Buddhism and Christianity are both ancient world religions that spread from their region of origin to be established as major influences on spirituality throughout the world.
One of the earliest and most famed scholars of comparitive religions, and linguistics, was Sir William Jones, who, in regard to Christian Missionaries in Asia, cited an inscription, which unbeknownst to him was a Buddhist inscription left by the king Asoka; (Asoka's insriptions in italic)“?for they ought to remember, that one great end of revelation, as it is most expressly declared, was not to instruct the wise and few, but the many and unenlightened. If the conversion, therefore, of the Pandits and Maulavia in this country shall ever be attempted by Protestant Missionaries, they must beware of asserting, while they teach the gospel of truth, what those Pandits and Maulavis would know to be false: the former would cite the beautiful Arya couplet, which was written at least three centuries before our era (before Christianity), and which pronounces the duty of a good man, even in the moment of his distraction to consist not only of forgiving, but even in a desire of benefiting, his destroyer, as the Sandal tree, in the instant of its overthrow, sheds perfume on the axe which fells it…”?“thus we see the essence of the Christian moral doctrine was known at least three hundred years before Jesus was born” [1]
There has been much speculation regarding a possible connection between both the Buddha and the Christ, and between Buddhism and Christianity. Buddhism is believed by most people and Buddhalogists to have been established as a religion around 500 years before the founding of Christianity. Although there are a few religions who maintain that the Buddha and the Christ were of the same tradition (Essenes, Universalists, Baha, and some Muslims, Gnostics and Christians), their conclusions differ considerably from that of secular writers on this subject.
Many current scholars relevant to this field of study have admitted their serious consideration regarding a direct connection between Buddhism and Christianity. As for pointing out, and minutely describing at what point, how, and why such a connection was made, there may be none who can offer direct textual, epigraphical or any other such evidences deemed satisfactory to modern source criticism, regarding historical figures at the beginning of the Christian calendar, with syncronistic convictions regarding Buddhism and Christianity. Some who have theorized a connection between Buddhism and Christianity vaguely point to certain individuals or groups who, by their brand of doctrine, may have commenced borrowing from one faith to the other, such names as Asoka, Kanishka, the Ptolemys, Nagarjuna, among others appear often in speculitive form. The author Godfrey Higgins, in several of his books, claimed that after Asoka's subtle mandate of Buddhist worship, the Brahmins soon chased the Buddhists out of India where they established themselves with the European outposts of Asoka's missionaries.
In the thirteenth century, international travelers, such as Giovanni de Piano Carpini and William of Ruysbroeck, sent back reports of Buddhism as a religion whose scriptures, doctrine, saints, monastic life, meditation practices, and rituals were comparable to those of Christianity.[2] When European Christians made more direct contact with Buddhism in the early 16th century many Catholic missionaries (f.e. Francis Xavier) sent home idyllic accounts of Buddhism.[3] At the same time, however, Portuguese colonizers of Sri Lanka confiscated Buddhist properties across the country, with the full cooperation of the Christian missionaries.[4] This repression of Buddhism in Sri Lanka continued during the rule of subsequently the Dutch and the English.
At the same time the Portuguese historian Diego De Conto reminded the Vatican that their Christian saint Josaphat was actually the Buddha.[5]
With the arrival of Sanskrit studies in European universities in the late eighteenth century, and the subsequent availability of Buddhist texts, a discussion began of a proper encounter with Buddhism.[6] The esteem for its teachings and practices grew, and at the end of the 19th century the first Westerners (f.e. Sir Edwin Arnold and Henry Olcott) converted to Buddhism, and in the beginning of the 20th century the first westerners (f.e. Ananda metteyya and Nyanatiloka) entered the Buddhist monastic life.[7].
In the 20th century Christian monastics as Thomas Merton, Wayne Teasdale, David Steindl-Rast and Karen Armstrong [8] , and Buddhist monastics such as Ajahn Buddhadasa, Thich Nhat Hanh and the present Dalai Lama have put energy into Buddhist/Christian dialogue[9]. They each see in the otherwise disparate teachings of Jesus and the Buddha a basic commonality of insight and purpose which offers the possibility, they say, of profound remedy to an ailing world.[10] [11] The historian of world culture Arnold Toynbee has speculated that in centuries to come the encounter between Christianity and Buddhism may come to be seen as the momentous event of the 20th century.[12]
By the time of Jesus, the teachings of the Buddha had already spread through much of India and penetrated into Sri Lanka, Central Asia and China.[13] They display certain similarities to Christian moral precepts of more than five centuries later; the sanctity of life, compassion for others, rejection of violence, confession and emphasis on charity and the practice of virtue.
Will Durant, noting that the Emperor Ashoka sent missionaries, not only to elsewhere in India and to Sri Lanka, but to Syria, Egypt and Greece, speculated in the 1930s that they may have helped prepare the ground for Christian teaching.[14]
Ashoka ascended the throne of India around 270 B.C.E.. After his conversion to Buddhism he dispatched missionaries to the four points of the compass. Archeological finds indicate these missions had been "favorably received" in lands to the West.[citation needed]
Ptolemy II Philadelphus, one of the monarchs Ashoka mentions in his edicts, is recorded by Pliny the Elder as having sent an ambassador named Dionysius to the Mauryan court at Pataliputra: "India has been treated of by several other Greek writers who resided at the courts of Indian kings, such, for instance, as Megasthenes, and by Dionysius, who was sent thither by Philadelphus, expressly for the purpose: all of whom have enlarged upon the power and vast resources of these nations."[15]
Records from Alexandria, long a crossroads of commerce and ideas, indicate that itinerant monks from the Indian subcontinent may have influenced philosophical currents of the time.[citation needed] Roman accounts centuries later speak of monks traveling to the middle east, and there is mention of an embassy sent by the Indian king Pandion, or Porus (possibly Pandya), to Caesar Augustus around 13 CE. The embassy was traveling with a diplomatic letter in Greek, and one of its members was a sramana who burned himself alive in Athens to demonstrate his faith. The event caused a sensation. It was described by Nicolaus of Damascus, who met the embassy at Antioch, and by Strabo (XV,1,73 ) and Dio Cassius (liv, 9). A tomb, still visible in the time of Plutarch, bore mention of:
"ΖΑΡΜΑΝΟΧΗΓΑΣ ΙΝΔΟΣ ΑΠΟ ΒΑΡΓΟΣΗΣ"
("The sramana master from Barygaza in India")
Meanwhile, the Buddha's teachings had spread north-west, into Parthian territory. Buddhist stupa remains have been identified as distant as the Silk Road city of Merv.[16] Soviet archeological teams in Giaur Kala, near Merv, have uncovered a Buddhist monastery, complete with huge buddharupa. Parthian nobles such as An Shih Kao are known to have adopted Buddhism and were among those responsible for its further spread towards China.
Archaeologist Donald Mackenzie believed that Buddhist missionaries had a good footing in pre-Christian Britain. He quotes the early Church father Saint Origen as saying, "The island (Britain) has long been predisposed to it (Christianity) through the doctrines of the Druids and Buddhists, who had already inculcated the doctrine of the unity of the Godhead" - Origen.[17]
Some have suggested the Church Fathers were acquainted with Buddhist beliefs and practices.
.
The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria states in the 2nd century CE:
"Thus philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in antiquity among the barbarians, shedding its light over the nations. And afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks were the prophets of the Egyptians; and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians; and the Druids among the Gauls; and the Sarmanas among the Bactrians ("Σαρμανα?οι Β?κτρων"); and the philosophers of the Celts; and the Magi of the Persians, who foretold the Saviour's birth, and came into the land of Judaea guided by a star. The Indian gymnosophists are also in the number, and the other barbarian philosophers. And of these there are two classes, some of them called Sramanas ("Σαρμ?ναι"), and others Brahmins (Βραφμαναι)."
?Clement of Alexandria "The Stromata, or Miscellanies" Book I, Chapter XV[21]
Clement writes of the Buddha:
"Among the Indians are those philosophers also who follow the precepts of Boutta, whom they honour as a god on account of his extraordinary sanctity."
? Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (Miscellanies), Book I, Chapter XV
Early 3rd-4th century Christian writers such as Hippolytus and Epiphanius write of one Scythianus who visited India around 50 CE, whence he brought the "doctrine of the Two Principles". Scythianus' pupil Terebinthus supposedly presented himself as a “Buddha” ("he called himself Buddas" Cyril of Jerusalem) and became well known in Judaea. The same author says his books and knowledge were taken over by Mani, and became the foundation of the Manichean doctrine.[18]
"Terebinthus, his disciple in this wicked error, inherited his money and books and heresy, and came to Palestine, and becoming known and condemned in Judaea he resolved to pass into Persia: but lest he should be recognised there also by his name he changed it and called himself Buddas."
?Cyril of Jerusalem, Sixth Catechetical Lecture Chapter 22-24 [19]
Hippolytus, a Greek-speaking Christian in Rome, around 235 includes Indian ascetics among sources of heresy:
The Syrian gnostic theologian Bar Daisan describes in the third century his exchanges with missions of holy men from India (Greek: Σαρμανα?οι, Sramanas), passing through Syria on their way to Elagabalus or another Severan dynasty Roman Emperor. His accounts are quoted by Porphyry (De abstin., iv, 17 ) and Stobaeus (Eccles., iii, 56, 141).
The Greek legend of Barlaam and Ioasaph, sometimes mistakenly attributed to the seventh century John of Damascus but first recorded by the Georgian monk Euthymios of Athos in the eleventh century, was ultimately derived, via Arabic and Georgian versions, from the life story of the Buddha. The king-turned-monk Ioasaph (Georgian Iodasaph, Arabic Y?dhasaf or B?dhasaf) also gets his name from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva, the term traditionally used to refer to Gautama before he becomes a buddha.
Barlaam and Ioasaph were placed in the Orthodox calendar of saints on 26 August, and in the Roman martyrology they were canonized (as "Barlaam and Josaphat") and assigned 27 November. The story was translated into Hebrew in the Middle Ages as "Ben-Hamelekh Vehanazir" ("The Prince and the Nazirite"). Thus the Buddhist story was turned into a Christian and Jewish legend.
Possible Buddhist influence
Some scholars have suggested that the semi-apocryphal Gospel of Thomas and the Nag Hammadi texts display Buddhist influence. Elaine Pagels in her widely noted The Gnostic Gospels (1979), and in Beyond Belief (2003), makes mention of such theories.
As far back as 1816 the historian George Faber in his book, The Origin of Pagan Idolatry Ascertained from Historical Testimony, stated, "There is so strong a resemblance between the characters of Jesus and of Buddha, that it cannot have been purely accidental.” [20]
In 1883, Max Muller, the pioneering scholar of comparative religion, asserted in his India: What it Can Teach Us: "That there are startling coincidences between Buddhism and Christianity cannot be denied, and it must likewise be admitted that Buddhism existed at least 400 years before Christianity. I go even further, and should feel extremely grateful if anybody would point out to me the historical channels through which Buddhism had influenced early Christianity." It is interesting to note that Muller himself, before examining the Buddhist/Christian copycat claims, stated that he intended to prove the priority of the Jesus gospels over the Buddhist texts.
In The Gospel of Jesus in relation to the Buddha Legend, and again, in 1897, in The Buddha Legend and the Life of Jesus, Professor Rudolf Seydel of the University of Leipzig noted around fifty similarities between Buddhist and Christian parables and teachings.
In 1918, in his History of Religions, Professor E. Washburn Hopkins of Yale goes so far as to say, "Finally, the life, temptation, miracles, parables, and even the disciples of Jesus have been derived directly from Buddhism." [21]
Much more recently, the historian Jerry H. Bentley notes "the possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity" and that scholars "have drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus".[22]
In his Buddhism Omnibus Iqbal Singh similarly acknowledges the possibility of early interaction and, thus, influence of Buddhist teachings upon the Christian tradition in its formative period. [23]
In 1992 Zacharias P. Thundy, Professor of Literature, wrote a book titled, Buddha and Christ, Nativity stories from the Indian traditions in which Thundy concludes that there was a substantial amount of borrowing by Christianity from Buddhism. He prefers not to label Jesus either a Jew, Buddhist or a Buddhist-Jew, claiming that such distinctions are "fuzzy". Thundy further claims a long tradition of interchange between east and west and shows that western fables, such as those in Aesop's fables, and the story of Susans attached to the Book of Daniel, were originally Buddhist Jatakas.
In 2007 Doctor of Asian Studies Christian Lindtner published a book titled Geheimnisse um Jesus Christus. Dr. Lindtner compares the Pali and Sanskrit Buddhist texts with the Greek gospels and determines that the four gospels were reformulated from older Buddhist texts based on gematria values, puns, and syllabic equivalences. Those who have scrutinized his work claim that his gematria values and syllabic equivalences are coincidental and that his puns exist because the Greek and Sanskrit are from the same language family. Those in support of his work claim that is findings are unique and that similar finds could not be made in regard to any other seemingly non-connected literature.
Also, in 2007 the author Daniel Hopkins wrote a book named Father and Son, East is West, the Buddhist sources to Christianity and their influence on medieval myths, in which he claims that the Jesus gospels were highly allegorical and mysterious in order to hide the name of Jesus' father, which he claims was the Buddha's name. [24]
Burkhard Scherer, Professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at England's Canterbury Christ Church University has stated: "...it is very important to draw attention to the fact that there is [massive] Buddhist influence in the Gospels....Since more than a hundred years, Buddhist influence in the Gospels has been known and acknowledged by scholars from both sides." He adds: "Just recently, Duncan McDerret published his excellent The Bible and the Buddhist (Sardini, Bornato [Italy] 2001). With McDerret, I am convinced that there are many Buddhist narratives in the Gospels."[25]
Thomas Tweed, Professor of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, notes that between 1879 and 1907 there were a "number of impassioned discussions about parallels and possible historical influence between Buddhism and Christianity in ... a variety of periodicals". By 1906 interest waned somewhat. In the end, Albert Schweitzer's conclusion appears to have been favored: that, although some indirect influence through the wider culture was "not inherently impossible", the hypothesis that Jesus' novel ideas were borrowed directly from Buddhism was "unproved, unprovable and unthinkable." [26]
Edward Conze and Elaine Pagels have suggested that gnosticism blends teachings like those attributed to Jesus Christ with teachings found in Eastern traditions.[27]
The word gnosis (knowledge) as used by the Gnostics is equivalent to the Buddhist word prajna. Both traditions of Buddhism and Gnosticism held that only direct knowledge was liberating. Some basic parallels held in common with the Buddhist and the Gnostic, and cannonical gospels, is that the Buddhists believed that the Buddha was like a great father with sons of light (Bodhisattvas), while all Christians held that Jesus was the light and the son of a great father. While it is true that some Gnostics demonized the "Father", this concept could be the Buddhist concept of 'killing the Buddha', or leaving the raft (religion)behind. Scattered throughout the Gnostic gospels there can be found many exclusively Buddhist themes, such as within The Gospel of Mary can be found the stressing of matter as impermanent, within The Infancy of James those who chew, yet do not chew can be compared to the Bodhisattvas in the Surangama sutra who Taste, but do not taste, within the book Thomas the Contender, Jesus is recorded as saying, "woe to you , because the wheel that turns in your mind" which might reference the Buddhist wheel of dependent origination, within the Gospel of Thomas when Jesus is questioned about how disciples should prove that they were from God, Jesus says the proof of God in them was "motion, and rest" which again could reference the Buddhist belief that the easiest path to enlightenment was through contemplation on the ear organ and the understanding of its two defiling attributes of motion and stillness, the gospel of Phillip mentions that Jesus was martyred many times just as the Buddhist Jatakas and Pali texts mention of the Buddha in his former births.[28]
Philip Jenkins writes that, since the mid-nineteenth century, new and fringe religious movements have often created images of Jesus, presenting him as a sage, philosopher and occult teacher, whose teachings are very similar to those of Asian religions. He asserts that the images generated by these religious movements share much in common with the images that increasingly dominate the mainstream critical scholarship of the New Testament, especially following the rediscovery of the Gnostic Gospels found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. He alleges that, in modern scholarly writing, Jesus has become more of a Gnostic, Cynic or even a crypto-Buddhist than the traditional notion of the reformist Jewish rabbi.[29]
Jenkins acknowledges that "the Jesus of the hidden gospels has many points of contact with the great spiritual traditions of Asia." Pagels has written that "one need only listen to the words of the Gospel of Thomas to hear how it resonates with the Buddhist tradition… these ancient gospels tend to point beyond faith toward a path of solitary searching to find understanding, or gnosis." She suggests that there is an explicitly Indian influence in the Gospel of Thomas, perhaps via the Christian communities in southern India, the so-called Thomas Christians.
It is believed by some that of all of the Nag Hammadi texts, the Gospel of Thomas has the most similarities with Pure Land Buddhism within it. Edward Conze has suggested that Hindu or Buddhist tradition may well have influenced Gnosticism. He points out that Buddhists were in contact with the Thomas Christians. [30]
Elaine Pagels notes that the similarities between Gnosticism and Buddhism have prompted some scholars to question their interdependence and to wonder whether "...if the names were changed, the 'living Buddha' appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas attributes to the living Jesus. " However, she concludes that, although intriguing, the evidence is inconclusive, and she further concludes that these parallels might be coincidental since parallel traditions may emerge in different cultures without direct influence. [31]
According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus spent his early childhood in Egypt which was at the end of the Silk Road. As a result of its role in trade with the East, Egypt was prosperous and enriched with religious diversity.
The Therapeutae (known only from Philo) were mystics and ascetics who lived especially in the area around Alexandria, [32] Philo described the Therapeutae in the beginning of the 1st century CE in De vita contemplativa ("On the contemplative life"), written ca. 10 CE. By that time, the origins of the Therapeutae were already lost in the past, and Philo was even unsure about the etymology of their name.
Philonian monachism has been seen as the forerunner of and the model for the Christian ascetic life. It has even been considered as the earliest description of Christian monasticism. This view was first espoused by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Ecclesiastical History.[33]
According to the linguist Zacharias P. Thundy the name "Therapeutae" is simply an Hellenisation of the Pali term for the traditional Buddhist faith, "Theravada". The similarities between the monastic practices of the Therapeutae and Buddhist monastic practices have led to suggestions that the Therapeutae were in fact Buddhist monks who had reached Alexandria, descendants of Ashoka's emissaries to the West, and who influenced the early formation of Christianity.[34] The evidence for this argument rests solely on the similarity of practices and the purported derivation of the name. There is no evidence from antiquity that supports this argument.
In their book The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy argue that the Therapeutae are possible candidates for the origin of what they characterize as "the legend of Jesus Christ".[citation needed]
Elmar R. Gruber, a psychologist, and Holger Kersten, a specialist in religious history argue that Buddhism had a substantial influence on the life and teachings of Jesus.[35] Gruber and Kersten claim that Jesus was brought up by the Therapeutae, teachers of the Buddhist Theravada school then living in the Bible lands. They assert that Jesus lived the life of a Buddhist and taught Buddhist ideals to his disciples; their work follows in the footsteps of the Oxford New Testament scholar' Barnett Hillman Streeter, who established as early as the 1930s that the, moral teaching of the Buddha has four remarkable resemblances to the Sermon on the Mount."[36]
Asceticism can be seen as a common point between Buddhism and Christianity, and is in contrast to the absence of asceticism in Judaism:
"Asceticism is indigenous to the religions which posit as fundamental the wickedness of this life and the corruption under sin of the flesh. Buddhism, therefore, as well as Christianity, leads to ascetic practices. Monasteries are institutions of Buddhism no less than of Catholic Christianity. The assumption, found in the views of the Montanists and others, that concessions made to the natural appetites may be pardoned in those that are of a lower degree of holiness, while the perfectly holy will refuse to yield in the least to carnal needs and desires, is easily detected also in some of the teachings of Gautama Buddha. The ideal of holiness of both the Buddhist and the Christian saint culminates in poverty and chastity; i.e., celibacy. Fasting and other disciplinary methods are resorted to to curb the flesh"
?The Jewish Encyclopedia [37]
Oxford New Testament scholar' Barnett Hillman Streeter established as early as the 1930s that the moral teaching of the Buddha has four remarkable resemblances to the Sermon on the Mount."[38]
One tradition claims that Jesus traveled to India and Tibet during the "Lost years of Jesus" before the beginning of his public ministry. In 1887 a Russian war correspondent, Nicolas Notovitch, visited India and Tibet. He claimed that, at the lamasery or monastery of Hemis in Ladakh, he learned of the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men." His story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa," was published in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ. It was subsequently translated into English, German, Spanish, and Italian.
The "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" purportedly recounts the travels of one known in the East as Saint Issa, whom Notovitch identified as Jesus. After initially doubting Notovitch, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Abhedananda, journeyed to Tibet, investigated his claim, helped translate part of the document, and later championed his views.[39].
Notovitch's writings were immediately controversial. The German orientalist Max Muller corresponded with the Hemis monastery that Notovitch claimed to have visited and Archibald Douglas visited Hemis Monastery. Neither found any evidence that Notovich (much less Jesus) had even been there himself, so they rejected his claims. The head of the Hemis community signed a document that denounced Notovitch as a liar.[40]
Despite this contradictory evidence, a number of New Age or spiritualist authors have taken this information and have incorporated it into their own works. For example, in her book The Lost Years of Jesus: Documentary Evidence of Jesus' 17-Year Journey to the East, Elizabeth Clare Prophet asserts that Buddhist manuscripts provide evidence that Jesus traveled to India, Nepal, Ladakh and Tibet.[41]
According to Jerry Bentley, "Scholars have often considered the possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity. They have drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus" [42].
Although the Buddha's birthday is celebrated in most traditions in May, which relates to the Buddha's mother Maya Devi, there is no early textual evidence to validate this birthday. Others, such as the author of The Angel-Messiah of the Buddhist, Essenes, and Christians, claim, that based on the ancient Indian calendar in use around 600 b.c. the new year of the Indians was November 17, and so he concludes that since the Buddha was said to be born on the eighth day of the second month that the Buddha's birthday was December 25. This belief held by Buddhists is validated by certain ancient birth accounts of the Buddha, such as in the Asvaghosha-Kirita the Buddha is described as a descendent of solar kings, who was born when the sun retired; "There the sun, even although he had retired, was unable to scorn the moon-like faces of its women which put the lotuses to shame, and as if from the access of passion, hurried towards the western ocean to enter the (cooling)water".[43] This Buddhist text also compares the birth of the Buddha to the constellation of the seven Rishis, which some have compared to the early Christian art depicting "seven-rays" coming out of a white dove. Others have linked this to the Pali text titled Seven Suns. [44]
The administrative structures formed by Buddhism share the following similarities with those formed by Christianity:
It has been asserted that the story of the birth of the Buddha was well known in the West, and possibly influenced the story of the birth of Jesus.[46][47]
Saint Jerome (4th century CE) mentions the birth of the Buddha, who he says "was born from the side of a virgin"[48] (the Buddha was, according to Buddhist tradition, born from the hip of his mother).[49] The story of the birth of the Buddha was also known: a fragment of Archelaos of Carrha [50](278 CE) mentions the Buddha's virgin-birth. In the 1893 book, Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity, Arthur Lillie argues that the birth accounts of the Buddha were copied into the gospels listing the following infancy parallels: (I) The palm-tree bends down to Mary as the Asoka tree to Yashodara. (2) The story of Simeon, the accounts of the bright light being almost word for word the same. (3) The idol bending down to the infant Jesus. (4) The miracle of the sparrows restored to life. (5) Judas Iscariot in early life attacked Jesus, just as Devadetta, the Judas of Buddhism, attacked Buddha. A violent blow that Jesus received in the left side made a mark that was destined to be the exact spot that received the mortal spear-thrust at the Crucifixion. [199] (6) The whole story of the disputation with the doctors seems copied servilely from the “Lalita Vistara.” (7) Buddhism had invaded Persia, and Maitreya, the coming Buddha, was expected 500 years after Buddha’s death. The Persian Buddhists called him Sosiosh. The Gospel of the Infancy explains the presence of the Magi, which in the Canonical Gospels is quite unintelligible. Why should Persians come with hysterical enthusiasm to greet a Messiah whose chief exploit was to be the slaughter of all Persians and all the other nations except Jews. The “Gospel of the Infancy” announces that Zoroaster had sent them. The Persians mixed up Sakyamuni Buddha, Mithras and Zoroaster and were expecting Sosiosh at the time.
Queen Maya came to bear the Buddha after receiving a prophetic dream in which she saw the descent of the Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) from the Tu?ita heaven into her womb, in the shape of a small white elephant. This story has some parallels with the story of Jesus being conceived in connection with the visitation of the Holy Spirit to the Virgin Mary.[51]
The classical scene of the Virgin Mary being supported by two attendants at her side, may have been influenced by earlier iconography, such as the rather similar Buddhist theme of Queen Maya giving birth.[52]
The iconography of Mary breastfeeding the child Jesus, unknown in the West until the 5-6th century (probable date of a frieze excavated in Saqqara), has also been connected to the much more ancient iconography of the goddess Hariti, also breastfeeding her child, and wearing Hellenistic clothes in the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara.[53]
"There are many moral precepts equally commanded and enforced in common by both creeds. It will not be rash to assert that most of the moral truths prescribed in the gospel are to be met with in the Buddhistic scriptures." ?Paul Ambroise Bigandet, Catholic Bishop of Ramatha
"He [Buddha] requires humility, disregard of worldly wealth, patience and resignation in adversity, love to enemies ... non-resistance to evil, confession of sins and conversion." ?Bishop Jean Paul Hilaire.
Scholars see strong parallels in both the myth and life of Buddha and Jesus. Buddha and his disciples traveling preachers going into homes and preaching gospels to those who hear, is one obvious parallel of a literary motif not found in other traditions. Jesus too pursues this form of preaching and teaching. Jesus speaks of himself as the 'the light' and the son of a great father while the Buddha proclaims himself to be a great father with sons of light (Bodhisattva). Jesus proclaims to come to convert the wicked while the Buddha proclaims that his main goal is to save those of noble character or 'those with little dust in their eyes' although in the Lotus sutra the Buddha claims to create an illusionary 'half-way point'for those who are wicked.[24]
Ernest De Bunsen states, "With the remarkable exception of the death of Jesus on the cross, and of the doctrine of atonement by vicarious suffering, which is absolutely excluded by Buddhism, the most ancient of the Buddhistic records known to us contain statements about the life and the doctrines of Gautama Buddha which correspond in a remarkable manner, and impossibly by mere chance, with the traditions recorded in the Gospels about the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ...." [54] Although other scholars, like Zacharias P. Thundy and Dr. Christian Lindtner claim that the ancient Buddhist play Mrrcchakatika was the Buddhist source for the Christian passion narative because of the numerous parallels.§
T.W. Rhys Davids, son of a Congregationalist minister who was affectionately referred to as "the Bishop of Essex," was the earliest most energetic promoter of the Theravada tradition in the West. In 1878 he wrote of its northern counterpart: "Lamaism with its shaven priests, its bells and rosaries, its images and holy water, its popes and bishops, its abbots and monks of many grades, its processions and feast days, its confessional and purgatory, and its worship of the double Virgin, so strongly resembles Romanism that the first Catholic missionaries thought it must be an imitation by the devil of the religion of Christ." [55]
The Buddhist symbol of the eight spoked wheel is also found in Saint Peter's Plaza in Vatican.
It is believed use of rosaries spread from India to Western Europe during the Crusades via its Muslim version, the tasbih. [56] Some, however, suggest an alternative route. A form of prayer rope appears to have been used in Eastern Christendom much earlier; so, it is argued, the Muslim tasbih may in fact originate at a Christian source.[citation needed] Both, it is pointed out, have 33 beads, corresponding to the years of Christ's life.
Prayer with the palms touching one another, the anjali mudra, is a common form of greeting and prayer gesture in all Indian spiritual traditions, including the Buddhist. It is absent in Jewish traditions, whose scriptures specify raised or clasped hands.[57] Prayer with the palms touching one another is, however, depicted in Christian art from the Middle Ages onwards. [58]
In 1921, Sir Charles Eliot, writing of apparent similarities between Christian practices and their counterparts in Buddhist tradition, expressed the view that: " When all allowance is made for similar causes and coincidences, it is hard to believe that a collection of such practices as clerical celibacy, confession, the veneration of relics, the use of the rosary and bells can have originated independently in both religions." [59]
There is some historical basis for the assertion that Buddhist influence was a factor in the formation of Christianity and of the Christian Gospels. The rock-inscriptions of Asoka may bear witness to the spread of Buddhism over the Greek-speaking world as early as the third century BCE, since they mention the flourishing existence of Buddhism among the Greeks within the dominion of Antiochus. But although Greek rulers as far as the Mediterranean are mentioned as having received Buddhist missionaries, only in Bactria and the Kabul valley did Buddhism really take root. Also, the statement in the late Buddhist chronicle of the Mahavamsa, that among the Buddhists who came to the dedication of a great Stupa in Sri Lanka in the second century BCE, "were over thirty thousand monks from the vicinity of Alassada, the capital of the Yona country" is sometimes taken to suggest that long before the time of Christ, Alexandria in Egypt was the centre of flourishing Buddhist communities. Although it is true that Alassada is the Pali for Alexandria; but it is usually thought that the city meant here is not the ancient capital of Egypt, but as the text indicates, the chief city of the Yona country, the Yavana country of the rock-inscriptions: Bactria and vicinity. And so, the city referred to is most likely Alexandria of the Caucasus.
Also, there are various views on the origins of the oldest Buddhist teachings of the Pali Canon. The origin of the later teachings of Mahayana Buddhism are especially obscure.[60] It is believed that most of the Mahayana sutras only appeared after 100 BCE,[61] and most did not reach their final form until much later (11th century AD).
The earlier teachings of the Pali Canon and the Agamas however, are clearly up to four centuries older than Christianity. Although Buddhism is older than Christianity, and some Buddhist influence, such as Barlaam and Josaphat, is clearly evident, it is difficult to tell whether the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity are a result of the Buddhist influence on Christianity, another influence which acted on both religions, or coincidence.
Buddhist views of Jesus
Buddhist views of Jesus differ, since Jesus is not mentioned in any Buddhist text. Some Buddhists, including Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama[62] regard Jesus as a bodhisattva who dedicated his life to the welfare of human beings. Both Jesus and Buddha advocated radical alterations in the common religious practices of the day. There are occasional similarities in language, such as the use of the common metaphor of a line of blind men to refer to religious authorities with whom they disagreed (DN 13.15, Matthew 15:14). Some believe there is a particularly close affinity between Buddhism (or Eastern spiritual thought generally) and the doctrine of Gnostic texts such as The Gospel of Thomas[63]
The 14th century Zen master Gasan Joseki indicated that the Gospels were written by an enlightened being:
Some [66]have commented on the similarity between the Blessed Virgin Mary and Guan Yin . The Tzu-Chi Foundation, a Taiwanese Buddhist organization, also noticing the similarity, commissioned a portrait of Guan Yin and a baby that resembles the typical Madonna and Child painting.
Some Chinese of the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Philippines, in an act of syncretism, have identified Guan Yin with the Virgin Mary.
During the Edo Period in Japan, when Christianity was banned and punishable by death, some underground Christian groups venerated the Virgin Mary disguised as a statue of Kannon; such statues are known as Maria Kannon. Many had a cross hidden in an inconspicuous location.
In several Asian countries, Christian missionaries have attempted to convert as much as possible of the local population to Christianity. Buddhism in Sri Lanka was for several centuries heavily affected by Christian efforts to convert the population under subsequent Portuguese, Dutch and English colonizers. In the late 19th century a national Buddhist movement started, inspired by the American Buddhist Henry Steel Olcott, and empowered by the results of the Panadura debate between a Christian priest and the Buddhist monk Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera.
Other affected countries were South Korea, Thailand and Japan. In countries like Thailand and Japan, Christianity was therefore successfully repelled during extended periods of time.
H.G. Wells in his Outline of History draws parallels between what he sees as the essentially similar messages of the Buddha and of Jesus, and contends that in each case followers and priests distorted the original teachings. Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy suggests that Jesus-Buddha corresponds to a "feminine ideology," Nietzsche to a masculine, and that Plato-Socrates fall somewhere in between. Paul Carus's The Gospel of Buddha, published in 1894, was modeled on the New Testament and told the story of Buddha through parables.
Christopher Moore published in 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, a novel which seeks to fill in the "lost" years of Jesus from the point of view of Jesus' childhood pal, "Levi bar Alphaeus who is called Biff". They journey to the east, where they study Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist teachings.
Other writers on Buddhisms relation to Christianity include the authors Arthur Lillie, Godfrey Higgins, Edward Washburn Hopkins, Zacharias P. Thundy, Christian Lindtner, Gene Matlock, Daniel Hopkins and Alexander Harris.
출처;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_Christianity
Buddha on Christianity
References to Christianity in the earliest Buddhist teachings or "a Buddhist Catechism for Christians"
You may wonder how this can be? Buddha lived 500 years before Jesus was even born. How can we find references in the earliest Buddhist scriptures about Christianity. Well, according to Buddha the believe in an eternal creator God and eternal afterlife is a view which comes into being quite naturally. Mankind observed the sun going up and down and inferred that the sun circled the earth. Now, we know this not to be true. However, in a certain sense it isn't wrong either. Our ancient view was based on a limited amount of information. Likewise appears Christianity to a Buddhist: Or should we say at least to Buddhists versed in the original teachings of the Buddha, Christianity appears like small child: with very good intentions and a pure heart (the gospel) but without the knowledge of the bigger picture. To give you a better understanding what i mean, let's hear some interesting remarks directly from the Buddha: |
Buddha on God
![]() "But the time comes, sooner or later after a long period, when this world begins to expand again [Com: known as 'Big Bang' in Western Science]. In this expanding world an empty palace of Brahma [Com: the Indian name for the highest God] appears. And then one being, from exhaustion of his life-span or of his merits, falls from the Abhassara world and arises in the empty Brahma-palace. And there he dwells, mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through space, glorious - and he stays like that for a very long time." "Then in this being who has been alone for so long there arises unrest, discontent and worry, and he thinks: ‘Oh, if only some other beings would come here!’ And other beings, from exhaustion of their life-span or of their merits, fall from the Abhassara world and arise in the Brahma palace as companions for this being. And there they dwell, mind-made, … and they stay like that for a very long time." "And then, monks, that being who first arose there thinks: "I am God, the Great God, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, the All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be. These beings were created by me. How so? Because I first had this thought: ‘Oh, if only some other beings would come here!’ That was my wish, and then these beings came into this existence!" But those beings who arose subsequently think: "This, friends, is God, Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, the All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be. How so? We have seen that he was here first, and that we arose after him." [Brahmajala Sutta, Dighanikaya] |
Buddha on Jesus
![]() |
Buddha on Prophets like Jesus
![]() What do you think, o monks? If someone insulted with malicious thought these seven masters and faith founders, who had turned away from sensual pleasures and who had hundreds of disciples, wouldn't such a one load a debt on himself? “ - “Certainly, o Blessed One.” - “Who insults however, monks, only one human being, who has realized Nirvana with malicious intention or defames him, loads a still larger debt on himself. [Anguttara Nikaya.VII. 69 Defamation of the noble ones]
And another mentioning of Jesus like prophets of love and believers in a Creator in the Pali Canon
Then it occurred to the Teacher Sunetta. `It is not suitable for me to be born in the same plane as my disciples, after death, what if I develop loving kindness further.' Then the Teacher Sunetta developed loving kindness for seven years. Having developed loving kindness for seven years, he did not come to this world for seven forward and backward world cycles. During the forward world cycles he was born a radiant god and during the backward world cycles was born in an empty Brahma paradise. There he was Brahma the supreme Lord, not conquered with sure insight wielding authority There, he was Brahma, Brahma the great, the unconquered lord and master with sure insight, holding authority for seven times. Thirty six times he was Sakka the king of gods. Innumerable hundreds of times he was the righteous universal monarch, winning the four directions and establishing states. Bhikkhus, he was endowed with these seven jewels, such as the jewel of the wheel, the elephant, the horse, the jewel, the woman, the householder and the advisor. Bhikkhus, he had over a thousand courageous sons with valiant figures, for crushing foreign armies. They lived ruling over the earth righteously, without weapons as far as the limit of the ocean. Bhikkhus, that Teacher Sunetta with long life and long standing was not released from birth, decay, death, grief, lament, unpleasantness and displeasure, I say not released from unpleasantness. What is the reason? For not realizing and experiencing four things. What four? Not realizing and experiencing the virtues, concentration, wisdom and release of the noble ones. Now he has realized and experienced the virtues, concentration, wisdom and release of the noble ones. The craving to be is uprooted, the leader of being is destroyed. Now he has no more birth. [Anguttara Nikaya, VII 66] |
Buddha on the Path to God
Once two young brahmin students had an argument about which teacher shows the best way to God. In order to settle their argument they came to the Buddha and inquired from him, how to reach God. His full answer is recorded in the Tevijja Sutta, which you can read here. Below some excerpts, especially interesting for Christians, I find:
Not Knowing the Beauty of God
Not Knowing the Whereabout of God
The uselessness of mere prayer for ultimate re-union with God
The necessity to overcome sensual attachments to attain company with God
Not even close to God they are and still believe they will meet him
Being asked, the Buddha teaches the path to re-union with God
[Excerpts from the Tevijja Sutta, Digha Nikaya] |
To God through Selfless Love
![]() There, I was God, Brahma the great, the unconquered lord and master with sure insight, holding authority for seven times. Thirty six times I was Sakka the king of gods. Innumerable hundreds of times I was the righteous universal monarch, winning the four directions and establishing states. Monks, I was endowed with these seven jewels, such as the jewel of the wheel, the elephant, the horse, the jewel, the woman, the householder and the advisor. Monks, I had over a thousand courageous sons with valiant figures, for crushing foreign armies. They lived ruling over the earth righteously, without weapons as far as the limit of the ocean. Look at the results of good, how merits bring pleasantness. Developing the thought of loving kindness for seven years I did not come to this world for seven forward and backward world cycles During the forward world cycles I was a radiant god And during the backward world cycles was born in an empty paradise of God There I was Great Brahma for seven times, wielding authority. Thirty six times I was king of gods, ruling over the gods. Innumerable hundreds of times I became universal monarch in Jambudipa Head anointed warriors were the leaders of the people They ruled without punishments and weapons. I advised them, To rule this earth without force and impartially. Thus I earned for the clan much wealth and resources. I was endowed with the five strands of sense pleasures and the seven jewels By the enlightened ones showing compassion for the world It was told was the cause for my greatness and success in the world. With much resources and means I became a powerful, famous king in India. Who would not be pleased to hear this other than those born in darkness Therefore desiring your own good, honour the Teaching recollecting the dispensation. |
Final Word
Amazing, isn't it? After reading these passages from the Pali Canon which itself handed and written down in 80 BC you may really wonder how the Buddha could describe the quintessence of Jesus teachings in these few lines (overlooking all the obscure dogmas Christianity and the numerous churches developed over time in his name, like the priests of the Vedas Buddha was talking about, without direct knowledge of God)? Well, that is you might wonder if you never heard or read about the Buddha's thorough teachings before. Not in vain is one of the epithets of the Buddha "sattha deva manussanam" - the "Teacher of God and Men". This being said, Christians and other followers of (mono)theistic religions might be considered in effect pupils of the Buddha (from a Buddhist perspective, of course) - simply due to the fact that God (as Mahabrahma) himself has taken refuge in the Law (Dhamma) which the Buddhas (Awakened Ones) time and again will realize and share with all who are intent to understand the universe, the world and their minds. Therefore, though they might fight with him, he never will fight with them:
And it might explain why Buddhists never shed blood in holy wars or try to "convert" people. |
Links & Further References
The following links are a selection of discourses by the Buddha and his monks from the Pali Canon containing references to the Brahma world, Heaven and God:
For more general information in Buddhism this is a very nice introductory website: For more information what NIBBANA then is all about, if the path to God is so well explained in Buddhism but not the ultimate goal, try to read and understand this: |
출처: http://christianity.nibbanam.com/