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From the beginning of her history, India has adored and
idealized, not soldiers and statesmen, not men of science and leaders of
industry, not even poets and philosophers, who influence the world by their
deeds or by their words, but those rarer and more chastened spirits, whose
greatness lies in what they are and not in what they do; men who have stamped
infinity on the thought and life of the country. To a world given over to the
pursuit of power and pleasure, wealth and glory, they declared the reality of
the unseen world and the call of the spiritual life. This ideal had dominated
the Indian religious landscape for over forty centuries. Hinduism has thus had a
long and continuous evolution and in the process has influenced all other major
world religions.
India, which is, in a sense, representation of the
Asiatic consciousness, has never been isolated from the Western continent in
spite of geographical, linguistic, and racial barriers. A large part of the
world received its religious education from India. In spite of continuous
struggle with superstition and theological baggage, India has held fast for
centuries to the ideals of the spirit. Its influence or, at any rate, connection
with Western thought, though not constant and continuous, has been quite
significant. Commenting on the teachings
of Christian missionaries as Plotinus, Clement, Gregory, Augustine and the like,
Dean Inge observes: "They are the ancient religion of the Brahmins
masquerading in the clothes borrowed from the Jewish, Gnostic, Manichaen and
Neo-Platonic allegories. That is why Mahatma Gandhi told Romain Rolland in
Switzerland on his way back to India from the Round Table Conference (1911) that
Christianity is an echo of the Indian religion and Islam is the re-echo of that
echo."
Jules Michelet (1789-1874) French writer, the greatest
historian of the romantic school, affirms this: " Follow the migration of
mankind from East to West along the sun's course and along the track of the
world's magnetic currents; observe its long voyage from Asia to Europe, from
India to France.....At its starting point in India, the birthplace of races and
religions, the womb of the world...."
Introduction
The
Bhagavad Gita, Buddhism and Christianity
Buddha
and Jesus
The Vedas,
Mithraism
and Christianity
Articles
- Christmas’ Hindu Roots
- By D. Parsuram Maharaj
- Buddhism
in Christianity
-
Vedic Links to
Judaism
-
Sikhism
Introduction
Dr. Arnold
Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) the great British historian. His
massive research was published in 12 volumes between 1934 and 1961 as `A Study
of History'. Toynbee
was a major interpreter of human civilization in the 20th century. He has
said:
" India is not only
the heir of her own religious traditions; she is also the residuary legatee of
the Ancient Mediterranean World's religious traditions."
"Religion cuts far deeper, and, at the religious level, India has not been
a recipient; she has been a giver. About
half the total number of the living higher religions are of Indian origin."
he said.
(source: One
World and India - By Arnold Toynbee p.
42- 59).
Volney, Constantin
Francois de Chasseboeuf, comte de 1757-1820) historian
and philosopher and French scholar. His principal work, Les
Ruines; ou, Méditation sur les révolutions des empires (1791),
which popularized religious skepticism, was influential not only in France but
also in England and the United States; it went through many translations and
editions and stimulated much controversy.
 Volney
of France was perhaps the first to propound in the 18th century that "Jesus
was a solar myth derived from Krishna' of Hindu mythology." Buddhism
existed at least four hundred years before Christianity. Another French
theologian, Ernest Havet, did the same in
his study of primitive Christianity published in 1884. A
He was followed by Ernest
Renan, the famous Catholic theologian from France, who pointed out Buddhist
parallels in the parables of Jesus in his Life
of Jesus published in 1863.
Max Muller
noted "startling coincidences between Buddhism and Christianity in his India
- What It Can Teach Us published from England.
A stronger case along the same lines was made by Rudolf
Seydel, Professor in the University of Leipzig (Germany), whose first
book, The Gospel of Jesus in relation to the Buddha
Legend, published in 1882, was followed by a more elaborate one, The
Buddha Legend and the Life of Jesus, published in 1897. Finally, J.
M. Robertson, a British scholar and a Member of Parliament, revived
the Volney thesis in 1900 by stating in his Christianity
and Mythology that
"the Christ-Myth is merely a form of the Krishna-Myth.
Listen to The
Bhagavad Gita podcast
- By Michael Scherer
- americanphonic.com.
(source: Jesus
Christ: An Artifice for Aggression - By Sita Ram Goel p. 53).
In the past, the West and India were immediate
neighbors. Before the Islamic civilization came between the two, the empire,
which was first Persian, then Greek and later Roman, stretched from the
Mediterranean to the Indus. The commercial ties between India and Europe were
more direct than they have ever been over the last ten centuries. Indian monks
and their disciples lived and taught for several hundred years in the Middle
East and founded large monasteries, the traces of which can be seen mainly in
Antioch and Alexandria. In the 4th A.D. Saint Jeremy fulminated against the fake
prophets from India. But his protest came to late, for the men from India had
already left their mark on the Mediterranean mind in search of holiness.
(source: The
Genius of India - By Guy Sorman ('Le Genie de l'Inde')
p.189).
Refer to Did
the Hindus Help Write the Bible and Give the Ancient Mexicans Their Religious
Traditions? - By Gene
D. Matlock. Who
was Abraham? - By Gene D Matlock and
Is
the Hopi Deity Kokopelli an Ancient Hindu God? - By
Gene D. Matlock
and Ancient
Sanskrit Pictograph near Sedona, Arizona? - By Gene Matlock and
Atlantis in
Mexico - By Gene Matlock.
Top of Page
The
Bhagavad Gita, Buddhism and
Christianity
The Dalai Lama has said:
“When I say that Buddhism is part of Hinduism, certain people criticize me.
But if I were to say that Hinduism and Buddhism are totally different, it would
not be in conformity with truth.”
(source: Who is a Hindu? – By
Koenraad Elst p. 233).
 The
Bhagavad Gita doctrine of lokasmgraha (good of humanity) and of Divine
Incarnation influenced the Mahayana or the Northern school of Buddhism. The
Buddhist scholar Taranath who wrote the history of Buddhism mentions that the
teacher of Nagarjuna, who is regarded as the chief originator of the Mahayana
school of Buddhism, was Rahulabhadra who “was
much indebted to sage Krishna and still more to Ganesha…..This
quasi-historical notice, reduced to its less allegorical expression means that
Mahayanism is much indebted to the Bhagavadgita and more even to Shaivism.”
(source:
Dr. Kern’s Manual of Buddhism).
(Artwork
courtesy of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc. www.krishna.com).
Dr.
S. Radhakrishnan has
said: "Buddhism which arose in India was an attempt to achieve a purer
Hinduism. It may be called a reform within Hinduism. The formative years of
Buddhism were spent in the Hindu religious environment. It shares in a large
measure the basic pre suppositons of Hinduism. It
is a product of the Hindu religious ethos."
(source: Religion
and Culture - By S. Radhakrishnan p. 29).
The
origin of Christianity is due also to Buddhist influence.
The teachings of the Buddha got woven
into Greek, Egyptian and Hebraic theology, giving rise to the new Christian
religion. Renan sensed this when he wrote in his Life of Christ that 'there was
something Buddhist' in the Word of Christ. Flavius
Joseph observed that the Pharisees of Alexandria had taken from the Indians the
belief in resurrection of the dead. Though this idea was alien to the
Hebrew dogma, it gradually got absorbed into it, which probably explains the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. At a more mundane level, Christians who venerate
relics, ring bells and burn incense are unwittingly imitating Indian rituals
that were established many centuries before Christianity. Ironically in the 19th
century, some Christian missionaries expressed their indignation at Indian
pagans ringing Christian bells and burning Christian incense when in point of
fact it was the Christians who were imitating the Indians.
These influences from India may
come as a surprise to many Christians. Yet they were often discussed in the
early 19th century when Europe discovered the Vedas and the Upanishads in
translation. European philosophers, especially Soren
Kierkegaard, were amazed by the evangelical tone of these holy books
from India. More recently, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Biblical
manuscripts, some archaeologists who specialize in religion have spoken once
again of an Indian connection between Buddhist monks and the Essenian community
which lived next to Jerusalem.
(source: The
Genius of India - By Guy Sorman ('Le Genie de l'Inde') p.189-195).
The Hindus venerate
Christ as an Incarnation, and they see that his essential message is that of the
Sanatana Dharma (the Eternal Religion). The special ethical and religious ideas
contained in the teachings of Christ have no antecedents in the religious
traditions in which he was born. Non-resistance to evil, love of enemies,
monasticism, love of death, the assertion of man’s innate perfection (kingdom
of heaven is within you), universalism are principles not to be found in the
religion into which he was born.
 John
the Baptist, who belonged to the monastic sect of the Essenes, was a Buddhist.
Dr.
Moffatt,
in his book,
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics,
vol. v, p.410, remarks, "Buddhist tendencies helped to shape some of the Essenic
characteristics." King Ashoka of India (third century B.C.) sent Buddhist missionaries to different
parts of the world, from Siberia to Ceylon, from China to Egypt, and for two
centuries before the advent of Christ, the Buddhist missionaries preached the
ethics of Buddha is Syria, Palestine and Alexandria. The Christian historian,
Mahaffi,
declared that the Buddhist missionaries were forerunners of Christ. “
Philosophers like
Schelling
and
Schopenhauer, and Christian thinkers like
Dean
Mansel and D. Millman
admit that the sect of the Essenes arose
through the
influence of the Buddhist missionaries who came from India.
(source: Complete works
of Swami Abhedananda,
vol.2, p.120).
Professor
Friedrich Heiler (1892-1967) German scholar of
religion, writing during and after the First World War, in
an important article on 'Christian and Non-Christian Religions' writes: "
The doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation as well as the Virgin Birth, belief
in the Divine Sacrifice of love, the conception of irresistible Grace and
justification by faith alone, prayer prompted by the grace of God, petition for
forgiveness of sins, all-embracing love towards every creature, heroic love of
enemies, belief in everlasting life, in the judgment and the restoration of the
world - there is not a single central doctrine of Christianity which does not
have an array of striking parallels in the various non-Christian faiths." (Hibbert
Journal, January 1954)
(source: Religion
and Culture - By S. Radhakrishnan p. 67).
Josaphat
sees a blind man, a cripple and a dying man. from Barlaam and Josaphat -
Augsburg, 1477
source: East-West
Passage: the
travel of ideas, arts and inventions between Asia and the Western world
- By Michael Edwardes.
Refer to
chapter on Survarnabhumi
and Sacred Angkor
***
Many
incidents in Christ’s life as well as the organization of the Catholic Church
and its rituals suggest their Buddhistic and Hindu origin. The Gospel stories of
the immaculate conception of a virgin mother, the miraculous birth, the story of
slaughter of the infants by Herod, and the chief events of Christ’s life seem
like repetitions of what happened in the lives of Krishna and of Buddha. The
idea of Incarnation is purely and Indian idea. It was not known among the Jews.
The star over Buddha’s birthplace and the prophecy of the old monk Asita are
repeated in the Gospel story of Simeon. The temptation of Buddha by Mara, the
evil spirit, the twelve disciples, with the beloved disciple Ananda, and the
many miracles recall the stories in Christ’s life.
Under
cover of the legend of
Barlaam and Josaphet,
Buddha has found a place among
Catholic saints and has his saint-day in the calendar of the Greek and Roman
churches. The story is a Christianized version of one of the legends of Buddha,
as even the name Josaphat would seem to show. This is said to be a corruption of
the original Joasaph, which is again corrupted from the middle Persian
Budasif (Budsaif=Bodhisattva).
The
rosary, the veneration of relics, asceticism, baptism, confession, etc. are also
of Indian origin. The name Josaphet is Bodhisattva
in the corrupt form.
The story of the Buddha's life
underwent an extraordinary transmutation as it moved west and became what is one
of the most widespread legends ever told -- the story of Barlaam and Josaphat.
More than sixty translations, versions, or paraphrases have been identified. It
was altered to fit the religious climate of each language and culture. As it
moved westward, the story was adopted and adapted by Manicheans in central Asia,
and then it became Christianized. In its new
version, Barlaam was a Christian monk who had converted Josaphat (the name was a
linguistic development from the word Bodhisattva -- one capable of Buddhahood).
It may be that Georgian Christians in the Caucasus were the first to give the
story a Christian cast, in the sixth or seventh century.
There
are innumerable similarities between Hindu-Buddhist practices and doctrines and
those of Christianity.
 The
Russian author, Nicholas Notovitch translated in 1894 a biography of Christ found
in Nepal in a Buddhist monastery which said that Christ went there during the
thirteen years of his life of which there is no record in the Gospel. Notovitch
author
of a book, The Unknown Life of Christ, asserting that during his long
period of obscurity Jesus had stayed with Brahman and Buddhist monks, who had
initiated him into Indian religions. The book was first published in French and
edited, abridged, and translated into English by Violet Crispe in 1895. This
study was based on the materials Notovitch had collected during his travels in
India and Tibet, particularly on the records of Saint Issa discovered by him at
the monastery Himis. Inevitably the book excited fierce controversy and reproach
from some theologians. Max Muller disputed Notovitch's assertions and questioned
the authenticity of the latter's evidence. Despite this, Notovitch reaffirmed
his views when the English version was published. The
German scholar
Faber-Kaiser's
more recent book entitled
Jesus died in Kashmir'
also supports Ahmadiya
sect in Islam that Jesus did not die on the Cross, but came to India and died
near Rozabal not far from Srinagar in Kashmir.
( http://www.tombofjesus.com/AcharaS.htm#Yuz
)
French historian
Alain
Danielou
had noticed as early as 1950 that
"a great number of events which surround the birth of Christ - as it is
related in the Gospels - strangely remind us of Buddhists and Krishnaites
legends".
 Danielou
quotes as examples the structure of the Christian Church, which resembles that
of the Buddhist Chaitya; the rigorous asceticism of certain early Christian
sects, which reminds one of the asceticism of Jain and Buddhist saints; the
veneration of relics, the usage of holy water, which is an Indian practice, or
the word 'Amen', which comes from the Hindu 'OM'.
There
are some indication that Christ came to India for spiritual initiation and
borrowed from Buddhism for his teachings. According to
Alain Danielou, who wrote the
Histoire
de l'Inde,
"Many sects which developed in the first century before Christ in
Palestine, had a strong Hindu and Buddhist influence and a great number of
legends surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ, are strangely similar to Buddhist
and Krishnaites stories. He adds that the structures of the church resembles
those of Chaitya Buddhism and that the early Christian asceticism seems to have
been inspired by Jainism."
(source: Rewriting
Indian History - By Francois Gautier
pg 9-10)
Belgium's
historian Konraad
Elst also
remarks "that many early Christian saints, such as Hippolytus
of Rome, possessed an intimate knowledge of
Brahmanism." Elst even quotes the famous Saint Augustin
who wrote:
"We never cease to look towards
India, where many things are proposed to our admiration".
Unfortunately, remarks American David Frawley,
"from the second century onwards, Christian leaders decided to break away
from the Hindu influence and show that Christianity only started with the birth
of Christ". Hence, many later saints began branding Brahmins as
"heretics" and Saint Gregory
set a future trend by publicly destroying the "pagan" idols of the
Hindus.
Refer to Jesus
of History and
The Pagan Evidence
and Jewish
Evidence and Evidence
of the Gospels - hamsa.org).
It
is unknown as to how Christianity arrived in India during the first century. If
Christianity could reach India during the first century and find a sanctuary why
could not Indian religions, especially Buddhism which was equally proselytizing
reach western Asia and the Greco-Roman world and find a footing there? The road
surely must have been open both ways.
 In
1842, two French missionary travelers to Tibet, Hue
and Gibet, were shocked at
the close resemblances between Catholic and Lamaistic rituals. They wrote,
“The crozier, the
exorcism, the censer with the five chains, the blessings which the lamas impart
by extending the right head over the heads of the faithful, the rosary, the
celibacy of the clergy, their separation from the world, the worship of saints,
the fasts, processions, litanies, holy water – these are the points of contact
the Buddhists have with us.”
(source: The Legacy of
India
- edited By G T Garratt
Oxford At The Clarendon Press).
Indeed, Lamaistic
Buddhism, which did not follow the serene metaphysical teaching of the Buddha
closely, represented demons and torments of hell as lurid as those of mediaeval
Christianity. Even in the most Judaic of the epistles in the New Testament the
phrase "the wheel of birth" occurs, which Schopenhauer
ascribed to Indian influence.
In
an interview in Detroit in 1894, Vivekananda said, “Our religion is older than
most religions and the Christian creeds came directly from the Hindoo religion.
It is one of the great offshoots. The Catholic religion also takes all its forms
from us, the confessional, the belief in saints and so on, and a Catholic priest
who saw this absolute similarity and recognized the truth of the origin of the
Catholic religion was dethroned from his position because he dared to publish a
volume explaining all that he observed and was convinced of."
(Swami’s
reference was no doubt to Bishop Brigandet’s Life of
Buddha).
(From Vivekananda, New Discoveries by Marie Louise Burke, 2nd
ed, p 208).
For more refer to
Resurrection
of the Dead In the Nag Hammadi Codices & Its Relationship to the
Buddhist Doctrine of 'Rebirth).
 Great Indian sages, such as Sri Aurobindo or
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of the Art of
Living, which is practiced in more than 80
countries, have often remarked that the stories recounting how Jesus came to
India to be initiated, are probably true. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar notes, for
instance, that Jesus sometimes wore an orange robe, the Hindu symbol of
renunciation in the world, which was not a usual practice in Judaism. "In
the same way", he continues, "the worshipping of the Virgin Mary in
Catholicism is probably borrowed from the Hindu cult of Devi." Bells
too, which cannot be found today in synagogues, the surviving form of Judaism,
are used in church and we all know their importance in Buddhism and Hinduism for
thousands of years. There are many other
similarities between Hinduism and Christianity: incense, sacred bread (prasadam),
the different altars around churches (which recall the manifold deities in their
niches inside Hindu temples); reciting the rosary (japamala), the Christian
Trinity (the ancient Santana Dharma: Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh), Christian
processions, the sign of the cross (Anganyasa), and so on.
The
Catholic Church, however, developed with dualistic principles of God in heaven
and creation below which have created an insoluble conflict between faith and
reason. The conflict has reached its ultimate acuity in our day of scientific
development. Hindus believe that the non-dualistic teachings of Christ have not
been generally understood in the West.
Christianity's
Hindu Heritage
Commenting on the teachings of
Christian missionaries as Plotinus, Clement, Gregory, Augustine and the like, Dean
Inge observes: "They are the ancient religion of the Brahmins
masquerading in the clothes borrowed from the Jewish, Gnostic,Manichaen and
Neo-Platonic allegories. That is why Mahatma Gandhi
told Romain Rolland in Switzerland on his way back to India from the
Round Table Conference (1911) that Christianity is an
echo of the Indian religion and Islam is the re-echo of that echo."
(source: India
in Primitive Christianity - Arthur Lillie).
Objective and open-minded scholars long ago conceded that Christianity is at
heart a revamped form of Judaism. In the process of its development as something
distinct from its mother religion, it became hybridized with so much pagan
influence that it ultimately alienated its original Jewish base and became
predominantly Gentile. The source of this pagan influence is varied and vague in
the minds of most advanced Bible critics, but it may owe more to Hinduism than
most people suspect.
The
average person does not connect India with the ancient Middle East, but the
existence of some trade between these two regions is documented, even in the
Bible. Note the reference to spikenard in the Song of Solomon (1:12;
4:13-14)
and in the Gospels (Mark
14:3; John 12:3).
This is an aromatic oil-producing plant (Nardostachys
jatamansi) that the Arabs call sunbul
hindi and obtained in trade with India. It
is axiomatic that influence follows trade, and the vibrant culture of India
could not help but impact on anyone exposed to it. The influence on Judaism came
for the most part indirectly, however, via the Persians and the Chaldeans, who
dealt with India on a more direct basis. (Indeed, the Aryans, who invaded and
trans- formed India over 1500 years before Christ, were of the same people who
brought ancient Persia to its greatest glory. Persia's name today--Iran--is a
corruption of Aryan.) The ancient Judeans absorbed much of this secondhand
influence during the Babylonian captivity of the sixth century B. C., and during
the inter testamental period, when Alexandria became the crossroads of the world,
intellectuals both Jew and Gentile were exposed to a variety of ideas, some of
which originated on the Indian Subcontinent.
From Pythagoras, who believed in the transmigration of souls, apparently because
of his contacts with religious teachers from the east. Pindar, who believed in metempsychosis, Plato, who could not have been
ignorant of Karma, through Klaxons, the Indian sage, who accompanied Alexander,
Apollonius of Tyana, who came to Taxila to study under the Brahmins, Clement of
Alexandria, the early Christian teachers of the second century A.D., who refers
to Buddhists and Brahmins in his work and Plotimus, who went to Persia to meet
the Brahmins, the Contacts between India and Greek thinkers seem to have been
continuous.
According to Klaus K. Klaustmaier,
in his book A Survey of Hinduism
pg 18-19
 "The kings of Magadha and Malwa exchanged ambassadors with Greece. A
Maurya ruler invited one of the Greek Sophists to join his court, and one of the
greatest of the Indo-Greek kings became famous as the dialogue partner of the
great Buddhist sage Nagasena, while in the opposite direction, Buddhist
missionaries are known to have settled in Alexandria, and other cities in the
Ancient West. It is evident then, that Indian thought was present in the
fashionable intellectual circuit of ancient Athens, and there is every reason to
suppose that Indian religious and philosophical ideas exercised some influence
on early and classical Greek philosophy. Both Greeks and Romans habitually tried
to understand the religions of India by trying to fit them as far as possible
into Greco-Roman categories. Deities in particular were spoken of, not in Indian
but in Greek terms and called by Greek names. Thus Shiva, was identified as
"Dionysos," Krsna (or perhaps Indra) as "Heracles." The
great Indian epics were compared to those of Homer. Doctrinally, the Indian
concept of transmigration had its counterpart in the metempsychosis taught by
Pythagoras and Plato; nor was Indian asceticism altogether foreign to a people
who remembered Diogenes and his followers."
Parallels
have also been found between the Biblical account of the creation of man by God
in his own image and the creation of woman out of man (Genesis I :27) and the
statements in the Hindu scriptures in the Hindu scriptures that God became man
and created woman (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad(1:3 and 1:4) and Brahma as God
divided himself into svayambhu Manu (man) and Satarupi (Woman the Bhagavata
purana). There is a further parallel between the temptation of Adam and Eve, Who
ate of the apple (Genesis III) and the references to two birds "beautiful
of wing, inseparable friends, dwelling together in the same tree (the universe)
of whom one (the individual being) eats the fruit of action, while the other
(universal being) looks on and Svetesvatara Upanishad(4:6). The Indian
scriptures, far from being in conflict with Western thought, seem very often to
contain the same or parallel ideas as in Biblical literature. The ascent of man
in the Books of Enoch is said to match a similar account in the Kausitaki
Upanishad and even the concepts of the kingdom of God and the son of man have
been discovered in the Rig Veda.
The precise pattern of influence was neither observed nor documented, but it can
be inferred from the numerous uncanny similarities in concept and expression,
not all of which can be coincidental. Let us examine the telltale evidence (none
of which, it may be added, depends upon any apocryphal account of the alleged
"lost years" of Jesus in India).
The Brahmin caste of the Hindus
are said to be "twice-born" and have a ritual in which they are
"born in the spirit." Could this be the ultimate source of the
Christian "born again" concept (John 3:3)?
The
deification of Christ is a phenomenon often attributed to the apotheosis of
emperors and heroes in the Greco-Roman world. These, however, were cases of men
becoming gods. In the Jesus story, the Divinity takes human form, god becoming
man. This is a familiar occurrence in Hinduism and in other theologies of the
region. Indeed, one obstacle to the spread of Christianity in India, which was
attempted as early as the first century, was the frustrating tendency of the
Hindus to understand Jesus as the latest avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu.
Hindu Trinity
or Trimurti:
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva
Refer to
chapter on Survarnabhumi
and Sacred Angkor
***
It is in the doctrine of the
Trinity
that the Hindu influence may be most clearly
felt. Unknown to most Christians, Hinduism has a Trinity (or Trimurti) too:
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who have the appellations the Creator, the Preserver,
and the Destroyer (and Regenerator). This corresponds to the Christian Trinity
in which God created the heavens and the earth, Jesus saves, and the Holy Spirit
is referred to as a regenerator (Titus 3:5). It is interesting to note,
furthermore, that the Holy Spirit is sometimes depicted as a dove, while the
Hebrew language uses the same term for both "dove" and
"destroyer"!
Lord
Krishna says: "I
am the beginning, the middle, and the end"
(BG 10:20 vs. Rev 1:8).
(Artwork
courtesy of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc. www.krishna.com).
The
Bhagavad Gita has influenced great Americans from Thoreau to Oppenheimer. Its
message of letting go of the fruits of one’s actions is just as relevant today
as it was when it was first written more than two millennia ago.
Listen to The
Bhagavad Gita podcast
- By Michael Scherer
- americanphonic.com.
***
In
the Bhagavad Gita,
a story of the second person of the Hindu Trinity, (Vishnu) who took human form
as Krishna. Some have considered him a model for the Christ, and it's hard to
argue against that when he says things like:
"I
am the beginning, the middle, and the end"
(BG 10:20 vs. Rev 1:8).
For
more refer to chapters on Dwaraka
and Hindu Scriptures).
With the historical reality of Indian influence on the Middle East being an
established fact, how can the Christians account for these similarities with
anything less feeble than coincidence, or less bizarre than the notion of
"Satanic foreknowledge and duplication," which is sometimes invoked to
explain the similarities of Judeo-Christian precursors?
(source :http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1994/3/3hare94.html
- By Stephen
Van Eck )
Christ spend his youth in India? The celebration of the birthday of Christ
might lose a little sheen if we seriously pursue the question, where did Jesus
spend 18 years of his life, between the ages of 12 and 30? Both history and
gospels, are completely silent about the life of Jesus before his 30th year.
A Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano
in his book, "The
Serpent of Paradise: The Story of an Indian Pilgrimage
(1963) has written of his rich and varied experiences among yogis and sadhus of
India. He was looking for great mystics who he believed were living in the
Himalayas guarding a magical science.
During his sojourn in Kashmir, Serrano
came across evidence to suggest that Jesus Christ had come to India and that the
tomb of Yousa-Asaf in Srinagar was in fact the tomb of Jesus.
He quotes a
legend, according to which he was in Kashmir, the original name for Kashmir, Ka
means "the same as" or "equal to" and shir means
Syria. Manuscripts in the Sharda language, which is derived from Sanskrit, seem
to bear close relationship to the biblical story. According to this Kashmir
legend, Jesus came to Kashmir and studied under holy men, who taught him
mysterious practices. Later the legend says, Jesus returned to the Middle East
and he then began to preach among the ignorant masses of Israel the mystical
truths he had learned in Kashmir. To impress and to convert them he often used
the powers he had acquired through the practices of Yoga, and these were then
referred to as miracles. Then in due course Jesus was crucified, but he did not
die on the cross. Instead, he was removed by some Essenes brothers, restored to
good health and sent back to Kashmir, where he lived with his masters until his
death. There is yet another theory, which holds that the Jewish race originated
in India centuries ago and some of them came back almost by instinct in search
of their roots. This theory ties in with the legend of Jesus Christ also came to
live in India at the age of about 13. This legend asserts Jesus spent 17 years
in India, finally returning to the country of his birth to preach the doctrine
of salvation and to assert that he was the Son of God.
(source: India
Post - By Vinod Dhawan. vol. 6 December 29,
2000. p. 44). For more refer to Did
Jesus die in Kashmir - by Abu Abraham).
Divine
Incarnations
We
find mention of prophets, messengers and messiahs in the different religions of
the world. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity we have the doctrine of
Divine Incarnation.
The
Christian religion as organized is dualistic. The Christian have a doctrine of
incarnation fitting into their theology and their partial view of history and
creation. They have only one incarnation.
 According
to the Eternal Religion (Sanatana Dharma) taught in the Gita, there are many
divine incarnations. An incarnation is a special manifestation of the Divine in
history. Such manifestations take place in response to special needs of the
time, in the altered circumstances of life and history. They come in times of
decline of civilizations due to materialism which causes disintegration of man
and society.
Krishna
in the Gita makes the classic declaration about incarnation.
"O Descendant of Bharata! Whenever religion becomes tarnished and irreligion
prevails, I create myself. I incarnate myself in every age for saving the good,
for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of religion. "
The
birth of an incarnation, like the birth of the universe, is a mystery. In
Sanatana Dharma incarnation is periodic manifestation in time of the power of
the Divine. It is a mystery, but the power play of the Divine in history is a
fact of experience. Krishna
says in the Gita that incarnations start rolling anew the wheels of religion.
Buddha also spoke of his movement as starting the wheel of religion.
Interesting Parallels
between the Hindu/Buddhist temple and the Catholic Church.
|
Angels
|
Apsaras
|
|
Saints
|
Sants
|
|
Halos
|
Halos
|
|
Catacombs
|
Cave-temples
|
|
Cathedral floor plan
|
Chaitya hall floor plan
|
|
Rosary
|
Rosary
|
|
Orders of priests/nuns
|
Orders of monks/nuns (in
Buddhism)
|
|
Repetition in prayer
|
Repetition in prayer
|
|
Symbolism of wheel
|
Symbolism of wheel
|
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Tree of life
|
Tree of life
|
|
Use of relics
|
Use of relics (Buddhism)
|
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Temptation of Jesus by
Satan
|
Temptation of the Buddha
by Mara
|
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Circumambulation
|
Circumambulation
|
(source:
The
Church and The Temple - By Subhash Kak - sulekha.com).
Also Refer to Indic
Challenges to the Discipline of Science and Religion - By Rajiv Malhotra).
Refer to Did
the Hindus Help Write the Bible and Give the Ancient Mexicans Their Religious
Traditions? - By Gene
D. Matlock. Who
was Abraham? - By Gene D Matlock and
Is
the Hopi Deity Kokopelli an Ancient Hindu God? - By
Gene D. Matlock
and Ancient
Sanskrit Pictograph near Sedona, Arizona? - By Gene Matlock and
Atlantis in
Mexico - By Gene Matlock.
Top of Page
Buddha
and Jesus
 Alexander's
invasion of India in 327. B.C. starts a closer interchange of thought between
India and the West. Buddhism must have been prevalent in India for over a
century before Alexander's time, and he made an effort to acquaint himself with
Hindu and Buddhist thought. He succeeded in encouraging an ascetic called
Kalanos to join his entourage. He himself married a princess from Bactria, and a
hundred of his superior officers followed his example and took Asiatic
brides.
Pyrrho is said to have taken part in
Alexander's expedition to India and acquired a knowledge of Indian
thought.
Pliny tells us of a certain Dionysius
who was sent to India from Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247). Asoka,
who ascended the throne of Magadha in 270.B.C., held a Council at Pataliputra,
when it was resloved to send missionaries to proclaim the new teaching
throughout the world. In accordance with this decision Asoka sent Buddhistic
missions to the sovereigns of the West, Antiochus Theos of Syria, Ptolemy
Philadelphius of Egypt, Antigonos Gonatas of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene, and
Alexandria of Epirus. From Asoka's statements it may be inferred that his
missions were favorably received in these five countries. Between 190 and 180
B.C. Demetrius extended the Bactrian Kingdom into India and conquered Sind and
Kathiawar.
The Greeks who settled in India gradually became Indianized. Of the
monuments which survive of the Indo-Greek dynasties is a pillar discovered at
Besnagar in the extreme south of Gwalior State (140B.C.) The inscription on it
in Brahmi characters says:
 "This garuda column of Vasudeva (Vishnu) was
erected here by Heliodorus, son of Dion, a worshipper of Vishnu, and an
inhabitant of Taxila, who came as a Greek ambassador from the great King
Antialcidas to Kind Kasiputra Bhagabhadra, the saviour, then reigning
prosperously in the fourteenth year of his kingship."
The greatest of the
Indo-Greek kings was Menander, who was converted to Buddhism by the Buddhist
teacher Nagasena (180-160 B.C.) His conversion is recorded in the famous work Milindapanha (questions asked by King
Milinda)
For more on
Garuda column of Vasudeva refer to chapter on Dwaraka.
(Artwork
courtesy of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc.
www.krishna.com).
During all this period India and the
West had extensive trade relations. When Alexander chose in Egypt the site for a
city which was destined to perpetuate his name, the preparation for the blending
of Eastern and Western cultures started. For a thousand years Alexandria
continued to be a center of intellectual and commercial activity because it was
the meeting-place of Jews, Syrians, and Greeks. Milindapanha mentions it
as one of the places to which the Indians regularly resorted.
Two
centuries before the Christian era, Buddhism closed in on Palestine. The Essenes,
the Mandeans, and the Nazarene sects are filled with its spirits. ( The Mandeans
flourished in Maisan, which was the gate of entry for Indian trade and commerce
with Mesopotamia. Indian tribes colonized Maisan, whose port had an Indian
temple. Mandean gnosis is full of Indian ideas.)
Nearly
five hundred years before Jesus, Buddha went round the Ganges valley proclaiming
a way of life which would deliver men from bondage of ignorance and sin. In a
hundred and fifty years after his death, tradition of his life and passing away
became systematized. He was miraculously conceived and wondrously born. His
father was informed by angels about it, and, according to Lalitavistara,
the queen (Maya) was permitted to lead the life of a virgin for thirty-two months. On
the day of his birth a Brahmin priest predicts his future greatness. Asita is
the Buddhist Simeon. He comes through air to visit the infant Gautama. Simeon
came by the apirit into the Temple. Buddha grew steadily in wisdom and stature.
Early in his career, he was tempted by Mara to give up his quest for truth with
promises of world dominion. His enlightenment was marked by thirty-two great
miracles. The blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, and the lame walk
freely. He set out to establish the kingdom of righteousness. He has twelve
disciples. Buddha has his troubles with his disciples. Devadatta, Buddha's
cousin, was the
Judas
among his followers. On the last day before his death, Buddha's body was again
transfigured, and when he died a tremendous earthquake was felt throughout thee
world.
 Many
of the parables between Buddha and Jesus are common. Buddha is a sower of the
word. He feeds his five hundred brethren at once with a small cake which has
been put into his begging bowl, and a good deal is left over, which is thrown
away. In Jataka
190
we read of an eager disciple who finds no boat to take him across and so walks
on the water.
Max
Muller
remarks that mere walking on water is
not an uncommon story, and we must remember that the date of the Buddhist
parable is chronologically anterior to the date of the Gospel of St. Luke.
Between the language of Buddha and his disciples, and the language
between Christ and his apostles, there are strange coincidences. When some of
the Buddhist legends and parables sound as if taken from the New Testament,
though we know that many of them existed before the beginning of the Christian
era.
Richard
Garbe assumes direct borrowing from Buddhism in
the matter of Simeon, temptations, and the miracles of walking on the water, and
loaves and fishes. We have many parallels between Krishna and Christ.
-
A
marvellous light envelops Mary when Christ is born. a similar light envelops
Devaki before Krsna is born.
-
There
is universal gladness of nature at their birth.
-
Herod
inquires of the wise men, " Where is he that is born King of the Jews?
"(Matthew ii 40
-
Narada
warns Kamsa the King that Krsna will kill him (Harivamsa ii 56)
-
Herod
is mocked by the wise men (Matthew, ii 16) and Kamsa is mocked by the demon
that takes the place of Yasoda's infant (ibid ii 59).
-
The
massacre of the infants in found in both.
-
Joseph
came with Mary to Bethlehem to be taxed: Nanda came with Yasoda to Mathura
to pay tribute.
-
The
flight into Egypt is similar to that into Braj.
Dr.
S. Radhakrishnan says:
"The
curious may find matter for reflection in these coincidences in the lives of
Buddha and Christ. But those trained in European culture find it somewhat
irksome, if not distasteful, to admit the debt of Christian religion to
non-Christian sources, especially Hindu and Buddhist."
"
In these cases, Max Muller
writes, "our natural inclination would be to
suppose that the Buddhist stories borrowed from our Christian sources and not
vice versa. But here the conscience of the scholar comes in. Some of these
stories are found in the Hinayana Budddhist Canon and date, therefore, before
the Christian era." It is not unnatural to suspect that some of the
prominent ideas traveled from the older to the younger system. As Christianity
arose in a period of eclecticism, it is not impossible for it to have adopted
the outlook and legends of the older religion, especially as the latter were
accessible at the time when intercourse between India and the Roman Empire was
quite common. Let us realize that Christianity was in a formative stage and
Budhhism was both settled and enterprising.
Speaking
of the Apocryphal gospels, such a cautious critic, as the late Dr.
Maurice Winternitz says: " We can point to a
series of borrowings from Buddhistic literature which are absolutely beyond all
doubt"
(source: Visvabharati
Quarterly Feb. 1937, p.14).
 Sir
Charles Eliot,
a famous scholar and linguist of Oxford observed,
"
A number of Buddhist legends make their appearance in the Apocryphal gospels and
are so obviously Indian in character that it can hardly be maintained that they
were invented in Palestine or Egypt and spread thence Eastwards."
(source: Hinduism and Buddhism
-
By
Sir
Charles Eliot vol. iii (1921), p. 441).
" The similarity of Roman Catholic services and
ceremonial to the Buddhist is difficult to explain. "When all allowance is
made for similar causes and coincidences, it is hard to believe that a
collection of practices such as clerical celibacy, the veneration of relics, the
use of the rosary and the prominent ideas traveled from the older to the
younger system.
T.
W.
Rhys Davids, the
famous Pali scholar and author of " Buddhist
India," wrote,
"It is not too much to say, that almost the whole of the moral teaching of
the Gospels as distinct from the dogmatic teaching, will be found in Buddhist
writings, several centuries older than the Gospels; that for instance, of all
the moral doctrines collected together in the so-called Sermon on the Mount, all
those which can be separated from the theistic dogmas there maintained are found
again in the Pitakas."
"There
is every reason to believe that the Pitakas [sacred books containing
the legends of Buddha] now extant in Ceylon are substantially identical with the
books of the southern canon, as settled at the Council of Patna about the year
250 B.C. As no work would have been received into the Canon which were not then
believer to be very old, the Pitakas may be approximately placed in the forth
century B.C. and parts of them possibly reach back very nearly, if not quite to
the time of Gautama (Buddha) himself.  Albert
Schweitzer, who is regarded almost as a modern
Christian saint, declined to accept the historicity of the traditional view of
Jesus. Both A.. J. Edmonds, and Richard Garbe, have insisted on the Christian
indebtedness to Buddhism.
Count
Keyserling noticed a great affinity of spirit
between Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity; and although he considered Mahayana
Buddhism to be far superior to Christianity.
Otto
Pfleiderer in his Chrisitan Origin,
E. T.
(1906), p.226, says: " These Buddhist parallels to the childhood stories of
Luke are too striking to be classed as mere chance; some kind of historical
connection must be postulated."
M.
Labbe Huc, Nineteenth century:
" The miraculous birth of Buddha, his life and instructions, contain a
great
number of the moral and dogmatic truths professes in Christianity."
T. W. Doane, Nineteenth century, ...nothing now remains for the honest man to do
but acknowledge the truth,
which is that the history of Jesus of Nazareth, as related in the books of the
New Testament is simply a copy of that of Buddha, with a mixture of mythology
borrowed from other nations.
 Scholars
have been profoundly struck and at times perplexed by the remarkable
similarities between the Gospel story and the life and teachings of the Budhha,
as told in the Latitavistara, and between the Budhhist and Christian parables
and miracles. Both the Buddha and Christ are miraculously conceived and
wondrously born and angels rejoiced at both births. He
was miraculously conceived and wondrously born. His
father was informed by angels about it and the queen - mother Maya (Mary in case
of Christ) was permitted to lead the life of a virgin for thirty-two months.
Christ was born in the royal tribe of Judah, Buddha was born in a royal
household. On
the day of his birth a Brahmin (Asita) priest predicts his future greatness. Asita is
the Buddhist Simeon.
Early in his career, he was tempted by Mara to give up his quest for truth with
promises of world dominion. Both reveal their unusual wisdom at about the same
age, twelve.
Asita is
the Buddhist Simeon.
Early in his career, he was tempted by Mara to give up his quest for truth with
promises of world dominion. Both reveal their unusual wisdom at about the same
age, twelve.
Asita is
the Buddhist Simeon.
Early in his career, he was tempted by Mara to give up his quest for truth with
promises of world dominion. Both reveal their unusual wisdom at about the same
age, twelve.
Nothing
is known of Jesus' life during the next seventeen years and there have developed
a variety of legends suggesting that he traveled to India, lived with the
Essenes at Qumran. The Gospels, however, refute these suggestion by implication.
Whether Jesus traveled abroad or not, that he chose to remain unknown after
having revealed himself and his wisdom causes some surprise. As Jesus claimed to
be God, it could not have been a period of preparation. In contrast, more is
known of Buddha's life his childhood, youth, marriage, increasing discontent
with the world, renunciation, quest of Enlightenment, and finally his attainment
of the Buddhahood, followed by a long period of missionary activity until he
died.
Top of Page
The
Vedas,
Mithraism
and Christianity
"These
two are the Almighty of the Gods, they are noble.
They will make our people full of vigor.
May we attain you, Mitra
and Varuna, wherever Heaven and the days overflow."
-
Rig Veda vii.65 ( Mitra and Varuna are in all hymns to the Sun as the
Divine Lord and Friend).
***
 The
contact between India and the West were more frequent in the period of the Roman
Empire especially in the reign of Augustus, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. The
Jatakas contain many references to Buddhist merchants and their adventures in
distant lands. India had a reputation for high philosophy and religion in the
middle of the second century A.D., for Lucian makes Demetrius, the Greek
philosopher give up his property and depart for India, there to end his life
among the Brahmins. Clement of Alexandria,
who died about A.D. 220, knew the distinction between Hinduism and Buddhism.
" There are, he says, some Indians who follow the precepts of Boutta,(
Buddha) whom, by an excessive reverence, they have exalted into a
god." Clement mentions that Pythagoras learnt from Brahmins among
others.
The
vast development of material prosperity in the Roman Empire had no spiritual
purpose behind it. Its ultimate end seemed to be the satisfaction of
selfishness, individual and corporate. The ancestral cults had ceased to hold
the large part of the population in the Roman Empire. The religious-minded, for
whom the Roman gods had lost their meaning and served only as occasions for
civic ceremonial, sought to find spiritual solace outside the life of the
society in an esoteric ideal of individual salvation. The people were attracted
by the Eastern cults, which were streaming into the Empire, the cults of Isis or
Mithras. Mithraism was a religion with roots in India and Iran spread into the
Roman world. Mithraism
was the first officially recognized monotheistic cult of the Roman world. By
the third century Mithra had evolved in the Roman world into the sun-god, Sol
Invinctus -- So far as is now known, Mithra appears as the bull-slayer only in
his Roman manifestation. Mithraism
was a formidable competitor of early Christianity. Renan's observation has often
been quoted that if Christianity had failed, the whole of Europe would have been
Mithraist.
 First
appears as an Aryan sun-god in Sanskrit
( Rig Veda)
and Persian literature circa 1400 BCE. The cult was introduced into the
Roman empire in the 1st century BCE. The
Mithra traditions and doctrines are collected in the Persian Avesta
and a yasht, a special hymn of praise, is
dedicated to Mithra. Mithra is the Persian name of the Vedic
Mitra, the deity of light and truth, warring
against the powers of darkness in association with Varuna.
In India he was, in fact, regarded as the sun. In Vedic texts, the connection
between Mithra and the bull, which later became the focal point of Mithraism, is
perhaps more clearly found than in the Avesta. The cult of Mithraism
appears to have come to the Roman Empire from Persia (Iran), having introduced
to Rome by Cilician seamen in about 68 B.C. Mithras is a Greek form of the name
of an Indo-European god, Mithra or Mitra. Mithra was conceived as the
intermediary between man and the Supreme God and the redeemer of the human race.
Mithraism was carried to the remotest corners of the empire. But despite these
opportunites, circumstances conspired against Mithraism, and " the ultimate
success, permanent and undoubted, fell to the combination of Jewish and Greek
worship called Christianity."
There
are however, many similarities between Christianity and Mithraism. Besides
sharing faith in a divine mediator and the hope of resurrection, both taught the
efficacy of prayer, sacramental union with God, and his providential presence in
all the events of daily life. Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist of the
Christians are analogous to certain rites of Mithraism. It was when Christianity
spread into the pagan world that the idea of Jesus as a savior God emerged,
emulating already existing concepts. It was only in 324, several centuries
later, that the Church at the council of Nicaea, called by Emperor Constantine,
formally accepted by a majority vote Jesus Christ as the Savior God. The
coming of Christianity under state control was to preserve it as a religion, and
was the death knell of all other sects and cults within the Roman Empire.
Had Constantine decided to retain Mithraism as the
official state religion, instead of putting Christianity in its place, it would
have been the latter that would have been obliterated.
"If Christianity was somehow stopped at its birth, whole world would
be following Mithraism today."
- Ernest
Renan Ernest
Renan (1823-1892)
was an important French theorist who wrote about a
variety of topics. His famous essay "What is a Nation?" (Qu'est-ce
qu'une nation?) was first delivered as a lecture at the Sorbonne in 1882.
To Constantine however,
Christianity had one great advantage, it preached that repentant sinners would
be forgiven their sins, provided that they were converted Christians at the time
of their Passing, and Constantine had much to be forgiven for, He personally did
not convert to the new religion until he was on his death bed, the reason being
that only sins committed following conversion were accountable, so all sins
committed by a convert, prior to conversion, didn’t matter, and he could
hardly have sinned too much whilst he was lying on his death bed. Mithraism
could not offer the same comfort to a man like Constantine, who was regarded as
being one of the worst mass-murderers of his time.
It
was the birthday of Mithra, 25 December (winter solstice), that was taken by the
early Christians as the birthday of Jesus. The need and urgency by the early
Christians to compromise with existing traditions were further illustrated by
the fact that even the Sabbath, the Jewish seventh day, Saturday, appointed a
day of rest by God in the Mosaic Law and hallowed by his own resting day after
the work of Creation, was abandoned in favor of the Mithraic first day, the Day
of the Conquering Sun, Sunday. The worshippers of Mithra were called
"Soldiers of Mithra" which is probably the origin of the term
"Soldiers of Christ."
The
most frequent theme of Christ as the Good Shepherd is reminiscent of a similar
identification of Mithra, who was often called the Good Shepherd. And it is
interesting to note that since Mithra was addressed as Dominus, Sunday must have
been " the Lord's Day" long before Christian times. Concepts such as
" the blood of the Lamb" or "Taurus the Bull" were similarly
borrowed from Mithraism. The Last Supper (the Eucharist) was taken from
Mithraism to combine with the sacred meal of Palestinian Christianity. The
ceremony of eating an incarnate god's body and drinking his blood is of remote
antiquity, with its origin in cannibalistic practices, and there could have been
several sources for the Christian rite, but its connection with the Mithraic
Eucharist is most apparent. The Mithraic Eucharist is the commemoration of
Mithra's Last Supper in a cave with Sol Helios before ascending to Heaven.
Some scholars believe that the Resurrection of Christ derived from the Vigil of
Mithra, who after his death reappeared to watch continuously over the faithful.
The Mithraic high priest's title, Pater Patrum soon became the title for the
bishop of Rome, Papa or Pope.
Thus,
the extent of the indebtedness of Christianity to pagan religions (Hinduism,
Buddhism, Mithraism) is very great indeed.
Christianity
and Roman Decline
Whether
the rise of Christianity with its train of bitter religious conflicts and
persecutions was a contributing cause of the Roman decline or not, the two
certainly coincided. During the following hundred years, Roman authority
gradually weakened, Roman armies suffered defeats, and Rome was sacked. By the
end of the fifth century there was nothing left of the Roman Empire in the
West.
Europe lapsed into the Dark Ages for centuries.
Total and devoted acceptance of the authority of the new faith, as interpreted
by its priests or guardians on earth, inculcated amongst the people an attitude
of surrender and they handed over the right and responsibility of thinking to
others. Passive submissions suppressed scientific inquiry and academic
integrity, the main characteristics of the preceding age of Alexandrian
syncretism. Intellectual stagnation, religious intolerance, and racial and
regional exclusiveness characterized Europe for the next thousand years.
(source:
Eastern
Religions and Western Thought -
By Dr. S
Radhakrishnan
and India
and World Civilization -
By D. P. Singhal
and
The
Bhagavad Gita: A Scripture for the Future
- By
Sachindra K. Majumdar). Also
Refer to Indic
Challenges to the Discipline of Science and Religion - By Rajiv Malhotra).
Refer
to Christian
persecution against the Hellenes -
ethnicoi.org.
Top of Page
Krishna
Worship and Christ
 Krishna
worship was observed by the Yavana (Alexander's Greeks) who noticed the
similarity between some of Krishna's exploits and that of Hercules. The stories
of the child Krishna predate that of the child Christ, and the similarities are
too many to be coincidental.
Correspondences between events in Jesus' and Krishna's life:
Author Kersey
Graves
(1813-1883), a Quaker from Indiana, compared Yeshua's and Krishna's life. He
found what he believed were 346 elements in common within Christiana and Hindu
writings. That appears to be overwhelming evidence that incidents in Jesus'
life were copied from Krishna's.
However, many of Graves' points of similarity are a real stretch.
He did report some amazing coincidences:
Yeshua and Krishna were called both a God and the Son of God.
Both was sent from heaven to earth in the form of a man.
Both were called Savior, and the second person of the Trinity.
His adoptive human father was a carpenter.
A spirit or ghost was their actual father.
Krishna and Jesus were of royal descent.
Both were visited at birth by wise men and shepherds, guided by a star.
Angels in both cases issued a warning that the local dictator planned to kill
the baby and had issued a decree for his assassination. The parents fled. Mary
and Joseph stayed in Muturea; Krishna's parents stayed in Mathura.
Both Yeshua and Krishna withdrew to the wilderness as adults, and fasted.
Both were identified as "the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's
head."
Jesus was called "the lion of the tribe of Judah." Krishna was called
"the lion of the tribe of Saki."
Both claimed: "I am the Resurrection."
Both referred to themselves having existed before their birth on earth.
Both were "without sin."
Both were god-men: being considered both human and divine.
They were both considered omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
Both performed many miracles, including the healing of disease. One of the first
miracles that both performed was to make a leper whole. Each cured "all
manner of diseases."
Both cast out indwelling demons, and raised the dead.
Both selected disciples to spread his teachings.
Both were meek, and merciful. Both were criticized for associating with sinners.
Both encountered a Gentile woman at a well.
Both celebrated a last supper. Both forgave his enemies.
Both descended into Hell, and were resurrected. Many people witnessed their
ascensions into heaven.
In addition, there are other points of similarity between Krishna and Yeshua:
"The object of Krishna's birth was to bring about a victory of good over
evil."
Krishna "came onto earth to cleanse the sins of the human beings."
"Krishna was born while his foster-father Nanda was in the city to pay his
tax to the king." Yeshua was born while his foster-father, Joseph, was in
the city to be enumerated in a census so that "all the world could be
taxed."
Jesus is recorded as saying: "if you had faith as a mustard seed you would
say to the mountain uproot yourself and be cast into the ocean" Krishna is
reported as having uprooted a small mountain.
Krishna's "...foster-father Nanda had to journey to Mathura to pay his
taxes" just as Jesus foster-father Joseph is recorded in the Gospel of Luke
as having to go to Bethlehem to pay taxes.
"The story about the birth of Elizabeth's son John (the Baptist), cousin of
Jesus, corresponds with the story in the Krishna myth about the birth of the
child of Nanda and his wife Yasoda." Nanda was the foster-father of
Krishna.
The Greek God Dionysos, Jesus and Krishna were all said to have been placed in a
manger basket.
Kersey
Graves - Compared Krishna and Christ
 Back in 1875, a man by the name of Kersey Graves presented a
book — to the old Truth Seeker magazine titled The
World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors.
Kersey goes on then to describe the
recent translation for the first time of the Hindu Vedas into the
English language — and remember that he was describing this all
about one hundred years ago. He discusses Horace
Greeley's expressed surprise at the translation when
Greeley exclaimed, "No doctrine of Christianity but what has
been anticipated by the Vedas."
“If,
then, this heathen bible [the Vedas, compiled 1500-1200 B.C.]
contains all the doctrines of Christianity, then away goes over
the dam all claim for the Christian bible as an original
revelation, or a work of divine revelation or inspiration. “
(source:
religioustolerance.org
and American
Atheist). Also
Refer to Indic
Challenges to the Discipline of Science and Religion - By
Rajiv Malhotra).
Refer to Did
the Hindus Help Write the Bible and Give the Ancient Mexicans
Their Religious Traditions? - By Gene
D. Matlock. Who
was Abraham? - By Gene D Matlock and
Is
the Hopi Deity Kokopelli an Ancient Hindu God? - By
Gene D. Matlock
and Ancient
Sanskrit Pictograph near Sedona, Arizona? - By Gene Matlock and
Atlantis
in Mexico - By Gene Matlock.
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Buddhism and its relation to Hinduism - Some information
Buddha is recognized as the ninth avatar
(incarnation) of Lord Vishnu. It was several hundred years before the time of
Lord Buddha that his birth was predicted in Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Buddhism
is an offshoot of Hinduism and is considered one of the heterodox schools of
Hindu philosophy. The teachings of Buddhism are
not significantly different from those of Hinduism, but are essentially the same
as the teachings of the Jnana Yoga (path of knowledge) school of Hinduism.
Following are the major views:
Buddhism and Hinduism both aim at transcending the phenomenal existence. Buddha
rejected the ritualistic aspects of the Vedas, but DID NOT deny the higher
teachings of the Upanishads. The Vedic rituals in Hinduism are recommended for a
beginner for attaining concentration and meditation on the spiritual path. This
position is very clearly conveyed in the Bhagavad Gita in the following words:
" To the knower of Truth (God), all the Vedas are of as little use as a
small water-tank is during the time of a flood, when water is everywhere."
(BG. 2.46)
For both Hinduism and Buddhism religion is salvation. Bodhi or enlightenment,
which Buddha attained is an experience. Perfect insight (sambodhi) is the end
and aim of the Buddhist eightfold path.
Both believe in theory of KARMA and REBIRTH with one major difference. Hinduism
believes that the atman (individual self or spirit) transmigrates from one birth
to another, Buddhism holds that nothing transmigrates from
one birth to another. In Buddhist view, karmas of one individual give birth to
another, but no identity is retained between the two individuals.
Buddha declared the Self and the World are both unreal. To a Hindu, the Self is
immortal and the world is an illusive appearance. However, behind the illusive
appearance of the universe lies the Ultimate Reality which is the
seed of all things and beings in the world.
Buddha advocated a monastic life for attaining nirvana, Hinduism teaches that
truth can be realized by all people from all walks of life, including
householders.
Buddha refused to discuss topics, such as the science of the soul, the creation
of the universe and the existence of |
