8. The figure in the plates numbered 8, descriptive of Buddha or Cristna, is given by Mons. Creuzer. The following is the account given of this plate by Mons. Guigniaut:[1] Crichna 8e avatar ou incarnation de Vichnou, sous la figure d’un enfant, allaité par Devaki, sa mère, et recevant des offrandes de fruits; près de là est un groupe d’animaux rassemblés dans une espèce d’arche. La tête de l’enfant-dieu, noir, comme indique son nom, est ceinte d’une auréole aussi bien que celle de sa mère. On peut voir encore, dans cette belle peinture, Buddha sur le sein de Maya.[2]
M. Creuzer observes that the images of Cristna and Buddha are so similar, that it is difficult to distinguish them; and the groupe pictured above is acknowledged by Moore, in his Hindoo Pantheon, to be applicable to Buddha on the knee of his beautiful mother Maya.[3] But yet there is one circumstance of very great importance which is peculiar to Buddha, and forms a discriminating mark between him and Cristna, which is, that he is continually described as a Negro, not only with a black complexion, in which he agrees with Cristna, but with woolly hair and flat face. M. Creuzer observes, that the black Buddha, with frizzled or curled hair, attaches himself at the same time to the three systems into which the religion of India divides itself.
9. Mr. Moore, on his woolly head, says, “Some statues of Buddha certainly exhibit thick Ethiopian lips;[4] but all woolly hair: there is something mysterious, and unexplained, connected with the hair of this, and only of this, Indian deity. The fact of so many different tales having been invented to account for his crisped, woolly head, is alone sufficient to excite suspicion, that there is something to conceal—something to be ashamed of; more than meets the eye.”[5]
The reason why Buddha is a Negro, at least in the very old icons, I trust I shall be able to explain in a satisfactory manner hereafter. The Brahmins form a species of corporation, a sacerdotal aristocracy, possessing great privileges; but the Buddhists have a regular hierarchy; they form a state within a state, or a spiritual monarchy at the side of a temporal one. “They have their cloisters, their monastic life, and a religious rule. Their monks form a priesthood numerous and powerful, and they place their first great founder at their head as the sacred depositary of their faith, which is transmitted by this spiritual prince, who is supported by the contributions of the faithful, from generation to generation, similar to that of the Lamas of Thibet.” M. Creuzer might have said, not similar to, but identical with the Lama himself; who, like the Pope of Rome, is God on Earth, at the head of all, a title which the latter formerly assumed. Indeed the close similarity between the two is quite wonderful to those who do not understand it.
The monks and nuns of the Buddhists, here noticed by M. Creuzer, take the three cardinal vows
- ↑ 61, xiii.
- ↑ Of the two trays which are placed by the figure with the infant, one contains boxes, part of them exactly similar to the frankincense boxes now used in the Romish churches, and others such as might be expected to hold offerings of Myrrh or Gold. The second contains cows, sheep, cattle, and other animals. If my reader has ever seen the exhibition of the nativity in the church of the Ara Cœli at Rome, on Christmas-day, he will recollect the sheep, cows, &c., &c., which stand around the Virgin and Child. It is an exact icon of this picture. Hundreds of pictures of the Mother and Child, almost exact copies of this picture, are to be seen in Italy and many other Romish countries.
- ↑ Col. Tod says, Dare we attempt to lift the veil from this mystery, and trace from the seat of redemption of lost science its original source? This, I answer my good, learned, and philanthropic friend, I only have done. The allegory of Cristna’s Eagle pursuing the Serpent Buddha, and recovering the books of science and religion with which he fled, is an historical fact disguised. True! and its meaning is so clear, it requires no explanation. In the Cave at Gaya, which means the Cave of Gaia or the Earth, it is written—Heri who is Buddha. Here the Col. says, that Cristna and Buddha, in characters, are conjoined. This is true, and they mean, Buddha who is Heri, and Heri who is Buddha.—Hist. Rajapoutana, p. 537.
- ↑ The lips are often tinged with red to shew that the blackness does not arise from the colour of the bronze or stone of which the image is made, but that black is the colour of the God.
- ↑ Moore’s Pantheon, p. 232.
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