Note 141 — LECTURE III. THE BUDDHA OF THE PITAKAS: THE CHRIST OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Reading edition
Dr. Oldenberg (Buddha, etc., p. 148) very properly remarks that Ambapali the courtesan was no Mary Magdalene, and that she was not regarded by Buddha as the woman that was a sinner was regarded by Christ. Buddha had not Christ’s horror of sin, and therefore felt none of His boundless pity for the frailty of its victims; of hatred of sin in the Christian sense Buddhism knows nothing. Its highest virtue is imperturbability, a serenity that is apathetic in regard to the most outrageous wrong or the most heinous wickedness. Cariya Pitaka, iii. 15; also Sacred Books of the East, vol. x. Part ii. p. 151.