Buddhism and Christianity: A Parallel and a Contrast

72. Sacred Books of the East, vol.xiii.p. 37; Introd., vol. xi. p. xx.

73. Oldenberg, Buddha, etc., p. 27.

74. Mahavansa, by Turnour; Dipavansa, xx. 20, quoted by Professor Max Müller in Sacred Books of the East, vols. x. p. xxiv, and xiii. p. xxxv.

75. Buddhist Birth Stories, vol.i.p.lvii; Trübner’s Oriental Series.

76. Weber, Indian Literature, p. 294; ibid.

77. We may safely assert that in the mass of Buddhist literature already available nothing has been found, nor is anything at all likely to be found, corresponding in character and evidential value to the Christian Scriptures. What would the New Testament have been, asks Professor Müller, “if the spurious Gospels, the pseudo-apostolic and post-apostolic productions, the debates of the Councils, the commentaries of the Fathers, and the lives of the saints, had all been bound and mixed up with it”? (Sacred Books of the East, vol. i., Introd., pp. xv, xvi.) And yet this is a parallel to the confusion represented by the so-called Buddhist Bible. In truth, it is not a Bible, but a library, containing not only the earliest treatises, but the commentaries upon them made in later ages, and extracts and repetitions from itself so extensive and numerous that were they omitted this portentous collection—four times as voluminous as our Christian Bible—would be found to be much shorter than it. When the original Bible of Buddhism has been disinterred from this pile it will be found to resemble almost in nothing our New Testament, but it may present many analogies to the Talmud and Targums, and perhaps some very interesting resemblances to isolated portions of the Old Testament.

As far as it has been translated to us, the Tripitaka contain neither prophecy nor history; but one division of it presents suggestive coincidences with portions of the apocryphal Scriptures; and scholars may find a comparison of some of the texts of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes with those of the Dhammapada and some of the Suttas an agreeable and not unprofitable study, without in the least being tempted to transfer their allegiance from the Hebrew to the Indian sages.

78. Eitel, Lectures on Buddhism, p. 6; Hunter, “Historical Aspects of Indian Geography,” Scot. Geog. Mag., Dec. 1888.

79. Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible, Lecture v.

80. Professor Max Müller, Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 103.

81. Professor Müller, Gifford Lectures, Natural Religion, p. 564.

82. Record of Missionary Conference in London, 1888, vol.i.p. 39; also his Buddhism, p. 558.

83. Le Génie des Religions.

84. Sutta Nipata, translated by Fausböll in vol. x. of Sacred Books of the East, Part ii. pp. 23, 76, 109, 113.

85. Ibid.vol.x., ibid. Part ii. p. 40. We are also reminded that a man is not a Bikkhu because he puts on yellow robes, unless he has cleansed himself from evil (Dhammapada, i. 9, 10).

86. T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhism, pp. 5, 145.

87. Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism, pp. 162, 163.

88. Émile Burnouf, Science de Religions, p. 24.

89. M. Vivien de St. Martin, Mémoires sur les contrées occidentales.

90. Oldenberg, Buddha, etc., p. 10.

91. Sacred Books of the East, vol.i.p.xxii.

92. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol.ii.p. 338; Weber, Indian Literature, p. 38; Sir Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, p. 18.

93. See Satapatha-Brâhmana, translated by Professor Eggeling in vols. xii. and xxvi. of Sacred Books of the East. Max Müller places the age of these books within the ninth and seventh centuries B.C.

94. E. Quinet, Le Génie des Religions, p. 185; Paris, 1857.

95. Sir Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, p. 24, referring to the Aitareya-Brahmana, vii. 13.

96. Oldenberg, Buddha, etc., p. 15; T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 25.

97. Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads, pp. 41, 42.

98. Sacred Books of the East, vols.i. and xv. No one has dated any of the Upanishads earlier than 600 B.C., and some of them are very late.

99. Sacred Books of the East, vol.i.p.lxvi.

100. Svetâsvatara-Upanishad, iii. 7, iv. 14, 16, v. 13, vi. 7, 9, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xv.

101. Oldenberg, Buddha, etc., pp. 47, 48; Gough, Phil. Upan. pp. 61, 67.

102. T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 28.

103. History of Israel, vol.i.pp. 41, 47.

104. Gifford Lectures, Natural Religion, p. 563.

105. It is significant that in the beginning of the Bible Nature-worship seems stamped as accursed in its symbol, the serpent, and that the whole Bible from beginning to end is a Divine protest against that worship in all its forms. Mankind in all ages is tempted to become as the gods, and in a low condition he has almost everywhere succumbed to the temptation. He feasts his gods, compels them to serve him, is really higher than they, and thus he degrades himself or falls from the ideal of one made in the image and after the likeness of God.

106. Ewald, History of Israel, vol.i.pp. 320-322.

107. Some ascribe it to the Deuteronomist, ch.vi. 4.

108. Professor Müller finds the first traces of a Maker or Creator in the Vedic deity Tvashtar, the carpenter—the clever workman, even smith, forging bolts for Indra therein, Rig-Ved. iii. 55. 19. “Tvashtar, the enlivener, endowed with many forms, has nourished the creatures and produced them in many ways; all these worlds are his.” Of another god, latterly called Pragâpati, he quotes Rig-Ved. x. 81. 2, as one who, “creating the earth, disclosed the sky by his power.” Very significantly, however, he reminds us that the same poet loses the idea, and speaks of the secret of creation as undiscoverable.—Müller’s Natural Religion, p. 245. Also Introd. to Upanishads, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xv. p. xxiv.

109. Fairbairn, Religion in History and in the Life of To-day, pp. 39-51.

110. It was only by their very highest and greatest souls that the Godhead was conceived in anything of its spiritual glory. To Abraham God was the Creator, distinct from and greater than the earth and heavens which He had made; to Moses He was a righteous Lawgiver, training upon eagle-wings a peculiar people; to David He was a tender and wise Shepherd of a foolish and helpless flock; to Isaiah and the later prophets a Father dealing with rebellious people, whom He pities, knowing whereof they were made. These conceptions, however, cannot be said to have been those of the mass of the people.