plenary
power; 3, that even if he had given such authority, the word Petra
(rock) referred to the revealed truths of the Petroma, not to him who
thrice denied him; and that besides, the apostolic succession is a
gross and palpable fraud; 4, that the _Gospel according to Matthew_
is a fabrication based upon a wholly different manuscript. The whole
thing, therefore, is an imposition alike upon priest and penitent.
But putting all these points aside for the moment, it suffices to ask
these pretended agents of the three gods of the Trinity, how they
reconcile it with the most rudimental notions of equity, that if the
power to pardon sinners for sinning has been given them, _they did
not also receive the ability by miracle to obliterate the wrongs done
against person or property_. Let them restore life to the murdered;
honor to the dishonored; property to those who have been wronged,
and force the scales of human and divine justice to recover their
equilibrium. Then we may talk of their divine commission to bind and
loose. Let them say, if they can do this. Hitherto the world has
received nothing but sophistry--believed on _blind_ faith; we ask
palpable, tangible evidence of their God’s justice and mercy. But all
are silent; no answer, no reply, and still the inexorable unerring
Law of Compensation proceeds on its unswerving path. If we but
watch its progress, we will find that it ignores all creeds, shows
no preferences, but its sunlight and its thunderbolts fall alike
on heathen and Christian. No absolution can shield the latter when
guilty, no anathema hurt the former when innocent.
Away from us such an insulting conception of divine justice as
that preached by priests on their own authority. It is fit only
for cowards and criminals! If they are backed by a whole array of
Fathers and Churchmen, we are supported by the greatest of all
authorities, an instinctive and reverential sense of the everlasting
and everpresent law of harmony and justice.
But, besides that of reason, we have other evidence to show that such
a construction is wholly unwarranted. The _Gospels_ being “Divine
revelation,” doubtless Christians will regard their testimony as
conclusive. Do they affirm that Jesus gave himself as a voluntary
sacrifice? On the contrary, there is not a word to sustain the idea.
They make it clear that he would rather have lived to continue
what he considered his mission, and that _he died because he could
not help it, and only when betrayed_. Before, when threatened with
violence, _he had made himself invisible_ by employing the mesmeric
power over the bystanders, claimed by every Eastern adept, and
escaped. When, finally, he saw that his time had come, he succumbed
to the inevitable. But see him in the garden, on the Mount of Olives,
writhing in agony until “his sweat was, as it were, great drops
of blood,” praying with fervid supplication that the cup might be
removed from him; exhausted by his struggle to such a degree that
an angel from heaven had to come and strengthen him; and say if the
picture is that of a self-immolating hostage and martyr. To crown
all, and leave no lingering doubt in our minds, we have his own
despairing words, “NOT MY WILL, _but thine_, be done!” (_Luke_ xxii.
42, 43.)
Again, in the _Puranas_ it may be found that Christna was nailed
to a tree by the arrow of a hunter, who, begging the dying god to
forgive him, receives the following answer: “Go, hunter, through
my favor, to Heaven, the abode of the gods.... Then the illustrious
Christna, having united himself with his own pure, spiritual,
inexhaustible, inconceivable, unborn, undecaying, imperishable, and
universal Spirit, which is one with Vasudeva, abandoned his mortal
body, and ... he became Nirguna” (Wilson’s _Vishnu Purana_, p. 612).
Is not this the original of the story of Christ forgiving the thief
on the cross, and promising him a place in Heaven? Such examples
“challenge inquiry as to their origin and meaning _so long anterior
to Christianity_,” says Dr. Lundy in _Monumental Christianity_, and
yet to all this he adds: “The idea of Krishna as a shepherd, I take
to be older than either (the _Gospel of Infancy_ and that of _St.
John_), _and prophetic of Christ_” (p. 156).
Facts like these, perchance, furnished later a plausible pretext
for declaring apocryphal all such works as the _Homilies_, which
proved but too clearly the utter want of any early authority for
the doctrine of atonement. The _Homilies_ clash but little with the
_Gospels_; they disagree entirely with the dogmas of the Church.
Peter knew nothing of the atonement; and his reverence for the
mythical father Adam would never have allowed him to admit that this
patriarch had sinned and was accursed. Neither do the Alexandrian
theological schools appear to have been cognizant of this doctrine,
nor Tertullian; nor was it discussed by any of the earlier Fathers.
Philo represents the story of the _Fall_ as symbolical, and Origen
regarded it the same way as Paul, as an allegory.[1061]
Whether they will or not, the Christians have to credit the foolish
story of Eve’s temptation by a serpent. Besides, Augustine has
formally pronounced upon the subject. “God, by His arbitrary will,”
he says, “has selected beforehand certain persons, _without regard
to foreseen faith or good actions, and has irretrievably ordained
to bestow upon them eternal happiness; while He has condemned
others in the same way to eternal reprobation_!!” (_De dono
perseverantiæ_).[1062]
Calvin promulgated views of Divine partiality and bloodthirstiness
equally abhorrent. “The human race, corrupted radically in the fall
with Adam, has upon it the guilt and impotence of original sin;
its redemption can be achieved only through an incarnation and a
propitiation; of this redemption only electing grace can make the
soul a participant, and such grace, once given, is never lost; _this
election can come only from God, and it includes only a part of the
race, the rest being left to perdition_; election and perdition (the
_horribile decretum_) are both predestinated in the Divine plan; that
plan is a decree, and this decree is eternal and unchangeable ...
justification is by _faith alone_, and _faith is the gift of God_.”
O Divine Justice, how blasphemed has been thy name! Unfortunately for
all such speculations, belief in the propitiatory efficacy of blood
can be traced to the oldest rites. Hardly a nation remained ignorant
of it. Every people offered animal and even human sacrifices to the
gods, in the hope of averting thereby public calamity, by pacifying
the wrath of some avenging deity. There are instances of Greek and
Roman generals offering their lives simply for the success of their
army. Cæsar complains of it, and calls it a superstition of the
Gauls. “They devote themselves to death ... believing that unless
life is rendered for life the immortal gods cannot be appeased,”
he writes. “If any evil is about to befall either those who now
sacrifice, or Egypt, may it be averted on this head,” was pronounced
by the Egyptian priests when sacrificing one of their sacred animals.
And imprecations were uttered over the head of the expiatory victim,
around whose horns a piece of byblus was rolled.[1064] The animal
was generally led to some barren region, sacred to Typhon, in those
primitive ages when this fatal deity was yet held in a certain
consideration by the Egyptians. It is in this custom that lies the
origin of the “scape-goat” of the Jews, who, when the rufous ass-god
was rejected by the Egyptians, began sacrificing to another deity the
“red heifer.”
“Let all sins that have been committed in this world fall on me that
the world may be delivered,” exclaimed Gautama, the Hindu Saviour,
centuries before our era.
No one will pretend to assert in our own age that it was the
Egyptians who borrowed anything from the Israelites, as they now
accuse the Hindus of doing. Bunsen, Lepsius, Champollion, have long
since established the precedence of Egypt over the Israelites in age
as well as in all the religious rites that we now recognize among the
“chosen people.” Even the _New Testament_ teems with quotations and
repetitions from the _Book of the Dead_, and Jesus, if everything
attributed to him by his four biographers is true--must have been
acquainted with the Egyptian Funereal Hymns.[1065] In the Gospel
according to _Matthew_ we find whole sentences from the ancient and
sacred _Ritual_ which preceded our era by more than 4,000 years. We
will again compare.[1066]
The “soul” under trial is brought before Osiris, the “Lord of Truth,”
who sits decorated with the Egyptian cross, emblem of eternal life,
and holding in his right hand the _Vannus_ or the flagellum of
justice.[1067] The spirit begins, in the “Hall of the Two Truths,”
an earnest appeal, and enumerates its good deeds, supported by the
responses of the forty-two assessors--_its incarnated deeds and
accusers_. If justified, it is addressed as Osiris, thus assuming the
appellation of the Deity whence its divine essence proceeded, and the
following words, full of majesty and justice, are pronounced! “Let
the _Osiris_ go; ye see he is without fault.... He lived on truth, he
has fed on truth.... _The god has welcomed him_ as he desired. _He
has given food to my hungry, drink to my thirsty ones, clothes to my
naked_.... He has made the sacred food of the gods the meat of the
spirits.”
In the parable of _the Kingdom of Heaven_ (_Matthew_ xxv.), the _Son
of Man_ (Osiris is also called the Son) sits upon the throne of his
glory, judging the nations, and says to the justified, “Come ye
blessed of my Father (_the_ God) inherit the kingdom.... For _I was
an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink_
... _naked and ye clothed me_.”[1068] To complete the resemblance
(_Matthew_ iii. 12): John is made to describe Christ as Osiris,
“whose _fan_ (winnow or _vannus_) is in his hand, and who will “purge
his floor and gather his wheat into the garner.”
The same in relation to Buddhist legends. In _Matthew_ iv. 19, Jesus
is made to say: “Follow me and I will make you _fishers_ of men,”
the whole adapted to a conversation between him and Simon Peter and
Andrew his brother.
In Schmidt’s “_Der Weise und der Thor_,[1069] a work full of
anecdotes about Buddha and his disciples, the whole from original
texts, it is said of a new convert to the faith, that “he had been
caught by the hook of the doctrine, just as a fish, who has caught
at the bait and line is securely pulled out.” In the temples of Siam
the image of the expected Buddha, the Messiah Maitree, is represented
with a fisherman’s net in the hand, while in Thibet he holds a kind
of a trap. The explanation of it reads as follows: “He (Buddha)
disseminates upon the Ocean of birth and decay the Lotus-flower of
the excellent law as _a bait_; with the loop of devotion, never
cast out in vain, he brings living beings up like fishes, and
carries them to the other side of the river, where there is true
understanding.”[1070]
Had the erudite Archbishop Cave, Grabe, and Dr. Parker, who so
zealously contended in their time for the admission of the _Epistles
of Jesus Christ and Abgarus, King of Edessa_, into the Canon of
the _Scripture_, lived in our days of Max Müller and Sanscrit
scholarship, we doubt whether they would have acted as they did.
The first mention of these Epistles ever made, was by the famous
Eusebius. This pious bishop seems to have been self-appointed to
furnish Christianity with the most unexpected proofs to corroborate
its wildest fancies. Whether among the many accomplishments of the
Bishop of Cæsarea, we must include a knowledge of the Cingalese,
Pehlevi, Thibetan, and other languages, we know not; but he surely
transcribed the letters of Jesus and Abgarus, and the story of the
miraculous portrait of Christ taken on a piece of cloth, by the
simple wiping of his face, from the Buddhistical Canon. To be sure,
the bishop declared that he found the letter himself written in
Syriac, preserved among the registers and records of the city of
Edessa, where Abgarus reigned.[1071] We recall the words of Babrias:
“Myth, O son of King Alexander, is an ancient human invention of
Syrians, who lived in old time under Ninus and Belus.” Edessa was
one of the ancient “holy cities.” The Arabs venerate it to this day;
and the purest Arabic is there spoken. They call it still by its
ancient name Orfa, once the city _Arpha-Kasda_ (Arphaxad) the seat of
a College of Chaldeans and Magi; whose missionary, called Orpheus,
brought thence the Bacchic Mysteries to Thrace. Very naturally,
Eusebius found there the tales which he wrought over into the story
of Abgarus, and the sacred picture taken on a cloth; as that of
Bhagavat, or the blessed Tathagâta (Buddha)[1072] was obtained by
King Binsbisara.[1073] The King having brought it, Bhagavat projected
his shadow on it.[1074] This bit of “miraculous stuff,” with its
shadow, is still preserved, say the Buddhists; “only the shadow
itself is rarely seen.”
In like manner, the Gnostic author of _the Gospel according to
John_, copied and metamorphosed the legend of Ananda who asked drink
of a Matangha woman--the antitype of the woman met by Jesus at the
well,[1075] and was reminded by her that she belongs to a low
caste, and may have nothing to do with a holy monk. “I do not ask
thee, my sister,” answers Ananda to the woman, “either thy caste or
thy family, I only ask thee for water, if thou canst give me some.”
This Matangha woman, charmed and moved to tears, repents, joins the
monastic Order of Gautama, and becomes a saint, rescued from a life
of unchastity by Sakya-muni. Many of her subsequent actions were used
by Christian forgers, to endow Mary Magdalen and other female saints
and martyrs.
“And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a
cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto
you, he shall in no wise lose his reward,” says the Gospel (_Matthew_
x. 42). “Whosoever, with a purely believing heart, offers nothing but
a handful of water, or presents so much to the spiritual assembly,
or gives drink therewith to the poor and needy, or to a beast of
the field; this meritorious action will not be exhausted in many
ages,”[1076] says the Buddhist _Canon_.
At the hour of Gautama-Buddha’s birth there were 32,000 wonders
performed. The clouds stopped immovable in the sky, the waters of
the rivers ceased to flow; the flowers ceased unbudding; the birds
remained silent and full of wonder; all nature remained suspended in
her course, and was full of expectation. “There was a preternatural
light spread all over the world; animals suspended their eating; the
blind saw; and the lame and dumb were cured,” etc.[1077]
We now quote from the _Protevangelion_:
“At the hour of the Nativity, as Joseph looked up into the air, ‘I
saw,’ he says, ‘_the clouds astonished_, and the fowls of the air
stopping in the midst of their flight.... And I beheld the sheep
dispersed ... and _yet the sheep stood still_; and I looked into a
river, and saw the kids _with their mouths close to the water, and
touching it, but they did not drink_.
“_Then a bright cloud overshadowed the cave._ But on a sudden
the cloud became _a great light_ in the cave, so that their eyes
could not bear it.... The hand of Salomé, which was withered,
was straightway cured.... The blind saw; the lame and dumb were
cured.”[1078]
When sent to school, the young Gautama, without having ever studied,
completely worsted all his competitors; not only in writing, but in
arithmetic, mathematics, metaphysics, wrestling, archery, astronomy,
geometry, and finally vanquishes his own professors by giving the
definition of sixty-four kinds of writings, which were unknown to the
masters themselves.[1079]
And this is what is said again in the _Gospel of the Infancy_: “And
when he (Jesus) was twelve years old ... a certain principal Rabbi
asked him, ‘Hast thou read books?’ and a certain astronomer asked
the Lord Jesus whether he had studied astronomy. And Lord Jesus
explained to him ... about the spheres ... about the physics and
metaphysics. Also things that reason of man had never discovered....
The constitutions of the body, how the soul operated upon the body,
... etc. And at this the master was so surprised that he said: “I
believe this boy was born before Noah ... he is more learned than any
master.’”[1080]
The precepts of Hillel, who died forty years B.C., appear rather as
quotations than original expressions in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus taught the world nothing that had not been taught as earnestly
before by other masters. He begins his sermon with certain purely
Buddhistic precepts that had found acceptance among the Essenes, and
were generally practiced by the _Orphikoi_, and the Neo-platonists.
There were the Philhellenes, who, like Apollonius, had devoted their
lives to moral and physical purity, and who practiced asceticism. He
tries to imbue the hearts of his audience with a scorn for worldly
wealth; a fakir-like unconcern for the morrow; love for humanity,
poverty, and chastity. He blesses the poor in spirit, the meek, the
hungering and the thirsting after righteousness, the merciful and
the peace-makers, and, Buddha-like, leaves but a poor chance for
the proud castes to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Every word
of his sermon is an echo of the essential principles of monastic
Buddhism. The ten commandments of Buddha, as found in an appendix to
the _Prâtimoksha Sûtra_ (Pali-Burman text), are elaborated to their
full extent in _Matthew_. If we desire to acquaint ourselves with the
historical Jesus we have to set the mythical Christ entirely aside,
and learn all we can of the man in the first Gospel. His doctrines,
religious views, and grandest aspirations will be found concentrated
in his sermon.
This is the principal cause of the failure of missionaries to convert
Brahmanists and Buddhists. These see that the little of really good
that is offered in the new religion is paraded only in theory,
while their own faith demands that those identical rules shall be
applied in practice. Notwithstanding the impossibility for Christian
missionaries to understand clearly the spirit of a religion wholly
based on that doctrine of emanation which is so inimical to their
own theology, the reasoning powers of some simple Buddhistical
preachers are so high, that we see a scholar like Gutzlaff,[1081]
utterly silenced and put to great straits by Buddhists. Judson, the
famous Baptist missionary in Burmah, confesses, in his _Journal_,
the difficulties to which he was often driven by them. Speaking of
a certain Ooyan, he remarks that his strong mind was capable of
grasping the most difficult subjects. “His words,” he remarks, “are
as smooth as oil, as sweet as honey, and as sharp as razors; his mode
of reasoning is soft, insinuating, and acute; and so adroitly does
he act his part, that _I with the strength of truth_, was scarcely
able to keep him down.” It appears though, that at a later period
of his mission, Mr. Judson found that he had utterly mistaken the
doctrine. “I begin to find,” he says, “that the semi-atheism, which
I had sometimes mentioned, is nothing but a refined Buddhism, having
its foundation in the Buddhistic Scriptures.” Thus he discovered
at last that while there is in Buddhism “a generic term of most
exalted perfection actually applied to numerous individuals, a Buddha
superior to the whole host of subordinate deities,” there are also
lurking in the system “the glimmerings of an _anima mundi_ anterior
to, and even superior to, Buddha.”[1082]
This is a happy discovery, indeed!
Even the so-slandered Chinese believe in _One_, Highest God. “The
Supreme Ruler of Heavens.” Yuh-Hwang-Shang-ti, has his name inscribed
only on the golden tablet before the altar of heaven at the great
temple at Pekin, T’Iantan. “This worship,” says Colonel Yule, “is
mentioned by the Mahometan narrator of Shah Rukh’s embassy (A.D.
1421): ‘Every year there are some days on which the emperor eats no
animal food.... He spends his time in an apartment which contains _no
idol_, and says that _he is worshipping the God of Heaven_.”[1083]
Speaking of Shahrastani, the great Arabian scholar, Chwolsohn says
that for him Sabaeism was not astrolatry, as many are inclined to
think. He thought “that God is too sublime and too great to occupy
Himself with the immediate management of this world; that He has,
therefore, transferred the government thereof to the gods, and
retained only the most important affairs for Himself; that further,
man is too weak to be able to apply immediately to the Highest;
that he must, therefore, address his prayers and sacrifices to the
intermediate divinities, to whom the management of the world has
been entrusted by the Highest.” Chwolsohn argues that this idea is
as old as the world, and that “in the heathen world this view was
universally shared by the cultivated.”[1084]
Father Boori, a Portuguese missionary, who was sent to convert the
“poor heathen” of Cochin-China, as early as the sixteenth century,
“protests in despair, in his narrative, that there is not a dress,
office, or ceremony in the Church of Rome, to which the Devil has
not here provided some counterpart. Even when the Father began
inveighing against the idols, he was answered that these were the
images of departed great men, whom they worshipped exactly on the
same principle, and in the same manner, as the Catholics did the
images of the apostles and martyrs.”[1085] Moreover, these idols
have importance but in the eyes of the ignorant multitudes. The
_philosophy_ of Buddhism ignores images and fetishes. Its strongest
vitality lies in its psychological conceptions of man’s _inner_
self. The road to the supreme state of felicity, called the Ford
of Nirvana, winds its invisible paths through the spiritual,
not physical life of a person while on this earth. The sacred
Buddhistical literature points the way by stimulating man to follow
_practically_ the example of Gautama. Therefore, the Buddhistical
writings lay a particular stress on the spiritual privileges of man,
advising him to cultivate his powers for the production of _Meipo_
(phenomena) during life, and for the attainment of Nirvana in the
hereafter.
But turning again from the historical to the mythical narratives,
invented alike about Christna, Buddha, and Christ, we find the
following:
Setting a model for the Christian avatar and the archangel Gabriel
to follow, the luminous San-tusita (Bodhisat) appeared to Maha-maya
‘like a cloud in the moonlight, coming from the north, and in his
hand holding a white lotus.’ He announced to her the birth of her
son, and circumambulating the queen’s couch thrice ... passed away
from the dewa-loka and was conceived _in the world of men_.[1086]
The resemblance will be found still more perfect upon examining the
illustrations in mediæval psalters,[1087] and the panel-paintings
of the sixteenth century (in the Church of Jouy, for instance, in
which the Virgin is represented kneeling, with her hands uplifted
toward the Holy Ghost, and the unborn child is miraculously seen
through her body), and then finding the same subject treated in
the identical way in the sculptures in certain convents in Thibet.
In the Pali-Buddhistic annals, and other religious records, it
is stated that Maha-devi and all her attendants were constantly
gratified with the sight of the infant Bodhisatva quietly developing
within his mother’s bosom, and beaming already, from his place of
gestation, upon humanity “the resplendent moonshine of his future
benevolence.”[1088]
Ananda, the cousin and future disciple of Sakya-muni, is represented
as having been born at the same time. He appears to have been the
original for the old legends about John the Baptist. For example, the
Pali narrative relates that Maha-maya, while pregnant with the sage,
paid a visit to his mother, as Mary did to the mother of the Baptist.
Immediately, as she entered the apartment, the unborn Ananda greeted
the unborn Buddha-Siddhârtha, who also returned the salutation; and
in like manner the babe, afterward John the Baptist, leaped in the
womb of Elizabeth when Mary came in.[1089] More even than that; for
Didron describes a scene of salutation, painted on shutters at Lyons,
between Elizabeth and Mary, in which the two unborn infants, both
pictured as outside their mothers, are also saluting each other.[1090]
If we turn now to Christna and attentively compare the prophecies
respecting him, as collected in the Ramatsariarian traditions of the
_Atharva_, the _Vedangas_, and the Vedantas,[1091] with passages in
the _Bible_ and apocryphal Gospels, of which it is pretended that
some presage the coming of Christ, we shall find very curious facts.
Following are examples:
FROM THE HINDU BOOKS. FROM THE CHRISTIAN BOOKS.
1st. “He (the Redeemer) 1st. “The people of Galilee
shall come, _crowned with of the Gentiles which sat in
lights_, the pure fluid darkness saw great light”
issuing from the great soul (_Matthew_ iv. from _Isaiah_
... dispersing darkness” ix. 1, 2).
(_Atharva_).
2d. “In the _early part_ of 2d. “Behold, a virgin shall
the Kali-Yuga shall be born conceive and bear a son”
the son of the Virgin” (_Isaiah_ vii. quoted in
(_Vedanta_). _Matthew_ i. 23).
3d. “The Redeemer shall 3d. “Behold, now, Jesus of
come, and the accursed Nazareth, with the
_Rakhasas_ shall fly for brightness of his glorious
refuge to the deepest hell” divinity, put to flight all
(_Atharva_). the horrid powers of
darkness” (_Nicodemus_).
4th. “He shall come, and 4th. “And I give unto them
life will defy death ... and eternal life, and they shall
he shall revivify the blood never perish” (_John_ x. 28).
of all beings, shall
regenerate all bodies, and
purify all souls.”
5th. “He shall come, and all 5th. “Rejoice greatly, O
animated beings, all the daughter of Zion! shout, O
flowers, plants, men, women, daughter of Jerusalem!
the infants, the slaves ... behold, thy King cometh unto
shall together intone the thee ... he is just ... for
chant of joy, for he is the how great is his goodness,
Lord of all creatures ... he and how great is his beauty!
is infinite, for he is Corn shall make the young
power, for he is wisdom, for men cheerful, and new wine
he is beauty, for he is all the maids” (_Zechariah_ ix.).
and in all.”
6th. “He shall come, more 6th. “Behold the lamb of
sweet than honey and God” (_John_ i. 36). “He was
ambrosia, more pure than brought as a lamb to the
_the lamb_ without spot” slaughter” (_Isaiah_ 53).
(Ibid.).