[Footnote 1087: See Grieson and Garbe. But I have not found a quotation from any original authority. Mohammed, however, had the same notion of the Trinity.]
[Footnote 1088: But the Mappilahs or Moplahs appear to have settled on the Malabar coast about 900 A.D.]
[Footnote 1089: Similarly the neo-Confucianism of the Sung dynasty was influenced by Mahynist Buddhism. Chu-hsi and his disciples condemned Buddhism, but the new problems and new solutions which they brought forward would not have been heard of but for Buddhism.]
[Footnote 1090: The idea of the second birth is found in the Majjhima Nikya, where in Sutta 86 the converted brigand Angulimala speaks of his regenerate life as _Yato aham ariyya jtiy jto_, "Since I was born by this n.o.ble (or holy) birth." Brahmanic parallels are numerous, _e.g._ Manu, 2. 146.]
[Footnote 1091: It is said, however, that the celebration of the Prasd by the Kabirpanthis bears an extraordinary resemblance to the Holy Communion of Christians. This may be so, but, as already mentioned, this late and admittedly composite sect is not typical of Hinduism as a whole.]
[Footnote 1092: Krishn?ajanmsht?am, _Memoirs of Academy of Berlin_, 1867.]
[Footnote 1093: In spite of making enquiry I have never seen or heard of these representations of a stable myself. As Senart points out (_Lgende_, p. 336) all the personages who play a part in Krishna"s early life are shown in these tableaux in one group, but this does not imply that shepherds and their flocks are supposed to be present at his birth.]
[Footnote 1094: Though the ordinary legend does not say that Krishna was born in a stable yet it does a.s.sociate him with cattle.]
[Footnote 1095: Pargiter, _Dynasties of the Kali age_, p. xviii.]
[Footnote 1096: Commentary on Pnini, 2. 3. 36, 3. 1. 36 and 3. 2.
111. It seems probable that Ptanjali knew the story of Krishna and Kamsa substantially as it is recounted in the Harivam?sa.]
[Footnote 1097: Section 337. A journey to Svetadvpa is also related in the Kathsarit sgara, LIV.]
[Footnote 1098: The most accessible statement of the geographical fancies here referred to is in Vishnu Purna, Book II, chap. IV. The Sea of Milk is the sixth of the seven concentric seas which surround Jambudvpa and Mt. Meru. It divides the sixth of the concentric continents or Skadvpa from the seventh or Pushkara-dvpa. The inhabitants of Skadvpa worship Vishnu as the Sun and have this much reality that at any rate, according to the Vishnu and Bhavishya Purnas, they are clearly Iranian Sun-worshippers whose priests are called Magas or Mr?igas. Pushkara-dvpa is a terrestrial paradise: the inhabitants live a thousand years, are of the same nature as the G.o.ds and free from sorrow and sin. "The three Vedas, the Purnas, Ethics and Polity are unknown" among them and "there are no distinctions of caste or order: there are no fixed inst.i.tutes." The turn of fancy which located this non-Brahmanic Utopia in the north seems akin to that which led the Greeks to talk of Hyperboreans.
Fairly early in the history of India it must have been discovered that the western, southern, and eastern coasts were washed by the sea so that the earthly paradise was naturally placed in the north. Thus we hear of an abode of the blessed called the country of the holy Uttara Kurus or northern Kurus. Here nothing can be perceived with human senses (Mahbh. Sabh, 1045), and it is mentioned in the same breath as Heaven and the city of Indra (_ib._ a.n.u.ss. 2841).
It is not quite clear (neither is it of much moment), whether the Mahbhrata intends by Svetadvpa one of these concentric world divisions or a separate island. The Krma and Padma Purnas also mention it as the shining abode of Vishnu and his saintly servants.]
[Footnote 1099: Garbe thinks that the Sea of Milk is Lake Balkash. For the Pancartra see book v. iii. 3.]
[Footnote 1100: See note 2 on last page.]
[Footnote 1101: _E.g._ several works of Lloyd and Saeki, _The Nestorian Monument in China_.]
CHAPTER LVI
INDIAN INFLUENCE IN THE WESTERN WORLD
The influence of Indian religion on Christianity is part of the wider question of its influence on the west generally. It is clear that from 200 B.C. until 300 A.D. oriental religion played a considerable part in the countries round the Mediterranean. The worship of the Magna Mater was known in Rome by 200 B.C. and that of Isis and Serapis in the time of Sulla. In the early centuries of the Christian era the cultus of Mithra prevailed not only in Rome but in most parts of Europe where there were Roman legions, even in Britain. These religions may be appropriately labelled with the vague word oriental, for they are not so much the special creeds of Egypt and Persia transplanted into Roman soil as fragments, combinations and adaptations of the most various eastern beliefs. They differed from the forms of worship indigenous to Greece and Italy in being personal, not national: they were often emotional and professed to reveal the nature and destinies of the soul. If we ask whether there are any definitely Indian elements in all this orientalism, the answer must be that there is no clear case of direct borrowing, nothing Indian a.n.a.logous to the migrations of Isis and Mithra. If Indian thought had any influence on the Mediterranean it was not immediate, but through Persia, Babylonia and Egypt. But it is possible that the doctrine of metempsychosis and the ideal of the ascetic life are echoes of India.
Though the former is found in an incomplete shape among savages in many parts of the world, there is no indication that it was indigenous in Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, Asia Minor, Greece or Italy. It crops up now and again as a tenet held by philosophers or communities of cosmopolitan tastes such as the Orphic Societies, but usually in circ.u.mstances which suggest a foreign origin. It is said, however, to have formed part of the doctrines taught by the Druids in Gaul.
Similarly though occasional fasts and other mortifications may have been usual in the worship of various deities and though the rigorous Spartan discipline was a sort of military asceticism, still the idea that the religious life consists in suppressing the pa.s.sions, which plays such a large part in Christian monasticism, can be traced not to any Jewish or European inst.i.tution but to Egypt. Although monasticism spread quickly thence to Syria, it is admitted that the first Christian hermits and monasteries were Egyptian and there is some evidence for the existence there of pagan hermits[1102]. Egypt was a most religious country, but it does not appear that asceticism, celibacy or meditation formed part of its older religious life, and their appearance in h.e.l.lenistic times may be due to a wave of Asiatic influence starting originally from India.
Looking westwards from India and considering what were the circ.u.mstances favouring the diffusion of Indian ideas, we must note first that Hindus have not only been in all ages preoccupied by religious questions but have also had a larger portion of the missionary spirit than is generally supposed. It is true that in wide tracts and long periods this spirit has been suppressed by Brahmanic exclusiveness, but phenomena like the spread of Buddhism and the establishment of Hinduism in Indo-China and Java speak for themselves.
The spiritual tide flowed eastwards rather than westwards; still it is probable that its movement was felt, though on a smaller scale, in the accessible parts of the west. By land, our record tells us mainly of what came into India from Persia and Bactria, but something must have gone out. By water we know that at least after about 700 B.C. there was communication with the Persian Gulf, Arabia and probably the Red Sea. Semitic alphabets were borrowed: in the Jtakas we hear of merchants going to Baveru or Babylon: Solomon"s commercial ventures brought him Indian products. But the strongest testimony to the dissemination of religious ideas is found in Asoka"s celebrated edict (probably 256 B.C.) in which he claims to have spread the Dhamma as far as the dominions of Antiochus "and beyond that Antiochus to where dwell the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas and Alexander."
The kings mentioned are identified as the rulers of Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Cyrene and Epirus. Asoka compares his missionary triumphs to the military conquests of other monarchs. It may be that the comparison is only too just and that like them he claimed to have extended his law to regions where his name was unknown. No record of the arrival of Buddhist missions in any h.e.l.lenistic kingdom has reached us and the language of the edict, if examined critically, is not precise. On the other hand, however vague it may be, it testifies to two things. Firstly, Egypt, Syria and the other h.e.l.lenistic states were realities to the Indians of this period, distant but not fabulous regions. Secondly, the king desired to spread the knowledge of the law in these countries and this desire was shared, or inspired, by the monks whom he patronized. It is therefore probable that, though the difficulties of travelling were great and the linguistic difficulties of preaching an Indian religion even greater, missionaries set out for the west and reached if not Macedonia and Epirus, at least Babylon and Alexandria. We may imagine that they would frequent the temples and the company of the priests and not show much talent for public preaching. If no record of them remains, it is not more wonderful than the corresponding silence in the east about Greek visitors to India.
It is only after the Christian era that we find Apollonius and Plotinus looking towards India as the home of wisdom. In earlier periods the definite instances of connection with India are few.
Indian figures found at Memphis perhaps indicate the existence there of an Indian colony[1103], and a Ptolemaic grave-stone has been discovered bearing the signs of the wheel and trident[1104]. The infant deity Horus is represented in Indian att.i.tudes and as sitting on a lotus. Some fragments of the Kanarese language have been found on a papyrus, but it appears not to be earlier than the second century A.D.[1105] In 21 A.D. Augustus while at Athens received an emba.s.sy from India which came _vi_ Antioch.
It was accompanied by a person described as Zarmanochegas, an Indian from Bargosa who astonished the Athenians by publicly burning himself alive[1106]. We also hear of the movement of an Indian tribe from the Panjab to Parthia and thence to Armenia (149-127 B.C.)[1107], and of an Indian colony at Alexandria in the time of Trajan. Doubtless there were other tribal movements and other mercantile colonies which have left no record, but they were all on a small scale and there was no general outpouring of India westwards.
The early relations of India were with Babylon rather than with Egypt, but if Indian ideas reached Babylon they may easily have spread further. Communication between Egypt and Babylon existed from an early period and the tablets of Tel-el-Amarna testify to the antiquity and intimacy of this intercourse. At a later date Necho invaded Babylonia but was repulsed. The Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity (538 B.C.) with their religious horizon enlarged and modified. They were chiefly affected by Zoroastrian ideas but they may have become acquainted with any views and practices then known in Babylon, and not necessarily with those identified with the state worship, for the exiles may have been led to a.s.sociate with other strangers. After about 535 B.C. the Persian empire extended from the valley of the Indus to the valley of the Nile and from Macedonia to Babylon. We hear that in the army which Xerxes led against Greece there were Indian soldiers, which is interesting as showing how the Persians transported subject races from one end of their empire to the other. After the career of Alexander, h.e.l.lenistic kingdoms took the place of this empire and, apart from inroads on the north-west frontier of India, maintained friendly relations with her. Seleucus Nicator sent Megasthenes as envoy about 300 B.C. and Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.) a representative named Dionysius. Bindusra, the father of Asoka, exchanged missions with Antiochus, and, according to a well-known anecdote[1108], expressed a wish to buy a professor (s?f?s???). But Antiochus replied that Greek professors were not for sale.
Egyptologists consider that metempsychosis is not part of the earlier strata of Egyptian religion but appears first about 500 B.C., and Flinders Petrie refers to this period the originals of the earliest Hermetic literature. But other authorities regard these works as being both in substance and language considerably posterior to the Christian era and as presenting a jumble of Christianity, Neoplatonism and Egyptian ideas.
I have neither s.p.a.ce nor competence to discuss the date of the Hermetic writings, but it is of importance for the question which we are considering. They contain addresses to the deity like I am Thou and Thou art I (_??? e?? s? ?a? s? ???_). If such words could be used in Egypt several centuries before Christ, the probability of Indian influence seems to me strong, for they would not grow naturally out of Egyptian or h.e.l.lenistic religion. Five hundred years later they would be less remarkable. Whatever may be the date of the Hermetic literature, it is certain that the Book of Wisdom and the writings of Philo are pre-Christian and show a mixture of ideas drawn from many sources, Jewish, Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean. If these hospitable systems made the acquaintance of Indian philosophy, we may be sure that they gave it an unprejudiced and even friendly hearing.
In the centuries just before the Christian era Egypt was a centre of growth for personal and private religious ideas[1109], hardly possessing sufficient organization to form what we call a religion, yet still, inasmuch as they aspired to teach individual souls right conduct as well as true knowledge, implicitly containing the same scheme of teaching as the Buddhist and Christian Churches. But it is characteristic of all this movement that it never attempted to form a national or universal religion and remained in all its manifestations individual and personal, connected neither with the secular government nor with any national cultus. Among these religious ideas were monotheism mingled with pantheism to the extent of saying that G.o.d is all and all is one: the idea of the Logos or Divine Wisdom, which ultimately a.s.sumes the form that the Word is an emanation or Son of G.o.d; asceticism, or at least the desire to free the soul from the bondage of the senses; metempsychosis and the doctrine of conversion or the new birth of the soul, which fits in well with metempsychosis, though it frequently exists apart from it. I doubt if there is sufficient reason for attributing the doctrine of the Logos[1110] to India, but it is possible that asceticism and the belief in metempsychosis received their first impulse thence. They appear late and, like the phraseology of the Hermetic books, they do not grow naturally out of antecedent ideas and practices in Egypt and Palestine. The life followed by such communities as the Therapeut and Essenes is just such as might have been evolved by seekers after truth who were trying to put into practice in another country the religious ideals of India. There are differences: for instance these communities laboured with their hands and observed the seventh day, but their main ideas, retirement from the world and suppression of the pa.s.sions, are those of Indian monks and foreign to Egyptian and Jewish thought.
The character of Pythagoras"s teaching and its relation to Egypt have been much discussed and the name of the master was clearly extended by later (and perhaps also by early) disciples to doctrines which he never held. But it seems indisputable that there were widely spread both in Greece and Italy societies called Pythagorean or Orphic which inculcated a common rule of life and believed in metempsychosis. The rule of life did not as a rule amount to asceticism in the Indian sense, which was most uncongenial to h.e.l.lenic ideas, but it comprised great self-restraint. The belief in metempsychosis finds remarkably clear expression: we hear in the Orphic fragments of the circle of birth and of escape from it, language strikingly parallel to many Indian utterances and strikingly unlike the usual turns of Greek speech and thought. Thus the soul is addressed as "Hail thou who hast suffered the suffering" and is made to declare "I have flown out of the sorrowful weary wheel[1111]." I see no reason for discrediting the story that Pythagoras visited Egypt[1112]. He is said to have been a Samian and during his life (_c._ 500 B.C.) Samos had a special connection with Egypt, for Polycrates was the ally of Amasis and a.s.sisted him with troops. The date, if somewhat early, is not far removed from the time when metempsychosis became part of Egyptian religion. The general opinion of antiquity connected the Orphic doctrines with Thrace but so little is known of the Thracians and their origin that this connection does not carry us much further. They appear, however, to have had relations with Asia Minor and that region must have been in touch with India[1113]. But Orphism was also connected with Crete, and Cretan civilization had oriental affinities[1114].
The point of greatest interest naturally is to determine what were the religious influences among which Christ grew up. Whatever they may have been, his originality is not called in question. Mohammed was an enquirer: in estimating his work we have often to ask what he had heard about Christianity and Judaism and how far he had understood it correctly. But neither the Buddha nor Christ were enquirers in this sense: they accepted the best thought of their time and country: with a genius which transcends comparison and eludes definition they gave it an expression which has become immortal. Neither the substance nor the form of their teaching can reasonably be regarded as identical, for the Buddha did not treat of G.o.d or the divine government of the world, whereas Christ"s chief thesis is that G.o.d loves the world and that therefore man should love G.o.d and his fellow men. But though their basic principles differ, the two doctrines agree in maintaining that happiness is obtainable not by pleasure or success or philosophy or rites but by an unselfish life, culminating in the state called Nirvana or the kingdom of heaven. "The kingdom of heaven is within you."
In the Gospels Christ teaches neither asceticism nor metempsychosis.
The absence of the former is remarkable: he eats flesh and allows himself to be anointed: he drinks wine, prescribes its use in religion and is credited with producing it miraculously when human cellars run short. But he praises poverty and the poor: the Sermon on the Mount and the instructions to the Seventy can be put in practice only by those who, like the members of a religious community, have severed all worldly ties and though the extirpation of desire is not in the Gospels held up as an end, the detachment, the freedom from care, l.u.s.t and enmity prescribed by the law of the Buddha find their nearest counterpart in the lives of the Essenes and Therapeut. Though we have no record of Christ being brought into contact with these communities (for John the Baptist appears to have been a solitary and erratic preacher) it is probable that their ideals were known to him and influenced his own. Their rule of life may have been a faint reflex of Indian monasticism. But the debt to India must not be exaggerated: much of the oriental element in the Essenes, such as their frequent purifications and their prayers uttered towards the sun, may be due to Persian influence. They seem to have believed in the pre-existence of the soul and to have held that it was imprisoned in the body, but this hardly amounts to metempsychosis, and metempsychosis cannot be found in the New Testament[1115]. The old Jewish outlook, preserved by the Sadducees, appears not to have included a belief in any life after death, and the supplements to this materialistic view admitted by the Pharisees hardly amounted to the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul but rather to a belief that the just would somehow acquire new bodies and live again. Thus people were ready to accept John the Baptist as being Elias in a new form. Perhaps these rather fragmentary ideas of the Jews are traceable to Egyptian and ultimately to Indian teaching about transmigration. That belief is said to crop up occasionally in rabbinical writings but was given no place in orthodox Christianity[1116].
With regard to the teaching of Christ then, the conclusion must be that it owes no direct debt to Indian, Egyptian, Persian or other oriental sources. But inasmuch as he was in sympathy with the more spiritual elements of Judaism, largely borrowed during the Babylonian captivity, and with the unworldly and self-denying lives of the Essenes, the tone of his teaching is nearer to these newer and imported doctrines than to the old law of Israel[1117].
Some striking parallels have been pointed out between the Gospels and Indian texts of such undoubted antiquity that if imitation is admitted, the Evangelists must have been the imitators. Before considering these instances I invite the reader"s attention to two parallel pa.s.sages from Shakespeare and the Indian poet Bhartrihari.
The latter is thus translated by Monier Williams[1118]:
Now for a little while a child, and now An amorous youth; then for a season turned Into the wealthy householder: then stripped Of all his riches, with decrepit limbs And wrinkled frame man creeps towards the end Of life"s erratic course and like an actor Pa.s.ses behind Death"s curtain out of view.
The resemblance of this to the well-known lines in _As You Like It_, "All the world"s a stage," etc., is obvious, and it is a real resemblance, although the point emphasized by Bhartrihari is that man leaves the world like an actor who at the end of the piece slips behind the curtain, which formed the background of an Indian stage.
But, great as is the resemblance, I imagine that no one would maintain that it has any other origin than that a fairly obvious thought occurred to two writers in different times and countries and suggested similar expressions.
Now many parallels between the Buddhist and Christian scriptures--the majority as it seems to me of those collected by Edmunds and Anesaki--belong to this cla.s.s[1119]. One of the most striking is the pa.s.sage in the Vinaya relating how the Buddha himself cared for a sick monk who was neglected by his colleagues and said to these latter, "Whosoever would wait upon me let him wait on the sick[1120]."
Here the resemblance to Matthew xxv. 40 and 45 is remarkable, but I do not imagine that the writer of the Gospel had ever heard or read of the Buddha"s words. The sentiment which prompted them, if none too common, is at least widespread and is the same that made Confucius show respect and courtesy to the blind. The setting of the saying in the Vinaya and in the Gospel is quite different: the common point is that one whom all are anxious to honour sees that those around him show no consideration to the sick and unhappy and reproves them in the words of the text, words which admit of many interpretations, the simplest perhaps being "I bid you care for the sick: you neglect me if you neglect those whom I bid you to cherish."
But many pa.s.sages in Buddhist and Christian writings have been compared where there is no real parallel but only some word or detail which catches the attention and receives an importance which it does not possess. An instance of this is the so-called parable of the prodigal son in the Lotus Stra, Chapter iv, which has often been compared with Luke xv. 11 ff. But neither in moral nor in plot are the two parables really similar. The Lotus maintains that there are many varieties of doctrine of which the less profound are not necessarily wrong, and it attempts to ill.u.s.trate this by not very convincing stories of how a father may withhold the whole truth from his children for their good. In one story a father and son are separated for fifty years and _both_ move about: the father becomes very rich, the son poor. The son in his wanderings comes upon his father"s palace and recognizes no one. The father, now a very old man, knows his son, but instead of welcoming him at once as his heir puts him through a gradual discipline and explains the real position only on his deathbed. These incidents have nothing in common with the parable related in the Gospel except that a son is lost and found, an event which occurs in a hundred oriental tales. What is much more remarkable, though hardly a case of borrowing, is that in both versions the chief personage, that is Buddha or G.o.d, is likened to a father as he also is in the parable of the carriages[1121].
One of the Jain scriptures called Uttardyayana[1122] contains the following remarkable pa.s.sage, "Three merchants set out on their travels each with his capital; one of them gained much, the second returned with his capital and the third merchant came home after having lost his capital; The parable is taken from common life; learn to apply it to the Law. The capital is human life, the gain is heaven," etc. It is impossible to fix the date of this pa.s.sage: the Jain Canon in which it occurs was edited in 454 A.D. but the component parts of it are much older. It clearly gives a rough sketch of the idea which is elaborated in the parable of the talents. Need we suppose that there has been borrowing on either side? Only in a very restricted sense, I think, if at all. The parable is taken from common life, as the Indian text truly says. It occurred to some teacher, perhaps to many teachers independently, that the spiritual life may be represented as a matter of profit and loss and ill.u.s.trated by the conduct of those who employ their money profitably or not. The idea is natural and probably far older than the Gospels, but the parable of the talents is an original and detailed treatment of a metaphor which may have been known to the theological schools of both India and Palestine. The parable of the sower bears the same relation to the much older Buddhist comparison of instruction to agriculture[1123] in which different cla.s.ses of hearers correspond to different cla.s.ses of fields.
I feel considerable hesitation about two other parallels. What relation does the story of the girl who gives two copper coins to the Sangha bear to the parable of the widow"s mite? It occurs in Asvaghosa"s Strlankra, but though he was a learned poet, it is very unlikely that he had seen the Gospels, Although his poem ends like a fairy tale, for the poor girl marries the king"s son as the reward of her piety, yet there is an extraordinary resemblance in the moral and the detail of the _two_ mites. Can the origin be some proverb which was current in many countries and worked up differently?
The other parallel is between Christ"s meeting with the woman of Samaria and a story in the Divyvadna[1124] telling how Ananda asked an outcast maiden for water. Here the Indian work, which is probably not earlier than the third century A.D., might well be the borrower. Yet the incident is thoroughly Indian. The resemblance is not in the conversation but in the fact that both in India and Palestine water given by the impure is held to defile and that in both countries spiritual teachers rise above such rules. Perhaps Europeans, to whom such notions of defilement are unknown, exaggerate the similarity of the narratives, because the similarity of customs on which it depends seems remarkable.
There are, however, some incidents in the Gospels which bear so great a likeness to earlier stories found in the Pitakas that the two narratives can hardly be wholly independent. These are (_a_) the testimony of Asita and Simeon to the future careers of the infant Buddha and Christ: (_b_) the temptation of Buddha and Christ: (_c_) their transfiguration: (_d_) the miracle of walking on the water and its dependence on faith: (_e_) the miracle of feeding a mult.i.tude with a little bread. The first three parallels relate to events directly concerning the life of a superhuman teacher, Buddha or Christ. In saying that the two narratives can hardly be independent, I do not mean that one is necessarily unhistorical or that the writers of the Gospels had read the Pitakas. That a great man should have a mental crisis in his early life and feel that the powers of evil are trying to divert him from his high destiny is eminently likely. But in the East superhuman teachers were many and there grew up a tradition, fluctuating indeed but still not entirely without consistency, as to what they may be expected to do. Angelic voices at their birth and earthquakes at their death are coincidences in embellishment on which no stress can be laid, but when we find that Zoroaster, the Buddha and Christ were all tempted by the Evil One and all at the same period of their careers, it is impossible to avoid the suspicion that some of their biographers were influenced by the idea that such an incident was to be expected at that point, unless indeed we regard these so-called temptations as mental crises natural in the development of a religious genius. Similarly it is most remarkable that all accounts of the transfiguration of the Buddha and of Christ agree not only in describing the shining body but in adding a reference to impending death. The resemblance between the stories of Asita and Simeon seems to me less striking but I think that they owe their place in both biographies to the tradition that the superman is recognized and saluted by an aged Saint soon after birth.
The two stories about miracles are of less importance in substance but the curious coincidences in detail suggest that they are pieces of folklore which circulated in Asia and Eastern Europe. The Buddhist versions occur in the introductions to Jatakas 190 and 78, which are of uncertain date, though they may be very ancient[1125]. The idea that saints can walk on the water is found in the Majjhima-nikya[1126], but the Jtaka adds the following particulars. A disciple desirous of seeing the Buddha begins to walk across a river in an ecstasy of faith. In the middle, his ecstasy fails and he feels himself sinking but by an effort of will he regains his former confidence and meets the Buddha safely on the further bank. In Jtaka 90 the Buddha miraculously feeds 500 disciples with a single cake and it is expressly mentioned that, after all had been satisfied, the remnants were so numerous that they had to be collected and disposed of.
Still all the parallels cited amount to little more than this, that there was a vague and fluid tradition about the super man"s life of which fragments have received a consecration in literature. The Canonical Gospels show great caution in drawing on this fund of tradition, but a number of Buddhist legends make their appearance in the Apocryphal Gospels and are so obviously Indian in character that it can hardly be maintained that they were invented in Palestine or Egypt and spread thence eastwards. Trees bend down before the young Christ and dragons (ngas) adore him: when he goes to school to learn the alphabet he convicts his teacher of ignorance and the good man faints[1127]. When he enters a temple in Egypt the images prostrate themselves before him just as they do before the young Gotama in the temple of Kapilavastu[1128]. Mary is luminous before the birth of Christ which takes place without pain or impurity[1129]. But the parallel which is most curious, because the incident related is unusual in both Indian and European literature, is the detailed narrative in the Gospel of James, and also in the Lalita-vistara relating how all activity of mankind and nature was suddenly interrupted at the moment of the nativity[1130]. Winds, stars and rivers stayed their motion and labourers stood still in the att.i.tude in which each was surprised. The same Gospel of James also relates that Mary when six months old took seven steps, which must surely be an echo of the legend which attributes the same feat to the infant Buddha.
Several learned authors have discussed the debt of medieval Christian legend to India. The most remarkable instance of this is the canonization by both the Eastern and the Western Church of St. Joasaph or Josaphat. It seems to be established that this name is merely a corruption of Bodhisat and that the story in its Christian form goes back to the religious romance called Barlaam and Joasaph which appears to date from the seventh century[1131]. It contains the history of an Indian prince who was converted by the preaching of Barlaam and became a hermit, and it introduces some of the well-known stories of Gotama"s early life, such as the attempt to hide from him the existence of sickness and old age, and his meetings with a cripple and an old man.
The legends of St. Placidus (or Hubert) and St. Christopher have also been identified with the Nigrodha and Sutasoma Jtakas[1132]. The identification is not to my mind conclusive nor, if it is admitted, of much importance. For who doubts that Indian fables reappear in Aesop or Kalilah and Dimnah? Little is added to this fact if they also appear in legends which may have some connection with the Church but which most Christians feel no obligation to believe.