Buddha and Jesus

[Guest guest]

Buddha and Jesus

 

Alexander's invasion of India in 327. B.C. starts a closer

interchange of thought between India and the West. Buddhism must have

been prevalent in India for over a century before Alexander's time,

and he made an effort to acquaint himself with Hindu and Buddhist

thought. He succeeded in encouraging an ascetic called Kalanos to

join his entourage. He himself married a princess from Bactria, and a

hundred of his superior officers followed his example and took

Asiatic brides.

 

Pyrrho is said to have taken part in Alexander's expedition to India

and acquired a knowledge of Indian thought.

 

Pliny tells us of a certain Dionysius who was sent to India from

Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247). Asoka, who ascended the

throne of Magadha in 270.B.C., held a Council at Pataliputra, when it

was resloved to send missionaries to proclaim the new teaching

throughout the world. In accordance with this decision Asoka sent

Buddhistic missions to the sovereigns of the West, Antiochus Theos of

Syria, Ptolemy Philadelphius of Egypt, Antigonos Gonatas of

Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexandria of Epirus. From Asoka's

statements it may be inferred that his missions were favorably

received in these five countries. Between 190 and 180 B.C. Demetrius

extended the Bactrian Kingdom into India and conquered Sind and

Kathiawar.

 

The Greeks who settled in India gradually became Indianized. Of the

monuments which survive of the Indo-Greek dynasties is a pillar

discovered at Besnagar in the extreme south of Gwalior State

(140B.C.) The inscription on it in Brahmi characters says:

 

" This garuda column of Vasudeva (Vishnu) was erected here by

Heliodorus, son of Dion, a worshipper of Vishnu, and an inhabitant of

Taxila, who came as a Greek ambassador from the great King

Antialcidas to Kind Kasiputra Bhagabhadra, the saviour, then reigning

prosperously in the fourteenth year of his kingship."

 

The greatest of the Indo-Greek kings was Menander, who was converted

to Buddhism by the Buddhist teacher Nagasena (180-160 B.C.)

His conversion is recorded in the famous work Milindapanha (questions

asked by King Milinda )

 

During all this period India and the West had extensive trade

relations. When Alexander chose in Egypt the site for a city which

was destined to perpetuate his name, the preparation for the blending

of Eastern and Western cultures started. For a thousand years

Alexandria continued to be a center of intellectual and commercial

activity because it was the meeting-place of Jews, Syrians, and

Greeks. Milindapanha mentions it as one of the places to which the

Indians regularly resorted.

 

Two centuries before the Christian era, Buddhism closed in on

Palestine. The Essenes, the Mandeans, and the Nazarene sects are

filled with its spirits. ( The Mandeans flourished in Maisan, which

was the gate of entry for Indian trade and commerce with Mesopotamia.

Indian tribes colonized Maisan, whose port had an Indian temple.

Mandean gnosis is full of Indian ideas.)

 

Nearly five hundred years before Jesus, Buddha went round the Ganges

valley proclaiming a way of life which would deliver men from bondage

of ignorance and sin. In a hundred and fifty years after his death,

tradition of his life and passing away became systematized. He was

miraculously conceived and wondrously born. His father was informed

by angels about it, and, according to Lalitavistara, the queen (Maya)

was permitted to lead the life of a virgin for thirty-two months. On

the day of his birth a Brahmin priest predicts his future greatness.

Asita is the Buddhist Simeon. He comes through air to visit the

infant Gautama. Simeon came by the apirit into the Temple. Buddha

grew steadily in wisdom and stature. Early in his career, he was

tempted by Mara to give up his quest for truth with promises of world

dominion. His enlightenment was marked by thirty-two great miracles.

The blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, and the lame walk

freely. He set out to establish the kingdom of righteousness. He has

twelve disciples. Buddha has his troubles with his disciples.

Devadatta, Buddha's cousin, was the Judas among his followers. On the

last day before his death, Buddha's body was again transfigured, and

when he died a tremendous earthquake was felt throughout thee world.

 

Many of the parables between Buddha and Jesus are common. Buddha is a

sower of the word. He feeds his five hundred brethren at once with a

small cake which has been put into his begging bowl, and a good deal

is left over, which is thrown away. In Jataka 190 we read of an eager

disciple who finds no boat to take him across and so walks on the

water.

 

Max Muller remarks that mere walking on water is not an uncommon

story, and we must remember that the date of the Buddhist parable is

chronologically anterior to the date of the Gospel of St. Luke.

Between the language of Buddha and his disciples, and the language

between Christ and his apostles, there are strange coincidences. When

some of the Buddhist legends and parables sound as if taken from the

New Testament, though we know that many of them existed before the

beginning of the Christian era.

 

Richard Garbe assumes direct borrowing from Buddhism in the matter of

Simeon, temptations, and the miracles of walking on the water, and

loaves and fishes. We have many parallels between Krishna and Christ.

 

A marvellous light envelops Mary when Christ is born. a similar light

envelops Devaki before Krsna is born.

 

There is universal gladness of nature at their birth.

 

Herod inquires of the wise men, " Where is he that is born King of

the Jews? "(Matthew ii 40

 

Narada warns Kamsa the King that Krsna will kill him (Harivamsa ii

56)

 

Herod is mocked by the wise men (Matthew, ii 16) and Kamsa is mocked

by the demon that takes the place of Yasoda's infant (ibid ii 59).

 

The massacre of the infants in found in both.

 

Joseph came with Mary to Bethlehem to be taxed: Nanda came with

Yasoda to Mathura to pay tribute.

 

The flight into Egypt is similar to that into Braj.

 

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says:

 

"The curious may find matter for reflection in these coincidences in

the lives of Buddha and Christ. But those trained in European culture

find it somewhat irksome, if not distasteful, to admit the debt of

Christian religion to non-Christian sources, especially Hindu and

Buddhist."

 

" In these cases, Max Muller writes, "our natural inclination would

be to suppose that the Buddhist stories borrowed from our Christian

sources and not vice versa. But here the conscience of the scholar

comes in. Some of these stories are found in the Hinayana Budddhist

Canon and date, therefore, before the Christian era." It is not

unnatural to suspect that some of the prominent ideas traveled from

the older to the younger system. As Christianity arose in a period of

eclecticism, it is not impossible for it to have adopted the outlook

and legends of the older religion, especially as the latter were

accessible at the time when intercourse between India and the Roman

Empire was quite common. Let us realize that Christianity was in a

formative stage and Budhhism was both settled and enterprising.

 

Speaking of the Apocryphal gospels, such a cautious critic, as the

late Dr. Maurice Winternitz says: " We can point to a series of

borrowings from Buddhistic literature which are absolutely beyond all

doubt" ( Visvabharati Quarterly Feb. 1937, p.14).

 

Sir Charles Eliot, a famous scholar and linguist of Oxford

observed, " 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." (Hinduism and Buddhism, vol. iii

(1921), p. 441). " The similarity of Roman Catholic services and

ceremonial to the Buddhist is difficult to explain. "When all

allowance is made for similar causes and coincidences, it is hard to

believe that a collection of practices such as clerical celibacy, the

veneration of relics, the use of the rosary and the prominent ideas

traveled from the older to the younger system.

 

T. W. Rhys Davids, the famous Pali scholar and author of " Buddhist

India," wrote,

 

"It is not too much to say, that almost the whole of the moral

teaching of the Gospels as distinct from the dogmatic teaching, will

be found in Buddhist writings, several centuries older than the

Gospels; that for instance, of all the moral doctrines collected

together in the so-called Sermon on the Mount, all those which can be

separated from the theistic dogmas there maintained are found again

in the Pitakas."

 

"There is every reason to believe that the Pitakas [sacred books

containing the legends of Buddha] now extant in Ceylon are

substantially identical with the books of the southern canon, as

settled at the Council of Patna about the year 250 B.C. As no work

would have been received into the Canon which were not then believer

to be very old, the Pitakas may be approximately placed in the forth

century B.C. and parts of them possibly reach back very nearly, if

not quite to the time of Gautama (Buddha) himself.

 

Albert Schweitzer, who is regarded almost as a modern Christian

saint, declined to accept the historicity of the traditional view of

Jesus. Both A.J. Edmonds, and Richard Garbe, have insisted on the

Christian indebtedness to Buddhism.

 

Count Keyserling noticed a great affinity of spirit between Mahayana

Buddhism and Christianity; and although he considered Mahayana

Buddhism to be far superior to Christianity.

 

Otto Pfleiderer in his Chrisitan Origin, E. T. (1906), p.226, says: "

These Buddhist parallels to the childhood stories of Luke are too

striking to be classed as mere chance; some kind of historical

connection must be postulated." M. Labbe Huc, Nineteenth century: "

The miraculous birth of Buddha, his life and instructions, contain a

great number of the moral and dogmatic truths professes in

Christianity."

T. W. Doane, Nineteenth century, ...nothing now remains for the

honest man to do but acknowledge the truth, which is that the history

of Jesus of Nazareth, as related in the books of the New Testament is

simply a copy of that of Buddha, with a mixture of mythology borrowed

from other nations.

 

Scholars have been profoundly struck and at times perplexed by the

remarkable similarities between the Gospel story and the life and

teachings of the Budhha, as told in the Latitavistara, and between

the Budhhist and Christian parables and miracles. Both the Buddha and

Christ are miraculously conceived and wondrously born and angels

rejoiced at both births. He was miraculously conceived and wondrously

born. His father was informed by angels about it and the queen -

mother Maya (Mary in case of Christ) was permitted to lead the life

of a virgin for thirty-two months. Christ was born in the royal tribe

of Judah, Buddha was born in a royal household. On the day of his

birth a Brahmin (Asita) priest predicts his future greatness. Asita

is the Buddhist Simeon. Early in his career, he was tempted by Mara

to give up his quest for truth with promises of world dominion. Both

reveal their unusual wisdom at about the same age, twelve.

 

Nothing is known of Jesus' life during the next seventeen years and

there have developed a variety of legends suggesting that he traveled

to India, lived with the Essenes at Qumran. The Gospels, however,

refute these suggestion by implication. Whether Jesus traveled abroad

or not, that he chose to remain unknown after having revealed himself

and his wisdom causes some surprise. As Jesus claimed to be God, it

could not have been a period of preparation. In contrast, more is

known of Buddha's life his childhood, youth, marriage, increasing

discontent with the world, renunciation, quest of Enlightenment, and

finally his attainment of the Buddhahood, followed by a long period

of missionary activity until he died.

[Guest guest]

vediculture, "Ron Philo" <rphilo@k...> wrote:

 

> Why is it that similarities among the lives of avatars should lead

one to

> conclude that later events were borrowed and did not actually

happen?

> Such similarities could be divinely planned to point to the

fundamental

> unity of the truth of their teachings, it seems to me.

(SORRY FOR THE CAPS, I AM NOT SHOUTING..

 

DEAR RON, YOUR POINT IS MOST EXCELLENT AND JUST. HUMANITY IS ALWAYS

TRYING TO COMPENSATE PAST INJUSTICES BY ACTING UNJUST IN RETURN.

CULTURAL NEGATIONISM IS A PHENOMENON THAT SEEMS TO BE QUITE

PREVALENT. BUT IT WAS DEFINATELY INITIATED BY THE FANATIC MINDSET AND

ACTIONS OF THE ISLAMIC AND CHRISTIAN POWERS.

 

 

THERE WERE MANY EARLY ATTEMPTS BY BRITISH SCHOLARS TO DISCREDIT KRSNA

AS BEING A RIP OFF OF CHRIST. IT WAS NOT UNTIL A GREEK BUILT MEMORIAL

TO KRSNA-BALARAM WAS FOUND THAT WESTERNERS OFFICIALLY ACCEPTED

THAT 'PERHAPS' KRSNA DID PREDATE CHRIST.

 

IT DIDN'T MATTER THAT NATIVE INDIAN SOURCES ALL SAID THE SAME THING.

ONLY WHEN A 'RELIABLE' EUROPEAN SOURCE WAS FOUND, DID THE ACADEMICS

GIVE KRSNA ANY HISTORICAL VALUE. OF COURSE THIS DOESN'T JUSTIFY ANY

FANATIC CULTURAL NEGATIONISM PROMOTED BY SOME OF OUR VEDIC/HINDU

FRIENDS.

 

ANYWAY WE SHOULD ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT, ACCORDING TO ANCIENT

TRADITION, GODHEAD IS CONSTANTLY ENGAGED WITH CREATION. NOT WITH JUST

HUMANITY, BUT ALL SPECIES HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH DIRECT AVATAR

INTERACTION.

NAMASTE AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION AND PATIENCE,

SINCERELY,

VRIN

[Guest guest]

Dear Vrin, thank you for your insightful reply. Sadly, many Christians consider

that

their religion is the only true one. This is because they misinterpret certain

passages in the

New Testament of the Bible to mean that Jesus was the only incarnation of God,

not understanding

that Jesus was speaking as the Kutastha Chaitanya, the impersonal Christ

Consciousness or

TAT, which speaks through all of the enlightened ones. There have even been

wars fought

between different sects of Christians, most notably involving Roman Catholics,

Protestants,

and Eastern Orthodox. There have even been wars fought because of a schism

within the

same sect, such as when there were two Roman Catholic popes. I have heard that

the

early Christian church accepted the doctrine of reincarnation, but it was

declared a heresy in

553 A.D. by the Second Council of Constantinople. Without reincarnation, it is

difficult for

Christians to understand the concept of avatar and how the soul may evolve

upward during

the course of many lifetimes.

 

Within Islam, there has been strife between Sunnis and Shiites. There are

probably examples

within Buddhism and Hinduism as well, although I am not as familiar with their

political history.

I do know that the cultural mix on the Indian subcontinent is very complex,

involving Muslims,

Hindus, Sikhs, Dravidians (or Tamils?), Jains, Christians, Parsis, Buddhists and

others.

 

Now that the kaliyuga of the minor cycle has ended, we may expect that these

errors of

understanding will subside and that the peoples of the world, whatever their

form of worship

of God, will grow in wisdom and learn respect for all true religions.

 

Best regards,

Ron

_____________________

 

Message: 3

Fri, 27 Jul 2001 00:29:45 -0000

Vrindavan

Re:Buddha and Jesus

 

vediculture, "Ron Philo" <rphilo@k...> wrote:

 

> Why is it that similarities among the lives of avatars should lead

one to

> conclude that later events were borrowed and did not actually

happen?

> Such similarities could be divinely planned to point to the

fundamental

> unity of the truth of their teachings, it seems to me.

(SORRY FOR THE CAPS, I AM NOT SHOUTING..

 

DEAR RON, YOUR POINT IS MOST EXCELLENT AND JUST. HUMANITY IS ALWAYS

TRYING TO COMPENSATE PAST INJUSTICES BY ACTING UNJUST IN RETURN.

CULTURAL NEGATIONISM IS A PHENOMENON THAT SEEMS TO BE QUITE

PREVALENT. BUT IT WAS DEFINATELY INITIATED BY THE FANATIC MINDSET AND

ACTIONS OF THE ISLAMIC AND CHRISTIAN POWERS.

 

 

THERE WERE MANY EARLY ATTEMPTS BY BRITISH SCHOLARS TO DISCREDIT KRSNA

AS BEING A RIP OFF OF CHRIST. IT WAS NOT UNTIL A GREEK BUILT MEMORIAL

TO KRSNA-BALARAM WAS FOUND THAT WESTERNERS OFFICIALLY ACCEPTED

THAT 'PERHAPS' KRSNA DID PREDATE CHRIST.

 

IT DIDN'T MATTER THAT NATIVE INDIAN SOURCES ALL SAID THE SAME THING.

ONLY WHEN A 'RELIABLE' EUROPEAN SOURCE WAS FOUND, DID THE ACADEMICS

GIVE KRSNA ANY HISTORICAL VALUE. OF COURSE THIS DOESN'T JUSTIFY ANY

FANATIC CULTURAL NEGATIONISM PROMOTED BY SOME OF OUR VEDIC/HINDU

FRIENDS.

 

ANYWAY WE SHOULD ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT, ACCORDING TO ANCIENT

TRADITION, GODHEAD IS CONSTANTLY ENGAGED WITH CREATION. NOT WITH JUST

HUMANITY, BUT ALL SPECIES HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH DIRECT AVATAR

INTERACTION.

NAMASTE AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION AND PATIENCE,

SINCERELY,

VRIN