Reading section 48

The most curious coincidences between Indian and Christian legend are afforded by the stories and representations of the birth and infancy of Krishna. These have been elaborately discussed by Weber in a well-known monograph[1092]. Krishna is represented with his mother, much as the infant Christ with the Madonna; he is born in a stable[1093], and other well-known incidents such as the appearance of a star are reproduced. Two things strike us in these resemblances. Firstly, they are not found in the usual literary version of the Indian legend[1094], and it is therefore probable that they represent an independent and borrowed story: secondly, they are almost entirely concerned with the mythological aspects of Christianity. Many Christians would admit that the adoration of the Virgin and Child is unscriptural and borrowed from the worship of pagan goddesses who were represented as holding their divine offspring in their arms. If this is admitted, it is possible that Devakî and her son may be a replica not of the Madonna but of a pagan prototype. But there is no difficulty in admitting that Christian legends and Christian art may have entered northern India from Bactria and Persia, and have found a home in Muttra. Only it does not follow from this that any penetrating influence transformed Hindu thought and is responsible for Krishna's divinity, for the idea of _bhakti_, or for the theology of the Bhagavad-gîtâ. The borrowed features in the Krishna story are superficial and also late. They do not occur in the Mahâbhârata and the earliest authority cited by Weber is Hemâdri, a writer of the thirteenth century. Allowing that what he describes may have existed several centuries before his own date, we have still no ground for tracing the main ideas of Vaishnavism to Christianity and the later vagaries of Krishnaism are precisely the aspects of Indian religion which most outrage Christian sentiment.

One edition of the Bhavishya Purana contains a summary of the book of Genesis from Adam to Abraham[1095]. Though it is a late interpolation, it shows conclusively that the editors of Puranas had no objection to borrowing from Christian sources and it maybe that some incidents in the life of Krishna as related by the Vishnu, Bhâgavata and other Puranas are borrowed from the Gospels, such as Kamsa's orders to massacre all male infants when Krishna is born, the journey of Nanda, Krishna's foster-father, to Mathurâ in order to pay taxes and the presentation of a pot of ointment to Krishna by a hunchback woman whom he miraculously makes straight. In estimating the importance of such coincidences we must remember that they are merely casual details in a long story of adventures which, in their general outline, bear no relation to the life of Christ. The most striking of these is the "massacre of the Innocents." The Harivaṃsa, which is not later than the fifth century A.D., relates that Kamsa killed all the other children of Devakî, though it does not mention a general massacre, and Pâtanjali (_c._ 150 B.C.) knew the legend of the hostility between Krishna and Kamsa and the latter's death[1096]. So if anything has been borrowed from the Gospel account it is only the general slaughter of children. The mention of a pot of ointment strikes Europeans because such an object is not familiar to us, but it was an ordinary form of luxury in India and Judæa alike, and the fact that a woman honoured both Krishna and Christ in the same way but in totally different circumstances is hardly more than a chance coincidence. The fact that both Nanda and Joseph leave their homes in order to pay their taxes is certainly curious and I will leave the reader to form his own opinion about it. The instance of the Bhavishya Purana shows that Hindus had no scruples about borrowing from the Bible and in some Indian dialects the name Krishna appears as Krishto or Kushto. On the other hand, whatever borrowing there may have been is concerned exclusively with trivial details: the principal episodes of the Krishna legend were known before the Christian era.

This is perhaps the place to examine a curious episode of the Mahâbhârata which narrates the visit of certain sages to a region called Śvetadvîpa, the white island or continent, identified by some with Alexandria or a Christian settlement in central Asia. The episode occurs in the Śantiparvan[1097] of the Mahâbhârata and is introduced by the story of a royal sacrifice, at which most of the gods appeared in visible shape but Hari (Vishnu or Krishna) took his offerings unseen. The king and his priests were angry, but three sages called Ekata, Dvita and Trita, who are described as the miraculous offspring of Brahmâ, interposed explaining that none of those present were worthy to see Hari. They related how they had once desired to behold him in his own form and after protracted austerities repaired under divine guidance to an island called Śvetadvîpa on the northern shores of the Sea of Milk[1098]. It was inhabited by beings white and shining like the moon who followed the rules of the Pancarâtra, took no food and were continually engaged in silent prayer. So great was the effulgence that at first the visitors were blinded. It was only after another century of penance that they began to have hopes of beholding the deity. Then there suddenly arose a great light. The inhabitants of the island ran towards it with joined hands and, as if they were making an offering, cried, "Victory to thee, O thou of the lotus eyes, reverence to thee, producer of all things: reverence to thee, Hṛishikeśa, great Purusha, the first-born." The three sages saw nothing but were conscious that a wind laden with perfumes blew past them. They were convinced, however, that the deity had appeared to his worshippers. A voice from heaven told them that this was so and that no one without faith (abhakta) could see Nârâyaṇa.

A subsequent section of the same book tells us that Nârada visited Śvetadvîpa and received from Nârâyaṇa the Pancarâtra, which is thus definitely associated with the locality.

Some writers have seen in this legend a poetical account of contact with Christianity, but wrongly, as I think. We have here no mythicized version of a real journey but a voyage of the imagination. The sea of milk, the white land and its white shining inhabitants are an attempt to express the pure radiance proper to the courts of God, much as the Book of Revelation tells of a sea of glass, elders in white raiment and a deity whose head and hair were white like wool and snow. Nor need we suppose, as some have done, that the worship of the white sages is an attempt to describe the Mass. The story does not say that whenever the White Islanders held a religious service the deity appeared, but that on a particular occasion when the deity appeared they ran to meet him and saluted him with a hymn. The idea that prayer and meditation are the sacrifice to be offered by perfected saints is thoroughly Indian and ancient. The account testifies to the non-Brahmanic character of this worship of Vishnu, which was patronized by the Brahmans though not originated by them, but there is nothing exotic in the hymn to Nârâyaṇa and the epithet first-born (pûrvaja), in which some have detected a Christian flavour, is as old as the Rig Veda. The reason for laying the scene of the story in the north (if indeed the points of the compass have any place in this mythical geography) is no doubt the early connection of the Pancarâtra with Kashmir and north-western India[1099]. The facts that some Puranas people the regions near Śvetadvîpa with Iranian sun-worshippers[1100] and that some details of the Pancarâtra (though not the system as a whole) show a resemblance to Zoroastrianism suggest interesting hypotheses as to origin of this form of Vishnuism, but more facts are needed to confirm them. Chronology gives us little help, for though the Mahâbhârata was substantially complete in the fourth century, it cannot be denied that additions may have been made to it later and that the story of Śvetadvîpa may be one of them. There were Nestorian Bishops at Merv and Herat in the fifth century, but there appears to be no evidence that Christianity reached Transoxiana before the fall of the Sassanids in the first half of the seventh century.

Thus there is little reason to regard Christianity as an important factor in the evolution of Hinduism, because (_a_) there is no evidence that it appeared in an influential form before the sixteenth century and (_b_) there is strong evidence that most of the doctrines and practices resembling Christianity have an Indian origin. On the other hand abundant instances show that the Hindus had no objection to borrowing from a foreign religion anything great or small which took their fancy. But the interesting point is that the principal Christian doctrines were either indigenous in India--such as _bhakti_ and _avatâras_--or repugnant to the vast majority of Hindus, such as the crucifixion and atonement. I do not think that Nestorianism had any appreciable effect on the history of religious thought in southern India. Hellenic and Zoroastrian ideas undoubtedly entered north-western India, but, though Christian ideas may have come with them, few of the instances cited seem even probable except some details in the life of Krishna which affect neither the legend as a whole nor the doctrines associated with it. Some later sects, such as the Kabirpanthis, show remarkable resemblances to Christianity, but then the teaching of Kabir was admittedly a blend of Hinduism and Islam, and since Islam accepted many Christian doctrines, it remains to be proved that any further explanation is needed. Barth observed that criticism is generally on the look out for the least trace of Christian influence on Hinduism but does not pay sufficient attention to the extent of Moslim influence. Every student of Indian religion should bear in mind this dictum of the great French savant. After the sixteenth century there is no difficulty in supposing direct contact with Roman Catholicism. Tukaram, the Maratha poet who lived comparatively near to Goa, may have imitated the diction of the Gospels.

Some authors[1101] are disposed to see Christian influence in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, particularly in the Amidist sects. I have touched on this subject in several places but it may be well to summarize my conclusions here.

The chief Amidist doctrines are clearly defined in the Sukhâ vatî-vyûha which was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese in the latter half of the second century A.D. It must therefore have existed in Sanskrit at least in the first century of our era, at which period dogmatic Christianity could hardly have penetrated to India or any part of Central Asia where a Sanskrit treatise was likely to be written. Its doctrines must therefore be independent of Christianity and indeed their resemblance to Christianity is often exaggerated, for though salvation by faith in Amida is remarkably like justification by faith, yet Amida is not a Saviour who died for the world and faith in him is coupled with the use of certain invocations. The whole theory has close parallels in Zoroastrianism and is also a natural development of ideas already existing in India.

Nor can I think that the common use of rites on behalf of the dead in Buddhist China is traceable to Christianity. In this case too the parallel is superficial, for the rites are in most cases not prayers _for_ the dead: the officiants recite formulae by which they acquire merit and they then formally transfer this merit to the dead. Seeing how great was the importance assigned to the cult of the dead in China, it is not necessary to seek for explanations why a religion trying to win its way in those countries invented ceremonies to satisfy the popular craving, and Buddhism had no need to imitate Christianity, for from an early period it had countenanced offerings intended to comfort and help the departed.

Under the T'ang dynasty Manichæism, Nestorianism and new streams of Buddhism all entered China. These religions had some similarity to one another, their clergy may have co-operated and Manichæism certainly adopted Buddhist ideas. There is no reason why Buddhism should not have adopted Nestorian ideas and, in so far as the Nestorians familiarized China with the idea of salvation by faith in a divine personage, they may have helped the spread of Amidism. But the evidence that we possess seems to show not that the Nestorians introduced the story of Christ's life and sacrifice into Buddhism but that they suppressed the idea of atonement by his death, possibly under Buddhist influence.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1072: The most learned and lucid discussion of these questions, which includes an account of earlier literature on the subject, is to be found in Garbe's _Indien und das Christentum_, 1914. But I am not able to accept all his conclusions. The work, to which I am much indebted, is cited below as Garbe. See also Carpenter, _Theism in Medieval India_, 1921, pp. 521-524.]

[Footnote 1073: See Garbe and Harnack, _Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums_, ii. Chrysostom (Hom. in Joh. 2. 2) writing at the end of the fourth century speaks of Syrians, Egyptians, Persians and ten thousand other nations learning Christianity from translations into their languages, but one cannot expect geographical accuracy in so rhetorical a passage.]

[Footnote 1074: Eusebius (_Ecc. Hist_. v. 10), supported by notices in Jerome and others, states that Pantænus went from Alexandria to preach in India and found there Christians using the Gospel according to Matthew written in Hebrew characters. It had been left there by the Apostle Bartholomew. But many scholars are of opinion that by India in this passage is meant southern Arabia. In these early notices India is used vaguely for Eastern Parthia, Southern Arabia and even Ethiopia. It requires considerable evidence to make it probable that at the time of Pantænus (second century A.D.) any one in India used the Gospel in a Semitic language.]

[Footnote 1075: See, for the Thomas legend, Garbe, Vincent Smith, _Early History of India_, 3rd ed. pp. 231 ff., and Philipps in _I.A._. 1903, pp. 1-15 and 145-160.]

[Footnote 1076: _Nat. Hist_. xii. 18 (41).]

[Footnote 1077: II. iv. 12. Strabo died soon after 21 A.D.]

[Footnote 1078: It is seen even in borrowed words, _e.g._ hora = ὢρα: Jyau = Ζεὺς: Heli = ἢλιος.]

[Footnote 1079: See Kanakasabhai's book, _The Tamils 1800 years ago_.]

[Footnote 1080: Harnack (_Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums_, II. 126) says "Dass die Thomas-Christen welche man im 16 Jahrhundert in Indien wieder entdeckte bis ins 3 Jahrhundert hinaufgehen lässt sich nicht erweisen."]

[Footnote 1081: For Akbar and Christianity, see _Cathay and the Way Thither_ (Hakluyt Society), vol. IV. 172-3.]

[Footnote 1082: See Gover, _Folk Songs of Southern India_, 1871.]

[Footnote 1083: iv. 3. 95, 98.]

[Footnote 1084: Cf. the Pali verses in the Therîgâthâ, 157: "Hail to thee, Buddha, who savest me and many others from suffering."]

[Footnote 1085: See Yasht, 13. 81 and Vendidad, 19. 14.]

[Footnote 1086: The liberal ideas as to caste held by some Vishnuites are due to Râmânand (c. 1400) who was excommunicated by his coreligionists. I find it hard to agree with Garbe that Râmânuja admitted the theoretical equality of all castes. He says himself (Srî-Bhâshya, II. 3. 46, 47) that souls are of the same nature in so far as they are all parts of Brahman (a proposition which follows from his fundamental principles and is not at all due to Christian influence), but that some men are entitled to read the Veda while others are debarred from the privilege. All fire, he adds, is of the same nature, but fire taken from the house of a Brahman is pure, whereas fire taken from a cremation ground is impure. Even so the soul is defiled by being associated with a low-caste body.]

[Footnote 1087: See Grieson and Garbe. But I have not found a quotation from any original authority. Mohammed, however, had the same notion of the Trinity.]

[Footnote 1088: But the Mappilahs or Moplahs appear to have settled on the Malabar coast about 900 A.D.]

[Footnote 1089: Similarly the neo-Confucianism of the Sung dynasty was influenced by Mahâyânist Buddhism. Chu-hsi and his disciples condemned Buddhism, but the new problems and new solutions which they brought forward would not have been heard of but for Buddhism.]

[Footnote 1090: The idea of the second birth is found in the Majjhima Nikâya, where in Sutta 86 the converted brigand Angulimala speaks of his regenerate life as _Yato aham ariyâya jâtiyâ jâto_, "Since I was born by this noble (or holy) birth." Brahmanic parallels are numerous, _e.g._ Manu, 2. 146.]

[Footnote 1091: It is said, however, that the celebration of the Prasâd by the Kabirpanthis bears an extraordinary resemblance to the Holy Communion of Christians. This may be so, but, as already mentioned, this late and admittedly composite sect is not typical of Hinduism as a whole.]

[Footnote 1092: Krishṇajanmâshṭamî, _Memoirs of Academy of Berlin_, 1867.]

[Footnote 1093: In spite of making enquiry I have never seen or heard of these representations of a stable myself. As Senart points out (_Légende_, p. 336) all the personages who play a part in Krishna's early life are shown in these tableaux in one group, but this does not imply that shepherds and their flocks are supposed to be present at his birth.]

[Footnote 1094: Though the ordinary legend does not say that Krishna was born in a stable yet it does associate him with cattle.]

[Footnote 1095: Pargiter, _Dynasties of the Kali age_, p. xviii.]

[Footnote 1096: Commentary on Pânini, 2. 3. 36, 3. 1. 36 and 3. 2. 111. It seems probable that Pâtanjali knew the story of Krishna and Kamsa substantially as it is recounted in the Harivaṃsa.]

[Footnote 1097: Section 337. A journey to Śvetadvîpa is also related in the Kathâsarit sâgara, LIV.]

[Footnote 1098: The most accessible statement of the geographical fancies here referred to is in Vishnu Purâna, Book II, chap. IV. The Sea of Milk is the sixth of the seven concentric seas which surround Jambudvîpa and Mt. Meru. It divides the sixth of the concentric continents or Śâkadvîpa from the seventh or Pushkara-dvîpa. The inhabitants of Śâkadvîpa worship Vishnu as the Sun and have this much reality that at any rate, according to the Vishnu and Bhavishya Purânas, they are clearly Iranian Sun-worshippers whose priests are called Magas or Mṛigas. Pushkara-dvîpa is a terrestrial paradise: the inhabitants live a thousand years, are of the same nature as the gods and free from sorrow and sin. "The three Vedas, the Purânas, Ethics and Polity are unknown" among them and "there are no distinctions of caste or order: there are no fixed institutes." The turn of fancy which located this non-Brahmanic Utopia in the north seems akin to that which led the Greeks to talk of Hyperboreans. Fairly early in the history of India it must have been discovered that the western, southern, and eastern coasts were washed by the sea so that the earthly paradise was naturally placed in the north. Thus we hear of an abode of the blessed called the country of the holy Uttara Kurus or northern Kurus. Here nothing can be perceived with human senses (Mahâbh. Sabhâ, 1045), and it is mentioned in the same breath as Heaven and the city of Indra (_ib._ Anusâs. 2841).

It is not quite clear (neither is it of much moment), whether the Mahâbhârata intends by Śvetadvîpa one of these concentric world divisions or a separate island. The Kûrma and Padma Purânas also mention it as the shining abode of Vishnu and his saintly servants.]

[Footnote 1099: Garbe thinks that the Sea of Milk is Lake Balkash. For the Pancarâtra see book v. iii. 3.]

[Footnote 1100: See note 2 on last page.]

[Footnote 1101: _E.g._ several works of Lloyd and Saeki, _The Nestorian Monument in China_.]

CHAPTER LVI

INDIAN INFLUENCE IN THE WESTERN WORLD

The influence of Indian religion on Christianity is part of the wider question of its influence on the west generally. It is clear that from 200 B.C. until 300 A.D. oriental religion played a considerable part in the countries round the Mediterranean. The worship of the Magna Mater was known in Rome by 200 B.C. and that of Isis and Serapis in the time of Sulla. In the early centuries of the Christian era the cultus of Mithra prevailed not only in Rome but in most parts of Europe where there were Roman legions, even in Britain. These religions may be appropriately labelled with the vague word oriental, for they are not so much the special creeds of Egypt and Persia transplanted into Roman soil as fragments, combinations and adaptations of the most various eastern beliefs. They differed from the forms of worship indigenous to Greece and Italy in being personal, not national: they were often emotional and professed to reveal the nature and destinies of the soul. If we ask whether there are any definitely Indian elements in all this orientalism, the answer must be that there is no clear case of direct borrowing, nothing Indian analogous to the migrations of Isis and Mithra. If Indian thought had any influence on the Mediterranean it was not immediate, but through Persia, Babylonia and Egypt. But it is possible that the doctrine of metempsychosis and the ideal of the ascetic life are echoes of India. Though the former is found in an incomplete shape among savages in many parts of the world, there is no indication that it was indigenous in Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, Asia Minor, Greece or Italy. It crops up now and again as a tenet held by philosophers or communities of cosmopolitan tastes such as the Orphic Societies, but usually in circumstances which suggest a foreign origin. It is said, however, to have formed part of the doctrines taught by the Druids in Gaul. Similarly though occasional fasts and other mortifications may have been usual in the worship of various deities and though the rigorous Spartan discipline was a sort of military asceticism, still the idea that the religious life consists in suppressing the passions, which plays such a large part in Christian monasticism, can be traced not to any Jewish or European institution but to Egypt. Although monasticism spread quickly thence to Syria, it is admitted that the first Christian hermits and monasteries were Egyptian and there is some evidence for the existence there of pagan hermits[1102]. Egypt was a most religious country, but it does not appear that asceticism, celibacy or meditation formed part of its older religious life, and their appearance in Hellenistic times may be due to a wave of Asiatic influence starting originally from India.

Looking westwards from India and considering what were the circumstances favouring the diffusion of Indian ideas, we must note first that Hindus have not only been in all ages preoccupied by religious questions but have also had a larger portion of the missionary spirit than is generally supposed. It is true that in wide tracts and long periods this spirit has been suppressed by Brahmanic exclusiveness, but phenomena like the spread of Buddhism and the establishment of Hinduism in Indo-China and Java speak for themselves. The spiritual tide flowed eastwards rather than westwards; still it is probable that its movement was felt, though on a smaller scale, in the accessible parts of the west. By land, our record tells us mainly of what came into India from Persia and Bactria, but something must have gone out. By water we know that at least after about 700 B.C. there was communication with the Persian Gulf, Arabia and probably the Red Sea. Semitic alphabets were borrowed: in the Jâtakas we hear of merchants going to Baveru or Babylon: Solomon's commercial ventures brought him Indian products. But the strongest testimony to the dissemination of religious ideas is found in Asoka's celebrated edict (probably 256 B.C.) in which he claims to have spread the Dhamma as far as the dominions of Antiochus "and beyond that Antiochus to where dwell the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas and Alexander." The kings mentioned are identified as the rulers of Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Cyrene and Epirus. Asoka compares his missionary triumphs to the military conquests of other monarchs. It may be that the comparison is only too just and that like them he claimed to have extended his law to regions where his name was unknown. No record of the arrival of Buddhist missions in any Hellenistic kingdom has reached us and the language of the edict, if examined critically, is not precise. On the other hand, however vague it may be, it testifies to two things. Firstly, Egypt, Syria and the other Hellenistic states were realities to the Indians of this period, distant but not fabulous regions. Secondly, the king desired to spread the knowledge of the law in these countries and this desire was shared, or inspired, by the monks whom he patronized. It is therefore probable that, though the difficulties of travelling were great and the linguistic difficulties of preaching an Indian religion even greater, missionaries set out for the west and reached if not Macedonia and Epirus, at least Babylon and Alexandria. We may imagine that they would frequent the temples and the company of the priests and not show much talent for public preaching. If no record of them remains, it is not more wonderful than the corresponding silence in the east about Greek visitors to India.