THE BUDDHA AND THE CHRIST

SOME SIGNIFICANT TITLES

Gautama.Jesus.

Sage of the Sakya.The Word.

Teacher.The Truth.

The All-knowing.

The Lion of the Sakya.The Captain of Salvation.

The Conqueror.

Lord of the World.Lord of lords.

The Blessed.Blessed and only Potentate.

The Excellent.God, Blessed for evermore.

The Enlightened.The Light.

The Dayspring.

The Daystar.

The Morning Star.

Saviour.

Great, Good, Chief Shepherd.

Lamb of God.

The Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Son of Man.

Son of God.

Emmanuel.

♦ Gautama and Jesus ♦ There is quite sufficient resemblance between Gautama and Jesus in character and teachings, and in the circumstances of their lives so far as they are known to us, to give much interest to a comparative study; and of such studies there are very many.

♦ The Buddha and the Christ ♦ But they do not come before the world as Gautama and Jesus, they are the Buddha and the Christ. As Dr. Oldenberg has said: “What makes a Buddha a Buddha is, as his name indicates, his knowledge. He does not possess his knowledge, like a Christ, by virtue of a metaphysical superiority of his nature, surpassing everything earthly; but he has gained it, or more strictly speaking, has won it, by a struggle. The Buddha is at the same time the Jina, i. e. the conqueror. The history of the struggle for the Buddhahood must therefore precede the history of the Buddha.”

♦ No true parallel ♦ Christ is all ♦ This essential distinction ends all parallel. The Buddha claimed through travail and sorrow to have discovered his gospel of the Path to emancipation from the Self-life. The Christ came from the Father, according to the vision of the Seers, to bring a gospel of recovered sonship; and, through travail, sorrow, death, and rising (for it was impossible that the grave should hold Him), to reveal the Way back into the true life. To the Christian “Christ is absolutely true, the Point whence we start, and where we must end. From Christ and to Christ includes the whole circle of our knowledge and the whole circle of our uncertainty. All truth and all ways to truth must end in Him Who is The Truth and The Way. Being in Him, what is unknown cannot baffle us, for He knows it in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

“Christ is all, and in all.”

THE END

[1]: From the Sermon preached at Benares to the five companions of his hermit life upon his return after attainment of Buddha-hood. From Prof. Rhys David’s translation, by permission.]

[2]: Unsuccessful, that is to say, as a nation.

A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ACCESSIBLE BOOKS UPON THE SUBJECT.

Buddhism: Its History and Literature. By Professor Rhys Davids. (G. and F. Putnam’s Sons, London. 6s.)

Buddhist India. By Professor Rhys Davids . Story of the Nations Series. (T. Fisher Unwin.)

Buddha: His Life, His Doctrine, His Order. By Dr. Hermann Oldenberg. Translated by W. Hoey, M.A., LL.D. (Williams and Norgate. 18s.)

Studies in Eastern Religions. Buddhism. By Professor Geden. (Kelly. 3s. 6d.)

Manual of Buddhism. By Spence Hardy. (Williams and Norgate. 21s.)

Buddhism in Translations. By Henry Clarke Warren. (Published by Harvard University, U.S.A.)

The Gospel of Buddha. By Dr. Paul Carus . (Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago.)

The two latter are perhaps the most accessible of the many translations of Buddhistic literature.

The Sacred Books of the East. Edited by Dr. Max Muller. Vols. X, XI, XIII, XX, XLIX, and others are translations of Buddhist Scriptures.

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,

BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND

BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.