Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions by T. W. Doane
46. Jesus said: "Be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven
2068 words | Chapter 167
thee."[284:14] "My son, give me thine heart."[284:15] "The
city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in
it; for the glory of God did lighten it."[284:16]
Many other remarkable passages might be adduced from the Bhagavad-gita,
the following of which may be noted:[284:17]
"He who has brought his members under subjection, but sits
with foolish minds thinking in his heart of sensual things, is
called a hypocrite." (Compare Matt. v. 28.)
"Many are my births that are past; many are thine too, O
Arjuna. I know them all, but thou knowest them not." (Comp.
John, viii. 14.)
"For the establishment of righteousness am I born from time to
time." (Comp. John, xviii. 37; I. John, iii. 3.)
"I am dearer to the wise than all possessions, and he is
dearer to me." (Comp. Luke, xiv. 33; John, xiv. 21.)
"The ignorant, the unbeliever, and he of a doubting mind
perish utterly." (Comp. Mark, xvi. 16.)
"Deluded men despise me when I take human form." (Comp. John,
i. 10.)
Crishna had the titles of "Saviour," "Redeemer," "Preserver,"
"Comforter," "Mediator," &c. He was called "The Resurrection and the
Life," "The Lord of Lords," "The Great God," "The Holy One," "The Good
Shepherd," &c. All of which are titles applied to Christ Jesus.
Justice, humanity, good faith, compassion, disinterestedness, in fact,
all the virtues, are said[285:1] to have been taught by Crishna, both by
precept and example.
The Christian missionary Georgius, who found the worship of the
crucified God in India, consoles himself by saying: "That which P.
Cassianus Maceratentis had told me before, I find to have been observed
more fully in French by the Living De Guignes, a most learned man; _i.
e._, that _Crishna_ is the very name corrupted of Christ the
Saviour."[285:2] Many others have since made a similar statement, but
unfortunately for them, the name _Crishna_ has nothing whatever to do
with "Christ the Saviour." It is a purely Sanscrit word, and means "_the
dark god_" or "_the black god_."[285:3] The word _Christ_ (which is not
a name, but a title), as we have already seen, is a Greek word, and
means "the Anointed," or "the Messiah." The fact is, the history of
Christ Crishna is older than that of Christ Jesus.
Statues of Crishna are to be found in the very oldest cave temples
throughout India, and it has been satisfactorily proved, on the
authority of a passage of _Arrian_, that the _worship_ of Crishna was
practiced in the time of Alexander the Great at what still remains one
of the most famous temples of India, the temple of Mathura, on the Jumna
river,[285:4] which shows that he was considered a _god_ at that
time.[286:1] We have already seen that, according to Prof. Monier
Williams, he was _deified_ about the fourth century B. C.
Rev. J. P. Lundy says:
"If we may believe so good an authority as Edward Moor (author
of Moor's "Hindu Pantheon," and "Oriental Fragments"), both
the name of Crishna, and the general outline of his history,
were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, _as very
certain things_, and probably extended to the time of Homer,
nearly nine hundred years before Christ, or more than a
hundred years before Isaiah lived and prophesied."[286:2]
In the Sanscrit Dictionary, compiled more than two thousand years ago,
we have the whole story of Crishna, the incarnate deity, born of a
virgin, and miraculously escaping in his infancy from Kansa, the
reigning monarch of the country.[286:3]
The Rev. J. B. S. Carwithen, known as one of the "Brampton Lecturers,"
says:
"Both the name of Crishna and the general outline of his story
are long anterior to the birth of our Saviour; and this we
know, _not on the presumed antiquity of the Hindoo records
alone_. Both Arrian and Strabo assert that the god Crishna was
anciently worshiped at Mathura, on the river Jumna, where he
is worshiped at this day. But the emblems and attributes
essential to this deity are also transplanted into the
mythology of the West."[286:4]
On the walls of the most ancient Hindoo temples, are sculptured
representations of the flight of Vasudeva and the infant Saviour
Crishna, from King Kansa, who sought to destroy him. The story of the
slaughtered infants is also the subject of an immense sculpture in the
cave temple of Elephanta. A person with a drawn sword is represented
surrounded by slaughtered infant boys, while men and women are
supplicating for their children. The date of this sculpture is lost in
the most remote antiquity.[286:5]
The _flat roof_ of this cavern-temple, and that of Ellora, and every
other circumstance connected with them, prove that their origin must be
referred to a very remote epoch. The _ancient_ temples can easily be
distinguished from the more modern ones--such as those of Solsette--by
the shape of the roof. The ancient are flat, while the more modern are
arched.[286:6]
The _Bhagavad gita_, which contains so many sentiments akin to
Christianity, and which was not written until about the first or second
century,[287:1] has led many _Christian_ scholars to believe, and
attempt to prove, that they have been borrowed from the New Testament,
but unfortunately for them, their premises are untenable. Prof. Monier
Williams, _the_ accepted authority on Hindooism, and a thorough
Christian, writing for the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,"
knowing that he could not very well overlook this subject in speaking of
the _Bhagavad-gita_, says:
"To any one who has followed me in tracing the outline of this
remarkable philosophical dialogue, and has noted the numerous
parallels it offers to passages in _our_ Sacred Scriptures, it
may seem strange that I hesitate to concur to any theory which
explains these coincidences by supposing that the author had
access to the New Testament, or that he derived some of his
ideas from the first propagaters of Christianity. Surely it
will be conceded that the probability of contact and
interaction between Gentile systems and the Christian religion
of the first two centuries of our era must have been greater
in Italy than in India. Yet, if we take the writings and
sayings of those great Roman philosophers, Seneca, Epictetus,
and Marcus Aurelius, we shall find them full of resemblances
to passages in our Scriptures, while their appears to be no
ground whatever for supposing that these eminent Pagan writers
and thinkers derived any of their ideas from either Jewish or
Christian sources. In fact, the Rev. F. W. Farrar, in his
interesting and valuable work 'Seekers after God,' has clearly
shown that 'to say that Pagan morality kindled its faded taper
at the Gospel light, whether furtively or unconsciously, that
it dissembled the obligation and made a boast of the splendor,
as if it were originally her own, is to make an assertion
wholly untenable.' He points out that the attempts of the
Christian Fathers to make out Pythagoras a debtor to Hebraic
wisdom, Plato an 'Atticizing Moses,' Aristotle a picker-up of
ethics from a Jew, Seneca a correspondent of St. Paul, were
due 'in some cases to ignorance, in some to a want of perfect
honesty in controversial dealing.'[287:2]
"_His arguments would be even more conclusive if applied to
the Bhagavad-gita_, the author of which was probably
contemporaneous with Seneca.[287:3] It must, indeed, be
admitted that the flames of true light which emerge from the
mists of pantheism in the writings of Indian philosophers,
must spring from the same source of light as the Gospel
itself; but it may reasonably be questioned whether there
could have been any actual contact of the Hindoo systems with
Christianity without a more satisfactory result in the
modification of pantheistic and anti-Christian ideas."[288:1]
Again he says:
"It should not be forgotten that although the nations of
Europe have changed their religions during the past eighteen
centuries, _the Hindu has not done so, except very partially_.
Islam converted a certain number by force of arms in the
eighth and following centuries, and Christian truth is at last
slowly creeping onwards and winning its way by its own
inherent energy in the nineteenth; _but the religious creeds,
rites, customs, and habits of thought of the Hindus generally,
have altered little since the days of Manu, five hundred years
B. C._"[288:2]
These words are conclusive; comments, therefore, are unnecessary.
Geo. W. Cox, in his "Aryan Mythology," speaking on this subject says:
"It is true that these myths have been crystallized around the
name of Crishna in ages subsequent to the period during which
the earliest _vedic_ literature came into existence; _but the
myths themselves are found in this older literature associated
with other gods_, and not always only in germ. _There is no
more room for inferring foreign influence in the growth of any
of these myths than, as Bunsen rightly insists, there is room
for tracing Christian influence in the earlier epical
literature of the Teutonic tribes._ Practically the myths of
Crishna seems to have been fully developed in the days of
Megasthenes (fourth century B. C.) who identifies him with the
Greek Hercules."[288:3]
It should be remembered, in connection with this, that Dr. Parkhurst and
others have considered _Hercules_ a type of Christ Jesus.
In the ancient epics Crishna is made to say:
"I am Vishnu, Brahma, Indra, and the source as well as the
destruction of things, the creator and the annihilator of the
whole aggregate of existences. While all men live in
unrighteousness, I, the unfailing, build up the bulwark of
righteousness, as the ages pass away."[288:4]
These words are almost identical with what we find in the
_Bhagavad-gita_. In the _Maha-bharata_, Vishnu is associated or
identified with Crishna, just as he is in the _Bhagavad-gita_ and
_Vishnu Purana_, showing, in the words of Prof. Williams, that: the
_Puranas_, although of a comparatively modern date, are nevertheless
composed of matter to be found in the two great epic poems the
_Ramayana_ and the _Maha-bharata_.[288:5]
FOOTNOTES:
[278:1] It is also very evident that the history of Crishna--or that
part of it at least which has a _religious aspect_--is taken from that
of Buddha. Crishna, in the ancient epic poems, is simply a great hero,
and it is not until about the fourth century B. C., that he is _deified_
and declared to be an incarnation of Vishnu, or Vishnu himself in human
form. (See Monier Williams' Hinduism, pp. 102, 103.)
"If it be urged that the attribution to Crishna of qualities or powers
belonging to the other deities is a mere device by which his devotees
sought to supersede the more ancient gods, _the answer must be that
nothing is done in his case which has not been done in the case of
almost every other member of the great company of the gods_, and that
the systematic adoption of this method is itself conclusive proof of the
looseness and flexibility of the materials of which the cumbrous
mythology of the Hindu epic poems is composed." (Cox: Aryan Mythology,
vol. ii. p. 130.) These words apply very forcibly to the history of
Christ Jesus. He being attributed with qualities and powers belonging to
the deities of the heathen is a mere device by which _his_ devotees
sought to supersede the more ancient gods.
[278:2] See ch. xii.
[278:3] See The Gospel of Mary, _Apoc._, ch. vii.
[278:4] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 329.
[278:5] Mary, _Apoc._, vii. Luke, i. 28-30.
[278:6] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. pp. 317 and 336.
[278:7] Matt. ii. 2.
[279:1] Vishnu Purana, p. 502.
[279:2] Luke, ii. 13.
[279:3] See ch. xvi.
[279:4] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 311. See also, chap. xvi.
[279:5] See ch. xvi.
[279:6] Protevangelion, _Apoc._, chs. xii. and xiii.
[279:7] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. 311.
[279:8] Infancy, _Apoc._, ch. i. 2, 3.
[279:9] See ch. xv.
[279:10] Luke, ii. 8-10.
[279:11] See Oriental Religions, p. 500, and Inman's Ancient Faiths,
vol. ii. p. 353.
[279:12] Matt. ii. 2.
[279:13] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 317.
[279:14] Matt., ii. 1, 2.
[279:15] Vishnu Purana, bk. v. ch. iii.
[279:16] Luke, ii. 1-17.
[280:1] Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 259. Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p.
310.
[280:2] See the Genealogies in Matt. and Luke.
[280:3] See ch. xviii.
[280:4] Matt. ii. 13.
[280:5] See ch. xviii.
[280:6] Matt. ii. 16.
[280:7] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 317. Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p.
259.
[280:8] Introduc. to Infancy, Apoc. Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p.
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