পাতা:তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা (দশম কল্প প্রথম খণ্ড).pdf/১৭

BUI) DHIISM AFD CHRISTIANITY * १ لا» یا «هtref Max Miller quotes this very passage in his as the Bodhisatwa himself” Prof Weber Essay on Buddhism (Vide: “Chips” vol. I. P. hiimseli has proved. (Vide : Ai])rrcht 190) and adds: “He might have added onsuro, relics and the confessional.” We have thus established what we had already inferred from analogy. "The external correspondence of Buddhism and Clunistianity is as striking as the internal. o Il I, * * Are thorere further points of similarity ? Says Albrecht Weber in speaking of “The Legends of Sakya Ruddha” translated and published by Mr. Boal from the Gainese-Sanskrit. “The peculiar relations which they (the & ԷՀt յ( (}Աt1 ) Ա)Յ:Նլ՝ I, ៤យ៉ូ a n d 驚ಕ್ಡ Christian L *-, otrongly striking ; which gends. is here the borrowed portion Be:il loaves mo doubt, with justire still undecided yet probably the very same case lies here before us as in ihe uppropriation of the Christian Legends by the Krishnu-worshippers” (“ lndische Litteraturgeschichte,” S. 320) The italics are ours. They contain a positive assertion, which we are surprised to see alloh a cautious Orientalist as Prof Weber 1aal:e. ls it, then so indisputably established that the Krishna-worshippers have appropriated the Christian Legends ! What are the grounds of evidence : 13, cause some Christian Missionaries are supposed to have visited India in the first centuries of the Christian era ! But how to cxclude the possibility that these Christian Missionaries might as well have appropriated the Krishna-Legends which then gradually developed themselves into the Christa, or Khrishta, Legends ! (The Greek word is Christos or Khristos which is curiously alike bothin sound and Othography to Krista-the form of the name Krishna most popularly and extensively used by the Hindus in India, Besides, it is evident that according to a simple rule of the Sanskrit Grammar, the word in the 3rd P. S. N. would be Kristos and therefore still more approaching the Greek: Khristos). That our Duddhist Legends have been appropriated— that even a cherished Saint of the Christian Church has at last been discovered to be neghing but a sorry mimicry of Buddha or to use the loarned Professor’s own words : “has been unpuppetted (eptpuppt) Weber Z. I). M. (žeist.llschaft XXIV 480 ; “ Indi.che Litteraturgeschichte” S. 327See also Beal’s “1:luiditist Pilgrims” Nate : l’. 86 and Reinaud : “ Memoire sur l' lude” P. 91.) Mix Müller nakos mention of one of the fi'st, I'»rt igue, mis-j •naries wlio was a profound San krit Sa'olar and who did all he could to a "olilodate tle (: , pels and the precepts they inculeat, to our l'indu modes of thinking much to our l'indu wa" s in religious matter or, in other words, who appropriuteil ፳ቢ$ ᏄᏓᏚ l o sel: he c nvvmiontly could to insiuuate himinto the hearts of those he ciume to con» (Vide : Tito. Science of Language :" Max Muller’s “Lectures on F'll st ('ould olie s}} }e: instance of the kind ulight Series. be brought forward to shew that the l indus { liso ( 'hristianity oi ol „ı;y of #1t r 11 ligion ? have done satue with the Legends of ISesiivs, it is of it--li highly imploballe that the Hindus whose rare genius for poetic images, symbolical relrosol, to iotis, Jegendary or mythical figures has fid, d at least all the Asiatic (Sountries with its inexhaustible fertility—which has to their great misfortune breathed a sort of legendary charm even over historical facts, often comingling or confounding the marvellous with the real.---the supernatural with the natural into a chaos—has even transformed some of their greatest heroes into “Myths and Myth-makers” whose very existence therelentless critics of modern Europe would put into doubt, it is highly improbable we say that this “droamy land”—“this wellknown Kingdom of traditions, anccdotes and poetry” (Vide : Weber's “ Welt-Geschichte" I. B. S. 40) would go to other countries for legends and that again religious legends which make it still more improbable. The antiquity of the Hindu religion, the exiraordinary faculty for religious insight and speculation possessed by the Hindus, their deep faith or unshaken orthodoxy, and hence their extrohao sensitivencss as well as conservatism in all points which have the slightest relation to religion (a. o. the Cartridge-Question of the Sepoys of 1857 is a glaring instance on the point) increase further the improba'ility’ of such an appropriation of the Yavonio