( 152 )
BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.
BUDDHA THE SUN IN TAURUS, AS CRISTNA WAS THE SUN IN ARIES.—NAMES OF BUDDHA.—MEANING OF THE WORD BUDDHA, THE SAME AS THAT OF THE FIRST WORD IN GENESIS.—THE TEN INCARNATIONS.—DESCENT OF BUDDHA THE SAME AS CRISTNA’S.—BUDDHA AND CRISTNA THE SAME.—SIMPLICITY OF BUDDHISM.—EXPLANATION OF PLATE.—BUDDHA A NEGRO—HIERARCHY—MAIA.—SAMANEANS OF CLEMENS—INCARNATION.—CABUL.—BUDDHISM EXTENDS OVER MANY COUNTRIES.—BUDDHA BEFORE CRISTNA.
1. The time is now arrived when it becomes proper to enter upon an examination of the doctrines of the celebrated Buddha of India, which were the foundations of all the mythoses of the Western nations, as well as of those which we have seen of Cristna; and from these two were supplied most of the superstitions which became engrafted into the religion of Jesus Christ.
I shall now shew, that Buddha and Cristna were only renewed incarnations of the same Being, and that Being the Solar power, or a principle symbolized by the Sun—a principle made by the sun visible to the eyes of mortals: and particularly exhibiting himself in his glory at the vernal equinox, in the heavenly constellation known by the name of Taurus, as Buddha, and subsequently in that of Aries, as Cristna.
But I must previously make one observation to guard my reader against mistake.
There is a style of writing or speaking, adopted by our orientalists from inadvertency or inattention to its consequences, which has a great tendency to mislead the reader. They take up a book in Ceylon or Pegu, perhaps, to learn from it the doctrines of Buddha or of Cristna; they read this book, and then tell us that these are the doctrines of Buddha, never considering that this book may contain only the doctrines of an obscure sect of Buddhists. Suppose a Brahmin were to come to England, and to take up a book of Johanna Southcote’s, or of Brothers’, or of Calvin’s; how much would he misrepresent the religion of Jesus if he represented it as he found it there! Except in a few leading particulars, it is as difficult to say what is at present the religion of Buddha, as it is to decide what is the religion of Christ. Again, if any one would say what the religion of Christ is at this day, in any particular country, it would be very different from what the religion of Christ was four hundred, or even two hundred, years ago. We have no service now in our Liturgy for casting out devils. And it is the same with Buddhism and Vishnuism. My search is to find the spring-head whence all the minor streams of Buddhism have sprung. A description of the rivulets flowing from it and which have become muddy in their progress, however interesting to some persons, is not my object; nor is it to my taste to spend my time upon such nonsensical matters, which can have no other effect than to disguise the original of the religion, and to gratify evil passions, by depreciating the religion of our neighbour. If his religion have sunk into the most degraded state, as in Ceylon, the more the pity. It shall not be my task
