Note 1 — CHAP. X.

: It has been surmised that in the intercourse which subsisted between India and the western world by way of Alexandria and Persia, and which did not decline till the sixth or seventh century, the influences of Nestorian Christianity may have left their impress on the genius and literature of Buddhism; and in the legends of its historians one is struck by the many passages that suggest a similarity to events recorded in the Jewish Scriptures. The coincidence may also be accounted for by the close proximity of a Jewish race in Afghanistan (the descendants of those carried away into captivity by Shalmanasar) which eventually extended itself along the west coast of India, and became the progenitors of the Hebrew colony that still inhabits the south of the Dekkan near Cochin, and are known as the "Black Jews of Malabar." The influence of this immigration is perceptible in the sacred books, both of the Brahmans and Buddhists; the laws of Menu present some striking resemblances to the law of Moses, and it was probably from a knowledge of the contents of the Hebrew rolls still possessed by this remnant of the dispersion that the Buddhists borrowed the numerous incidents which we find reproduced in the historical books of Ceylon. Thus the aborigines, when subdued by their Bengal invaders, were forced, like the Israelites, by their masters "to make bricks" for the construction of their stupendous edifices (Mahawanso, ch. xxviii.). On the occasion of building the great dagoba, the Ruanwellé, at Anarajapoora, B.C. 161, the materials were all prepared at a distance, and brought ready to be deposited in their places (Mahawanso, xxvii.); as on the occasion of building the first temple at Jerusalem, "the stone was made ready before it was brought, so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard whilst it was building." The parting of the Red Sea to permit the march of the fugitive Hebrews has its counterpart in the exploit of the King Gaja Bahu, A.D. 109, who, when marching his army to the coast of India, in order to bring back the Singhalese from captivity in Sollee, "smote the waters of the sea till they parted, so that he and his army marched through without wetting the soles of their feet."—Rajaratnacari, p. 59. King Maha Sen (A.D. 275), seeking a relic, had the mantle of Buddha lowered down from heaven: and Buddha had, previously, in designating Kasyapa as his successor, transmitted to him his robe as Elijah let fall his mantle upon Elisha. (Rajavali, p. 238; HARDY'S Oriental Monachism, p. 119.) There is a resemblance too between the apotheosis of Dutugaimunu and the translation of Elijah when "in a chariot and horses of fire he went up into heaven" (2 Kings, ii. 11);—according to the Mahawanso, ch. xxii p. 199, when the Singhalese king was dying, a chariot was seen descending from the sky and his disembodied spirit "manifested itself standing in the car in which he drove thrice round the great shrine, and then bowing down to the attendant priesthood, he departed for tusita" (the Buddhists' heaven). The ceremonial and dogmatic coincidences are equally remarkable;—constant allusion is made to the practice of the kings to "wash the feet of the priests and anoint them with oil."—Mahawanso; ch. xxv.—xxx. In conformity with the denunciation that the sins of the fathers were to be visited on the children, the Jews inquired whether a "man's parents did commit sin that he was born blind?" (John, ix. 3) and in like manner, in the Rajavali, "the perjury of Wijayo (who had repudiated his wife after swearing fidelity to her) was visited on the person of the King Panduwaasa," his nephew, who was afflicted with insanity in consequence (Rajavali, pp. 174-178). The account in the Rajaratnacari of King Batiya Tissa (B.C. 20), who was enabled to enter the Ruanwellé dagoba by the secret passage known only to the priests, and to discover their wealth and treasures deposited within, has a close resemblance to the descent of Daniel and King Astyages into the temple of Bel, by the privy entrance under the table, whereby the priests entered and consumed the offerings made to the idol (Bel and the Dragon, Apocryp. ch. i.-xiii.; Rajaratnacari, p. 45). The inextinguishable fire which was for ever burning on the altar of God (Leviticus, ch. vi. 13) resembles the lamps which burned for 5000 years continually in honour of Buddha (Mahawanso, ch. lxxxi.; Rajaratnacari, p. 49); and these again had their imitators in the lamp of Minerva, which was never permitted to go out in the temple at Athens, and in the [Greek: luchnon asbeston], which was for ever burning in the temple of Ammon. The miracle of feeding the multitude by our Saviour upon a few loaves and fishes, is repeated in the Mahawanso, where a divinely endowed princess fed Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437, and five hundred of his followers with the repast which she was taking to her father and his reapers, the refreshment being "scarcely diminished in quantity as if one person only had eaten therefrom."—Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 62. The preparation of the high road for the procession of the sacred bo-tree after its landing (Mahawanso, ch. xix. p. 116), and the order to clear a road through the wilderness for the march of the king at the inauguration of Buddhism, recall the words of the prophet, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight a highway in the desert." (Isaiah, xl. 3.) And we are reminded of the prophecy of Isaiah as to the kingdom of peace, in which "the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf with the lion, and a young child shall lead them," by the Singhalese historians, in describing the religious repose of the kingdom of Asoca under the influence of the religion of Buddha, where "the elk and the wild hog were the guardians of the gardens and fields, and the tiger led forth the cattle to graze and reconducted them in safety to their pens."—Mahawanso, ch. v. p. 22. The narrative of the "judgment of Solomon," in the matter of the contested child (1 Kings, ch. iii.), has its parallel in a story in every respect similar in the Pansyiapanas-jataka.—ROBERT'S Orient. Illustr. p. 101.