It is not to be wondered at, however, if people who know their own religion only, and even that very slightly, as far as its history is concerned, and who certainly know nothing of any other religions, except that they are the work of the devil, should be surprised at a number of more or less striking similarities which have been pointed out between Christianity and Buddhism.

Some people may still remember the charming volumes of Huc and Gabet, giving an account of their travels from China to Tibet. Nothing disturbed these excellent Roman Catholic priests so much as the Buddhist ritual in Tibet. When they visited the Buddhist temples, they could almost have imagined themselves in St. Peter's at Rome. The vestments were the same, the censers were the same, the hands of the priests were folded in the same way as at Rome, the very smell of the incense reminded them of more homely smells. What could they say? They saw but one way out of it. It was the devil who had counterfeited all this for his own vile purposes.

But if this way of escape is barred, if the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity must not be explained by the wiles of the Tempter, what remains? Two ways, and two ways only, are open. Either, one of these two religions borrowed from the other, or the similarities between them must be traced back to that common foundation which underlies all religions.

If any actual borrowing or imitation took place, it would seem to follow that it could have been Christianity only that was the borrower. Buddha died 477 B.C., and at the time of King Asoka, 259-222 B.C., his religion had been recognised as the state religion of his kingdom. Asoka was the grandson of King Chandragupta or Sandrocyptos, who was the contemporary of Seleucus; and at his court at Patalibothra lived Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleucus. These are historical facts, and the chronological priority of Buddhism cannot well be contested. It does not follow by necessity that a more recent religion must have borrowed from a more ancient one, yet it must be admitted that we know of no other instance where a more ancient borrowed from a more recent religion.

Mere ritual coincidences, such as disturbed the peace of mind of my excellent friend, the Abbé Huc, need not agitate us. Even the

existence of monasteries, both for men and women, the use of rosaries for praying, the ringing of bells for calling the faithful together, the shaving of the head by priests, and the like, can hardly be considered as essential to any religion, and none of them has been proved to have been coeval with the rise of either Christianity or Buddhism. In several cases we know the independent antecedents of these customs and ecclesiastical institutions. If Buddhist friars

shaved their heads and were called Mundas, or shavelings, there was a reason for it. In India different castes and even different families had each their peculiar way of wearing the hair. This custom can be traced back even to Vedic times. Buddhism, which lifted its priesthood out of and above all trammels of caste, naturally forbade the wearing of hair as a distinctive feature of caste or class, and introduced in consequence the complete shaving of the hair, not mere tonsure, among its clergy. Besides, there was the example of Buddha himself, who, on renouncing his princely rank, cut off his flowing locks, and became a shaveling.

Whatever the origin of the tonsure may have been, it could never have been an imitation of the example set by the Prince of Kapilavastu cutting off his flowing locks. The Early Christians seem to have considered it a shame for any man to have long hair; but that again is very different from the tonsure. It may show great ignorance, but I must confess that I do not know the true origin of the tonsure in the history of the Christian Church.

Mr. Oswald Felix has been publishing a number of articles in American papers, which have attracted attention in England also. His object is to prove that Christianity must have taken over not only its doctrines, but many of the incidents also as related in the Gospels, from Buddhist sources. Mr. Oswald Felix is, I believe, one of the more conscientious and fair-minded students of Buddhism. He takes his authorities either from authentic texts, the canonical writings of Southern and Northern Buddhists, or from such works as Seydel's Das Evangelium von Jesu, and not from Madame. Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled. When my friends asked me to answer his articles, I urged my old plea that it is useless to argue about Homer with a man who does not know Greek, and that it would be equally useless to argue about Buddha and Buddhism with antago

nists, however clever, who do not know Sanskrit or Pali. But then I was reminded that Bishops have sometimes written about Moses without knowing Hebrew, and that it was confessedly my chief object in publishing a large collection of English translations of the Sacred Books of the East" to enable those ignorant of Sanskrit, Pali, Zend, Pehlevi, Chinese, Arabic, and all the rest, to form their own opinion of the great religions of the world.

At last came urgent letters and appeals which admitted of no refusal, and here is the substance of one of my answers.

I am told that Mr. Felix Oswald has published the following statement: " According to the Lalita-Vistara, one of the sacred. books of Northern Buddhism, Buddha converted his first disciples half of them formerly followers of his precursor, Rudraka, while sitting under a fig-tree. The first disciples of Christ were seceders from the followers of John the Baptist, the precursor of the worldrenouncing Messiah. I have seen you under the fig-tree,' says Jesus, when His converts introduce Nathanael. Nathanael then at once recants his doubts. Sitting under the sacred fig-tree is one of the mystic tokens of Buddhist Messiahship."

So far Mr. Oswald Felix. Let us now examine the case more closely. That the founders of the Christian and Buddhist religions should both have had precursors, can hardly be called a very startling coincidence, particularly when we consider how different was the relation of John the Baptist to Christ from that of Rudraka to Buddha. But that the Buddhist and the Christian Messiah should both have converted their disciples under a fig-tree does sound strange, and, being without any apparent motives, would seem to require some explanation. If there was borrowing on this point between the two religions, one would naturally think of India as the original home of the story. In India it was perfectly natural that Buddha should be represented as sitting under a fig-tree. Hermits in India lived under the shelter of trees, and no tree in India gave better shelter than the Indian fig-tree. Different Buddhas were supposed to have been sitting under different trees, and were distinguished in consequence by the trees which they had chosen as their own.

The fig-tree in Palestine, however, has nothing in common with

the fig-tree in India, nor do we ever hear of Jewish Rabbis sitting under trees while teaching.

But is there a child in a Sunday-school that could not at once tell Mr. Oswald Felix and his predecessor, Dr. Seydel, that Christ never sat under a fig-tree? We read: "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wert under the fig-tree, I saw thee." Of Christ Himself sitting and teaching under a fig-tree there is no trace anywhere.

No judge, I suppose, would hesitate to say after this, "There is no case." But Dr. Seydel, who seems to be Mr. Oswald Felix's chief authority, is not discouraged. He tells us that Abubekr recognised Mohammed as sent by God, because he sat under a tree, and because no one could sit under that tree after Jesus. This, he maintains, proves that Jesus also sat under a tree, and that this was a sign of His Messiahship. But, unfortunately, the tree thus mentioned in a Mohammedan legend is not a fig-tree, but, as we are told distinctly, a Sizyphus tree. Nor is it said that Mohammed was recognised as sent by God because he sat under a tree, under which no one could sit after Jesus had sat under it. The words are simply: "The prophet sat under the shadow of a tree, where he and Abubekr had before been sitting together. Abubekr then went to a hermit, and asked him for the true religion. The hermit asked: Who is the man under the shadow of the tree?' He answered Mohammed, the son of Abd Allah.' The hermit said: 'By Allah, this is a prophet; no one but Mohammed, the messenger of God, sits after Jesus under that tree.'" Nowhere is it said that the hermit recognised Mohammed because he sat under a tree. Sitting under a tree never was a sign of prophethood with the Mohammedans. It simply means that he recognised him while sitting in the shadow of a tree, as the prophet who should come after Jesus.

It is not every case that breaks down so completely under the first critical examination. Still our case shows how eager certain writers are to discover Buddhist influences in Christianity, and how carefully every statement has to be tested before it can be accepted as trustworthy.

There are some similarities between Christianity and Buddhism

which are much more difficult to explain. I do not mean such outward similarities as that a star stood over the palace in which the young prince who afterwards became the Buddha, ie, the Awakened or the Enlightened, was born. We know that no auspicious event could happen in India without an auspicious star. At the birth of former Buddhas also the rising of certain stars is recorded. In fact, the record of these constellations does not mean much more than if we were to say that each Buddha was born under a fortunate star.

The same applies to the miraculous conception of Buddha. The greatest miracle of all, the conception and birth of a human being, was not considered sufficiently miraculous for a Buddha. Though in the early records his birth is natural enough, in the later writings he is represented as entering the right side of his mother in the shape of an elephant.

That Buddha should have been tempted by Mâra before he began the preaching of the new law is again an element that is found in the history of many religions, and does not necessitate by any means the admission of a loan either on the Buddhist or on the Christian side.

No doubt the visit paid by the old saint, Asita, to the palace, in order to worship the child that had just been born, and to prophesy his greatness, is startlingly like the visit of Simeon to the Temple, to greet the child Jesus and to prophesy the consolation of Israel. And yet the two are not alike. The hope for the coming of a Deliverer, or a Messiah, was a historical fact among the Jews, but it cannot be proved to have existed in India before the rise of historical Buddhism. We find it, indeed, in the Buddhist Scriptures, but the Buddhist Scriptures are later than Buddha, and no trace of such an expectation has been discovered anywhere in pre-Buddhistic documents.

I must confess that I was myself startled when I came across for the first time the following lines in which the incarnation of Buddha is described: "A great light appeared, the blind received their sight, the deaf heard a noise, the dumb spake one with another, the crooked became straight, the lame walked." This sounded indeed so much like the message given to John that one wished