The different Bu, ddhasCristnas, Ramas, &c., are only different incarnations of the same being. The want of attention to this has caused great and unnecessary confusion. In the Samaneans and Buddha of Porphyry and Clemens, we have a proof that the doctrines of Buddhism were common in their day.
These Samaneans were great travellers, and makers of proselytes; and by this means we readily account for the way in which the oriental doctrines came to be mixed up with the history of Jesus, by such collectors of traditions as Papias, Irenæus, &c. These writers made prize of every idle superstition they found, provided they could, by any means, mix it up with the history and doctrines of Jesus of Nazareth, as I shall abundantly prove in the second part of this work.
“Both Cyril and Clemens Alexandrinus[1] agree in telling us, that the Samaneans were the sacerdotal order both in Bactria and in Persia. But the Samaneans were the priests of Saman or Buddha, and it is well known that the sacerdotal class of Bactria and Persia were the Magi: therefore the Magi and the Samaneans must have been the same, and consequently Buddha, or Maga, or Saman, must have been venerated in those regions. With this conclusion, the mythologic history of the Zend-avesta will be found in perfect accordance. The name of the most ancient Bull, that was united with the first man Key-Umurth, is said to have been Aboudad. But Adoudad, like the Abbuto of the Japanese, is plainly nothing more than Ab-Boud-dat, or father Buddh-Datta.”[2] But this is not the only proof of the Buddhism of the Persians. According to the Desatir of Moshani, Maha-bad, i. e. the great Buddha, was the first king of Persia and of the whole world, and the same as the triplasian Mithras.[3]
Buddha has his three characters, the same as Brahma, which produced three sects, like those of the Brahmins—that of Buddha or Gautama, that of Jana or Jina, and that of Arhan or Mahiman.[4] I think in the last of these titles may be found the Ahriman or the Ma-Ahriman, the destroyer, of Persia. But Buddha is allowed by the Brahmins to have been an incarnation of Vishnu, or to be identified with Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and like them he was venerated under the name OM.
Colonel Franklin (p. 5) says, “The learned Maurice entertains no doubt that the elder Boodh of India is no other than the elder Hermes Trismegistus of Egypt, and that that original character is of antediluvian race; here then is an analogy amounting almost to positive and irrefragable conviction; for Boodh and Jeyne are known throughout Hindostan, with very little exception, to be one and the same personage.” In p. 41, Colonel Franklin remarks, that Bacchus agrees in his attributes with the Indian Boodh. And Mr. Faber observes, “that Thor is represented as the first-born of the Supreme God, and is styled in the Edda ‘the eldest of Sons.’[5] He was esteemed in Scandinavia as a middle divinity, a mediator between God and man.”[6]
Colonel Franklin (p. 99) speaks of “Jeyne Ishura, or Jeyne the preserver and guardian of mankind.” Here is the Indian Osiris as preserver, or saviour, from the same root as the Hebrew ישע iso, to save.
Buddha in Egypt was called Hermes Trismegistus; Lycophron calls him Tricephalus. This speaks for itself, as we have seen that Buddha is identified with Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.
- ↑ Clemens Alexandrinus in particular states that the Samaneans were the priests of the Bactrians. Strom. Lib. i. p. 305; Faber, Pag. Idol. B. iv. Ch. v. p. 235.
- ↑ Faber, Pag. Idol. B. iv. Ch. v. p. 353.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 349.
- ↑ Faber, Horæ Mosaicæ, Vol. I.
- ↑ Franklin’s Res. p. 49. Brahma is generally in the neuter gender. But as Vishnu or Narayen he is masculine, as he is also when he is considered as the Creator. Asiat. Res. Vol. I. pp. 242, 243; Collier, Sect. iv.
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