User:Wingspeed/Re-write of 'Buddhism & Christianity'

The French artist Paul Ranson's Christ et Buddha juxtaposes the two prophets in 1880

The possibility of a reciprocal but long lost relationship between what became known as Buddhism and Christianity exercised a small number of both scholars and popularisers in post-Enlightenment Europe, even before archaeological finds in the late 19th century confirmed the Buddha to be an historical personage rather than myth. The suggestion that Jesus and his pioneering followers may have been influenced indirectly by the sage of the Śākyas continues to cause controversy.

Less contentious, however, is that from the late 18th century onwards growing awareness in Europe and North America of the religious traditions of the Indian subcontinent had its impact among writers and artists - and among a few renegades from Christianity, some of whom went so far as to start calling themselves Buddhists.

The effect Christian culture has had over the same period upon the Buddhist tradition's self-perception is less well known in the West. Some scholars now go so far as to contend that the very category "Buddhism,” is largely a European construct of comparatively recent origin.

Meantime, Christian monastics such as Thomas Merton, Wayne Teasdale, David Steindl-Rast and the former nun Karen Armstrong have put energy into Buddhist/Christian dialogue - as have, for their part, Buddhist monastics such as Ajahn Buddhadasa of Thailand, Thich Nhat Hanh from Vietnam and, most notably, the present Dalai Lama. They each see in the otherwise disparate teachings of Jesus and the Buddha a basic commonality of insight and purpose which offers the possibility, they say, of profound remedy to an ailing world. The historian of world culture Arnold Toynbee has speculated that in centuries to come the encounter between Christianity and Buddhism may come to be seen as the momentous event of the 20th century.

Buddhist culture & pre-Christian Greece

Further information: History of Buddhism

See also: Greco-Buddhism

From the time of Jesus or soon after: a statue of Siddartha Gautama preaching, in the Greco-Buddhist style of Gandhara, present-day Pakistan

The teachings of the Buddha had by the time of Jesus already spread through much of India, and had penetrated into Sri Lanka, Central Asia and China. They display certain similarities to Christian moral precepts more than five centuries later: the sanctity of life; compassion for others; rejection of violence; confession; and emphasis on charity and the practice of virtue. The populariser Will Durant, noting that the Emperor Ashoka sent missionaries not only to elsewhere in India and to Sri Lanka, but to Syria, Egypt and Greece, speculated in the 1930s that they may have helped prepare the ground for Christian teaching.

Early research in the West focused on possible Buddhist influence in Palestine and Greece during the five centuries before the birth of Christ. Interaction between Greek and Buddhist cultures happened over several centuries, until it came to an end in the 5th century CE with the invasions of the White Huns and, later, the expansion of Islam.

Mauryan proselytizing

See also: Greco-Buddhist monasticism

Ashoka ascended the throne of India around 270 BCE. After his conversion to the Buddha's teachings, he despatched missionaries to the four points of the compass; archeological finds indicate these missions had been "favorably received" in lands to the West.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus, one of the monarchs Ashoka mentions in his edicts, is recorded by Pliny the Elder as having sent an ambassador named Dionysius to the Mauryan court at Pataliputra: "India has been treated of by several other Greek writers who resided at the courts of Indian kings, such, for instance, as Megasthenes, and by Dionysius, who was sent thither by Philadelphus, expressly for the purpose: all of whom have enlarged upon the power and vast resources of these nations."

Records from Alexandria, long a crossroads of commerce and ideas, indicate that itinerant monks from the Indian subcontinent may have influenced philosophical currents of the time. Roman accounts centuries later speak of monks travelling to the middle east, and there is mention of an embassy sent by the Indian king Pandion, or Porus (possibly Pandya), to Caesar Augustus around 13 CE. The embassy was travelling with a diplomatic letter in Greek, and one of its members was a sramana who burned himself alive in Athens to demonstrate his faith. The event caused a sensation. It was described by Nicolaus of Damascus, who met the embassy at Antioch, and by Strabo (XV,1,73 ^[4]) and Dio Cassius (liv, 9). A tomb, still visible in the time of Plutarch, bore mention of:

"ΖΑΡΜΑΝΟΧΗΓΑΣ ΙΝΔΟΣ ΑΠΟ ΒΑΡΓΟΣΗΣ"
("The sramana master from Barygaza in India")

Expansion westwards of Buddhist culture

Main article: Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

Meanwhile, the Buddha's teachings had spread north-west, into Parthian territory. Buddhist stupa remains have been identified as distant as the Silk Road city of Merv. Soviet archeological teams in Giaur Kala, near Merv, have uncovered a Buddhist monastery, complete with huge buddharupa. Parthian nobles such as An Shih Kao are known to have adopted the faith and were among those responsible for its further spread towards China.

Christian awareness of Buddhism

See also: Buddhism and the Roman world

Some have suggested the Church Fathers were acquainted with Buddhist beliefs and practices. One recent reference work states: "Speculation concerning the influence of Buddhism on the Essenes, the early Christians, and the gospels is without historical foundation."

Buddhist tradition records in the Milinda Panha that the 2nd century BCE Indo-Greek king Menander converted to the Buddhist faith and became an arhat

A coin of the Indo-Greek king Menander I (r.160-135 BCE) with an eight-spoked wheel and a palm

The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria states in the 2nd century CE:

"Thus philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in antiquity among the barbarians, shedding its light over the nations. And afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks were the prophets of the Egyptians; and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians; and the Druids among the Gauls; and the Sramanas among the Bactrians ("Σαρμαναίοι Βάκτρων"); and the philosophers of the Celts; and the Magi of the Persians, who foretold the Saviour's birth, and came into the land of Judaea guided by a star. The Indian gymnosophists are also in the number, and the other barbarian philosophers. And of these there are two classes, some of them called Sramanas ("Σαρμάναι"), and others Brahmins (Βραφμαναι)."

— Clement of Alexandria "The Stromata, or Miscellanies" Book I, Chapter XV[21]

The virgin birth of Siddhārtha from the hip of his mother, Gandhara, 2-3rd century CE

The annunciation: the Virgin Mary supported by two attendants, wall painting, St Clement, Ohrid, Macedonia

Clement writes of the Buddha:^[5]

"Among the Indians are those philosophers also who follow the precepts of Boutta, whom they honour as a god on account of his extraordinary sanctity."

— Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (Miscellanies), Book I, Chapter XV

Early 3rd-4th century Christian writers such as Hippolytus and Epiphanius write of one Scythianus who visited India around 50 CE, whence he brought the "doctrine of the Two Principles". Scythianus' pupil Terebinthus supposedly presented himself as a “Buddha” ("he called himself Buddas" Cyril of Jerusalem) and became well known in Judaea. The same author says his books and knowledge were taken over by Mani, and became the foundation of the Manichean doctrine.

"Terebinthus, his disciple in this wicked error, inherited his money and books and heresy, and came to Palestine, and becoming known and condemned in Judaea he resolved to pass into Persia: but lest he should be recognised there also by his name he changed it and called himself Buddas."

— Cyril of Jerusalem, Sixth Catechetical Lecture Chapter 22-24

Hippolytus, a Greek-speaking Christian in Rome, around 235 includes Indian ascetics among sources of heresy:

There is ... among the Indians a heresy of those who philosophize among the Brahmins, who live a self-sufficient life, abstaining from (eating) living creatures and all cooked food . . . They say that God is light, not like the light one sees, nor like the sun nor fire, but to them God is discourse, not that which finds expression in articulate sounds, but that of knowledge (gnosis) through which the secret mysteries of nature are perceived by the wise.

The Syrian gnostic theologian Bar Daisan describes in the third century his exchanges with missions of holy men from India (Greek: Σαρμαναίοι, Sramanas), passing through Syria on their way to Elagabalus or another Severan dynasty Roman Emperor. His accounts are quoted by Porphyry (De abstin., iv, 17 ^[6]) and Stobaeus (Eccles., iii, 56, 141).

Barlaam & Josaphat

Main article: Barlaam and Josaphat

From a 12th century Greek manuscript: Saint Josaphat preaches the Gospel

The Greek legend of Barlaam and Ioasaph, sometimes mistakenly attributed to the seventh century John of Damascus but first recorded by the Georgian monk Euthymios of Athos in the eleventh, was ultimately derived, via Arabic and Georgian versions, from the life story of the Buddha. The king-turned-monk Ioasaph (Georgian Iodasaph, Arabic Yūdhasaf or Būdhasaf) also gets his name from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva, the term traditionally used to refer to Gautama before he becomes a buddha.

Barlaam and Ioasaph were placed in the Orthodox calendar of saints on 26 August, and in the Roman martyrology they were canonized (as "Barlaam and Josaphat") and assigned 27 November. The story was translated into Hebrew in the Middle Ages as "Ben-Hamelekh Vehanazir" ("The Prince and the Nazirite").

Theories

Possible Buddhist influence on Christianity

Early depiction of Jesus on a sarcophagus: Herault, France, 6th century. Louvre Museum

Some scholars have suggested that the semi-apocryphal Gospel of Thomas and the Nag Hammadi texts display Buddhist influence. Elaine Pagels in her widely noted The Gnostic Gospels (1979), and in Beyond Belief (2003), makes mention of such theories.

As far back as 1883, Max Müller, the pioneering scholar of comparative religion, asserted in his India: What it Can Teach Us: "That there are startling coincidences between Buddhism and Christianity cannot be denied, and it must likewise be admitted that Buddhism existed at least 400 years before Christianity. I go even further, and should feel extremely grateful if anybody would point out to me the historical channels through which Buddhism had influenced early Christianity."

Others, from time to time, have sought to comply with that request.

In The Gospel of Jesus in relation to the Buddha Legend, and again, in 1897, in The Buddha Legend and the Life of Jesus, Professor Rudolf Seydel of the University of Leipzig noted around fifty similarities between Buddhist and Christian parables and teachings.

In 1918, in his History of Religions, Professor E. Washburn Hopkins of Yale goes so far as to suggest that the "life, temptation, miracles, parables, and even the disciples of Jesus have been derived directly from Buddhism."

Much more recently, the historian Jerry H. Bentley notes "the possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity" and that scholars "have drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus".

In his Buddhism Omnibus Iqbal Singh similarly acknowledges the possibility of early interaction and, thus, influence of Buddhist teachings upon the Christian tradition in its formative period.

Burkhard Scherer, Professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at England's Canterbury Christ Church University has stated: "...it is very important to draw attention to the fact that there is [massive] Buddhist influence in the Gospels....Since more than a hundred years, Buddhist influence in the Gospels has been known and acknowledged by scholars from both sides." He adds: "Just recently, Duncan McDerret published his excellent The Bible and the Buddhist (Sardini, Bornato [Italy] 2001). With McDerret, I am convinced that there are many Buddhist narratives in the Gospels."

Thomas Tweed, Professor of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, notes that between 1879 and 1907 there were a "number of impassioned discussions about parallels and possible historical influence between Buddhism and Christianity in ... a variety of periodicals". By 1906 interest waned somewhat. In the end, Albert Schweitzer's conclusion appears to have been favored: that, although some indirect influence through the wider culture was "not inherently impossible", the hypothesis that Jesus' novel ideas were borrowed directly from Buddhism was "unproved, unprovable and unthinkable."

Buddhism and Gnosticism

Queen Maya with the infant Buddha. Gandhara, 2nd century CE.

Edward Conze and Elaine Pagels have suggested that gnosticism blends teachings like those attributed to Jesus Christ with teachings found in Eastern traditions.

Philip Jenkins writes that, since the mid-nineteenth century, new and fringe religious movements have often created images of Jesus, presenting him as a sage, philosopher and occult teacher, whose teachings are very similar to those of Asian religions. He asserts that the images generated by these religious movements share much in common with the images that increasingly dominate the mainstream critical scholarship of the New Testament, especially following the rediscovery of the Gnostic Gospels found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. He alleges that, in modern scholarly writing, Jesus has become more of a Gnostic, Cynic or even a crypto-Buddhist than the traditional notion of the reformist Jewish rabbi.

Jenkins acknowledges that "the Jesus of the hidden gospels has many points of contact with the great spiritual traditions of Asia." Pagels has written that "one need only listen to the words of the Gospel of Thomas to hear how it resonates with the Buddhist tradition... these ancient gospels tend to point beyond faith toward a path of solitary searching to find understanding, or gnosis." She suggests that there is an explicitly Indian influence in the Gospel of Thomas, perhaps via the Christian communities in southern India, the so-called Thomas Christians.

Of all of the Nag Hammadi texts, the Gospel of Thomas has the most similarities with Pure Land Buddhism within it. Edward Conze has suggested that Hindu or Buddhist tradition may well have influenced Gnosticism. He points out that Buddhists were in contact with the Thomas Christians.

Elaine Pagels notes that the similarities between Gnosticism and Buddhism have prompted some scholars to question their interdependence and to wonder whether "...if the names were changed, the 'living Buddha' appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas attributes to the living Jesus. " However, she concludes that, although intriguing, the evidence is inconclusive, since parallel traditions may emerge in different cultures without direct influence.

The "lost years" of Jesus & New Age theories

One tradition claims that Jesus traveled to India and Tibet during the "lost years" before the beginning of his public ministry. In 1887 a Russian war correspondent, Nicolas Notovitch, visited India and Tibet. He claimed that, at the lamasery or monastery of Hemis in Ladakh, he learned of the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men." His story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa," was published in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ. It was subsequently translated into English, German, Spanish, and Italian.

The "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" purportedly recounts the travels of one known in the East as Saint Issa, whom Notovitch identified as Jesus. After initially doubting Notovitch, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Abhedananda, journeyed to Tibet, investigated his claim, helped translate part of the document, and later championed his views..

Notovitch's writings were immediately controversial. The German orientalist Max Müller corresponded with the Hemis monastery that Notovitch claimed to have visited and Archibald Douglas visited Hemis Monastery. Neither found any evidence that Notovich (much less Jesus) had even been there himself, so they rejected his claims. The head of the Hemis community signed a document that denounced Notovitch as a liar.

Despite this contradictory evidence, a number of New Age or spiritualist authors have taken this information and have incorporated it into their own works. For example, in her book The Lost Years of Jesus: Documentary Evidence of Jesus' 17-Year Journey to the East, Elizabeth Clare Prophet asserts that Buddhist manuscripts provide evidence that Jesus traveled to India, Nepal, Ladakh and Tibet.

Parallels

According to Jerry Bentley, "Scholars have often considered the possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity. They have drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus" .

Oxford New Testament scholar' Barnett Hillman Streeter argued in the 1930s that the moral teachings of the Buddha display four remarkable resemblances to the Sermon on the Mount."

Parallel lives

Scholars see strong parallels in both the myth and life of Buddha and Jesus. Buddha and his disciples traveling preachers going into homes and preaching gospels to those who hear, is one obvious parallel of a literary motif not found in other traditions. Jesus too pursues this form of preaching and teaching.

Ernest De Bunsen states, "With the remarkable exception of the death of Jesus on the cross, and of the doctrine of atonement by vicarious suffering, which is absolutely excluded by Buddhism, the most ancient of the Buddhistic records known to us contain statements about the life and the doctrines of Gautama Buddha which correspond in a remarkable manner, and impossibly by mere chance, with the traditions recorded in the Gospels about the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ...."

Buddha	Jesus
Buddha the new born prince is adored and predicted by seer Asita and gods celebrate his birth.([7]SN 3.11 Nalaka Sutta)	Jesus the new born prince is adored and predicted by seers "from the east" who celebrate his birth. (Matthew 2)
Buddhist Trinity (Tiratna) and Baptism: "I take refuge, Lord, in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha." (DN 31) "Enough, I say, with this external bath. I am satisfied with this internal bath: confidence in the Blessed One." (SN 55.30 Licchavi Sutta)	Jesus Trinity and Baptism: "baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19).
Buddha is Sinless: "stainless, you illuminate all the worlds." Sn 2.14 Dhammika Sutta	Jesus is Sinless: "And in him is no sin." (1 John 3:5)
Buddha: Nirvana is Deathless" (Dhammapada 2:21-23)	Jesus: Everlasting Life: that God gave us everlasting life. (1 John 5:11)
Buddha holds nothing back: there is nothing, Ananda, with regard to the teachings that the Tathagata holds to the last with the closed fist of a teacher who keeps some things back. (Digha Nikaya, Mahaparinibbana Sutta,32)	Jesus holds nothing back: because a slave doesn't know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. (John 15:15)
Chosen ones of Buddha the Blessed One saw beings with little dust in their eyes (Samyutta Nikaya 6.1 Ayacana Sutta) He has long had little dust in his eyes. What if I were to teach him the Dhamma first? (MN 26 Ariyapariyesana Sutta)	Chosen ones of Jesus You did not choose Me, but I chose you. (John 15:16) (Matthew 9: 35 - 10: 8, Mark 3: 13 - 19, Luke 6: 12 - 18)
MARA AND BUDDHA Then Mara, the Evil One, knowing with his awareness the train of thought in the Blessed One's awareness, went to him and on arrival said to him: "Exercise rulership, Blessed One! Exercise rulership, O One Well-gone! Mara leaves Then Mara the Evil One — sad & dejected at realizing, "The Blessed One knows me; the One Well-gone knows me" — vanished right there. (Samyutta Nikaya 4.20 Rajja Sutta)	SATAN AND JESUS: And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Satan leaves 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4:1)
Buddha is the Truth and the Law: "He who sees the Dhamma, he sees me; he who sees me, sees the Dhamma."Kindred Sayings (III, Khandhaa-vagga, Middle Fifty, Ch 4, 87, Vakkali Sutta)	Jesus is the Truth and the Law:Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)
Buddha lectures priest on bloodless sacrifice: "But, Reverend Gotama, is there any sacrifice that is more profitable than these four?" "There is, Brahmin." "What is it, Reverend Gotama?" "Brahmin, if anyone with a pure heart undertakes the precepts - to refrain from taking life, from taking what is not given, from sexual immorality, from lying speech and from taking strong drink and sloth-producing drugs - that constitutes a sacrifice more profitable than any of these four."(Kutadanta Sutta)	Jesus lectures priest (Sadducees) on bloodless sacrifice: 33And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." (Mark 12:33)
Buddha calls priests blind O Vasettha, those brahmins who know the three Vedas are just like a line of blind men tied together where the first sees nothing, the middle man nothing, and the last sees nothing (Tevijja-Sutta, Dighanikaya, 13:15).	Jesus calls priests (Pharisees) blind Can the blind lead the blind? Won't they both fall into a pit? (Matthew 15:14).
Buddha sends missionaries"Go forth, o bhikkhus, for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the benefit, for the good, for the happiness of gods and men. Let not two go by one way. Preach the doctrine that is beautiful in its beginning, beautiful in its middle, and beautiful in its ending. Declare the holy life in its purity, completely both in the spirit and the letter.[Mahavagga Ch 5, Vinaya Pitaka]"	Jesus sends missionariesTherefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:19).
Buddha helps outcastes (Thag 12.2), lepers (Ud 5.3) and the courtesan like Ambapali (Digha Nikaya 16: Maha-parinibbana Sutta)	Jesus helps outcaste lepers (Luke 17:11-19) and "sinful women" like Mary Magdalene or Mary of Bethany (Luke 7:36-50)
Buddha declares: Open are the doors to the Deathless to those with ears. Let them show their conviction.[Ariyapariyesana Sutta]	Christ declares after defeating Satan: Repent! for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. —Matthew 4:17 Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear."(Mark 4:23)
Buddha can walk on water and walk through walls: He goes unimpeded through walls, ramparts, and mountains as if through space. He walks on water without sinking as if it were dry land. (Digha Nikaya 11:Kevatta Sutta)	Jesus can walk on water and walk through walls: And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. Mat 14:25 "Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them." (John 20:26)
Buddha and the Cross: "This, monks, is called a monk whose cross-bar is thrown off, 10 whose moat is filled in, whose pillar is pulled out, whose bolt is withdrawn, a noble one with banner lowered, burden placed down, unfettered. (Majjhima Nikaya 22:Alagaddupama Sutta I 139-140)	Jesus and the Cross: And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:27)
Buddha and the Sacrifice: This Purusa is all that yet hath been and all that is to be; (Rig Veda Purusha Sukta) Buddha is known as the MAHA PURUSHA. This Purusha is a human sacrifice or Purushamedha, from which all creation comes forth. "Maha -Purusha" in the Pali canon, the Digha Nikaya, in the discourse titled "Sutra of the Marks" (Pali: Lakkhana Sutta).Griffith (1899) :"man, the noblest victim, being actually or symbolically sacrificed ... and men and women of various tribes, figures, complexions, characters, and professions being attached to the sacrificial stakes in place of the tame and wild animals enumerated in Book XXIV [VS 24]. These nominal victims were afterwards released uninjured, and, so far as the text of the White Yajurveda goes, the whole ceremony was merely emblematical." The ceremony evokes the mythical sacrifice of Purusha, the "Cosmic Man", and the officiating Brahman recites the Purusha sukta to the assembled human victims (RV 10.90 = AVS 5.19.6 = VS 31.1–16). From the body of the Purusha all things come forth. In this human sacrifice, the Purusha is tied to a stake and symbolically killed.	Jesus and the Sacrifice: 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. (John 1) “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1) 12For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. (1cor 12:12)

Administrative structures

The administrative structures formed by Buddhism share the following similarities with those formed by Christianity:

• initiation into a holy trinity.
• monasticism and communal living for spiritual adherents which adhered to principles of practicing poverty and chastity.
• early Christian Councils reminiscent in organization to the Buddhist councils.
• missionaries and missions which were first organized and established by Buddhists, all predate the early Christian organizations in the same areas where Christianity was first established (Antioch, etc.).

The Buddha and Jesus

It has been asserted that the story of the birth of the Buddha was well known in the West, and possibly influenced the story of the birth of Jesus.

Saint Jerome (4th century CE) mentions the birth of the Buddha, who he says "was born from the side of a virgin" (the Buddha was, according to Buddhist tradition, born from the hip of his mother). The story of the birth of the Buddha was also known: a fragment of Archelaos of Carrha (278 CE) mentions the Buddha's virgin-birth.

Queen Maya came to bear the Buddha after receiving a prophetic dream in which she saw the descent of the Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) from the Tuṣita heaven into her womb, in the shape of a small white elephant. This story has some parallels with the story of Jesus being conceived in connection with the visitation of the Holy Spirit to the Virgin Mary.

The classical scene of the Virgin Mary being supported by two attendants at her side, may have been influenced by earlier iconography, such as the rather similar Buddhist theme of Queen Maya giving birth.

The iconography of Mary breastfeeding the child Jesus, unknown in the West until the 5-6th century (probable date of a frieze excavated in Saqqara), has also been connected to the much more ancient iconography of the goddess Hariti, also breastfeeding her child, and wearing Hellenistic clothes in the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara.

Teachings

"There are many moral precepts equally commanded and enforced in common by both creeds. It will not be rash to assert that most of the moral truths prescribed in the gospel are to be met with in the Buddhistic scriptures." Paul Ambroise Bigandet, Catholic Bishop of Ramatha

"He [Buddha] requires humility, disregard of worldly wealth, patience and resignation in adversity, love to enemies ... non-resistance to evil, confession of sins and conversion." Bishop Jean Paul Hilaire

Parallel lives

Scholars see strong parallels in both the myth and life of Buddha and Jesus. Buddha and his disciples traveling preachers going into homes and preaching gospels to those who hear, is one obvious parallel of a literary motif not found in other traditions. Jesus too pursues this form of preaching and teaching.

Ernest De Bunsen states, "With the remarkable exception of the death of Jesus on the cross, and of the doctrine of atonement by vicarious suffering, which is absolutely excluded by Buddhism, the most ancient of the Buddhistic records known to us contain statements about the life and the doctrines of Gautama Buddha which correspond in a remarkable manner, and impossibly by mere chance, with the traditions recorded in the Gospels about the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ...." Although other scholars, like Zacharias P. Thundy and Dr. Christian Lindtner claim that the ancient Buddhist play Mrrcchakatika was the Buddhist source for the Christian passion narative because of the numerous parallels.

Religious symbolism

An early Christian wheel-like ichthys symbol, created by combining the Greek letters ΙΧΘΥΣ, Ephesus

Christian Chi Rho pendant of Maria, wife of Honorius (398-407 CE). Musée du Louvre

T.W. Rhys Davids, son of a Congregationalist minister who was affectionately referred to as "the Bishop of Essex," was the earliest most energetic promoter of the Theravada tradition in the West. In 1878 he wrote of its northern counterpart: "Lamaism with its shaven priests, its bells and rosaries, its images and holy water, its popes and bishops, its abbots and monks of many grades, its processions and feast days, its confessional and purgatory, and its worship of the double Virgin, so strongly resembles Romanism that the first Catholic missionaries thought it must be an imitation by the devil of the religion of Christ."

The Buddhist Wheel of Dhamma

It is believed use of rosaries spread from India to Western Europe during the Crusades via its Muslim version, the tasbih. Some, however, suggest an alternative route. A form of prayer rope appears to have been used in Eastern Christendom much earlier; so, it is argued, the Muslim tasbih may in fact originate at a Christian source. Both, it is pointed out, have 33 beads, corresponding to the years of Christ's life.

Prayer with the palms touching one another, the anjali mudra, is a common form of greeting and prayer gesture in all Indian spiritual traditions, including the Buddhist. It is absent in Jewish traditions, whose scriptures specify raised or clasped hands. Prayer with the palms touching one another is, however, depicted in Christian art from the Middle Ages onwards.

In 1921, Sir Charles Eliot, writing of apparent similarities between Christian practices and their counterparts in Buddhist tradition, expressed the view that: " When all allowance is made for similar causes and coincidences, it is hard to believe that a collection of such practices as clerical celibacy, confession, the veneration of relics, the use of the rosary and bells can have originated independently in both religions."

Criticism

This article incorporates text from the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. There are a number of resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity:

• The Buddhist order of monks and nuns offers points of similarity with Christian monastic systems, particularly the mendicant orders.
• There are moral aphorisms ascribed to Buddha that are not unlike some of the sayings of Christ.
• Most of all, in the legendary life of Buddha, which in its complete form is the outcome of many centuries of accretion, there are many parallelisms, some more, some less striking, to the Gospel stories of Christ.

Prayer and benediction (raised index and major) gestures in an early Gandhara frieze (1st-2nd century CE). Guimet Museum.

A few scholars, taking for granted that resemblance indicates contact, or even dependence, have tried to show that Christian monasticism is of Buddhist origin, and that Buddhist thought and legend have been freely incorporated into the Gospels. To support this theory they point to the common ground held by Buddhism and Christianity, but do so without adequately accounting for instances of disparity between the two traditions. They ignore, for instance, the utter lack of atheist themes in Jesus' teachings. Were he truly schooled by Buddhists, there would likely be at least some indication of an awareness of atheism of the Buddhist type in Jesus' sayings. Furthermore, atheism and the associated Buddhist sensibilities would no doubt have been found by Jesus to be both incomprehensible and repellent. These scholars also fail to note Jesus' indebtedness to Jewish mysticism, and by championing a theory with virtually no historical evidence, fail to account for actual identifiable commonality between Jesus and those Jewish mystics of his own culture, of whom he would certainly be aware.

There is little historical basis for the assertion that Buddhist influence was a factor in the formation of Christianity and of the Christian Gospels. The rock-inscriptions of Asoka may bear witness to the spread of Buddhism over the Greek-speaking world as early as the third century BCE, since they mention the flourishing existence of Buddhism among the Yavanas, i.e. Greeks within the dominion of Antiochus. The Yavanas who received such Buddhist emissaries may only be the Greek-speaking peoples on the extreme frontier next to India, namely, Bactria and the Kabul valley, although Greek rulers as far as the Mediterranean are mentioned in the inscriptions. Also, the statement in the late Buddhist chronicle, Mahavansa, that among the Buddhists who came to the dedication of a great Stupa in Sri Lanka in the second century BCE, "were over thirty thousand monks from the vicinity of Alassada, the capital of the Yona country" is sometimes taken to suggest that long before the time of Christ, Alexandria in Egypt was the centre of flourishing Buddhist communities. It is true that Alassada is the Pali for Alexandria; but it is usually thought that the city here meant is not the ancient capital of Egypt, but as the text indicates, the chief city of the Yona country, the Yavana country of the rock-inscriptions, namely, Bactria and vicinity. And so, the city referred to is most likely Alexandria ad Caucasum.

Finally, there is little consensus on the origin (either of the time or the place) for much of modern Buddhist teachings, especially that of Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Sutras started to appear after 100 BCE, and most did not reach their final form until much later. It is therefore impossible to tell whether the philosophical similarities between Buddhism and Christianity was a result of coincidence, Buddhist influence, or some other sources that may have affected both religions. By the same token it is equally difficult to say the myth and life of Buddha affected the account of Jesus's life, instead of vice versa.

The exception is the story of the Buddha's spectacular conversion from prince to ascetic, transformed around the seventh century into the popular medieval tale of Barlaam and Josaphat. The Buddhist story was turned into a Christian legend, just as, contrariwise, fifth-century sculptures of Gospel scenes on the ruined monasteries of Jamalgiri in Northern Punjab are evidence that followers of the Buddha did not scruple on occasion to embellish their legend with adaptations from Christian sources.

Buddhist views of Jesus

Some Buddhists, including the present Dalai Lama regard Jesus as a bodhisattva who dedicated his life to the welfare of others.

Guanyin and the Virgin Mary

The goddess Hariti holding a baby on her lap has been considered as an iconographical source for the Virgin Mary. Gandhara, 2-3rd century.

Some have commented on the similarity between the Blessed Virgin Mary and Guan Yin . The Tzu-Chi Foundation, a Taiwanese Buddhist organization, also noticing the similarity, commissioned a portrait of Guan Yin and a baby that resembles the typical Madonna and Child painting.

Some Chinese of the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Philippines, in an act of syncretism, have identified Guan Yin with the Virgin Mary.

During the Edo Period in Japan, when Christianity was banned and punishable by death, some underground Christian groups venerated the Virgin Mary disguised as a statue of Kannon; such statues are known as Maria Kannon. Many had a cross hidden in an inconspicuous location.

Repression

In several Asian countries, Christian missionaries have attempted to convert as much as possible of the local population to Christianity. Buddhism in Sri Lanka was for several centuries heavily affected by Christian efforts to convert the population under subsequent Portuguese, Dutch and English colonizers. In the late 19th century a national Buddhist movement finally started, inspired by the American Buddhist Henry Steel Olcott, and empowered by the results of the Panadura debate between a Christian priest and the Buddhist monk Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera.

Other affected countries were South Korea and Thailand.

However in Japan Buddhists persecuted Christians.

In literature

H.G. Wells in his Outline of History draws parallels between what he sees as the essentially similar messages of the Buddha and of Jesus, and contends that in each case followers and priests distorted the original teachings. Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy suggests that Jesus-Buddha corresponds to a "feminine ideology," Nietzsche to a masculine, and that Plato-Socrates fall somewhere in between. Paul Carus's The Gospel of Buddha, published in 1894, was modeled on the New Testament and told the story of Buddha through parables.

Christopher Moore published in 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, a novel which seeks to fill in the "lost" years of Jesus from the point of view of Jesus' childhood pal, "Levi bar Alphaeus who is called Biff". They journey to the east, where they study Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist teachings.

See also

• Buddhism in the West
• Christianity in Japan
• Christianity and world religions
• Jesus Sutras

References

• Allegro, John, The Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls Revised, Grammercy Publishing Co., New York, 1981 (first published Penguin Books, 1956).
• Amore, Roy C., Two Masters, One Message, The Lives and the Teachings of Gautama and Jesus, Parthenon Press, Nashville, 1978.
• Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled (1877)
• de Silva, Lynn, A., The Problem of the Self in Buddhism and Christianity, Macmillan Press, London, 1979. -Reincarnation in Buddhist and Christian Thought, 1968.
• Derrett, J. Duncan M., The Bible and the Buddhists, Sardini 2000. ISBN 88-7506-174-2 [8] [9]
• Richard Garbe: Indien und das Christentum [10]
• Elmar R. Gruber & Holger Kersten. The Original Jesus: The Buddhist Sources of Christianity.
• Haring, Hermann & Metz, Johann-Baptist, eds., Reincarnation or Resurrection?, SCM Press, Maryknoll, 1993.
• Head, Joseph, & Cranston, S.L., eds., Reincarnation An East-West Anthology (Including quotations from the world's religions & from over 400 western thinkers), Julian Press, New York, 1961.
• Howe, Quincy, Jr., Reincarnation for the Christian, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1974.
• Johnston, William, S.J., Christian Zen, Harper & Row, 1971. ISBN 0823218015
• Leaney, A.R.C., ed., A Guide to the Scrolls, Nottinham Studies on the Qumran Discoveries, SCM Book Club, Naperville, Ill., 1958.
• Lefebure, Leo D., The Buddha and the Christ, Explorations in Buddhist and Christian Dialogue (Faith Meets Faith Series), Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 1993.
• Lillie, Arthur, Buddhism in Christendom or Jesus, the Essene, Unity Book Service, New Delhi, 1984 (first published in 1887). *India in Primitive Christianity, Kegan House Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1909.
• Lopez, Donald S. & Rockefeller, Steven C., eds., The Christ and the Bodhisattva, State University of New York, 1987. Phan, *Peter, ed., Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism, Paragon House, New York, 1990.
• Pye, Michael & Morgan, Robert, eds., The Cardinal Meaning, Essays in Comparative Hermeneutics: Buddhism and Christianity, *Mouton & Co., Netherlands, 1973.
• Radhakrishnan, S., Eastern Religions in Western Thought, Oxford University Press, 1939.
• Siegmund, Georg, Buddhism and Christianity, A Preface to Dialogue, Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, trans., University of Alabama Press, 1968.
• Smart, Ninian, Buddhism and Christianity: Rivals and Allies, Macmillan, London, 1993.
• Streeter, Burnett H., The Buddha and The Christ, an Exploration of the Meaning of the Universe and of the Purpose of Human Life, Macmillan and Co., London, 1932.
• Tweed, Thomas. The American Encounter With Buddhism, 1844-1912 : Victorian Culture & the Limits of Dissent. University of North Carolina Press.
• Tambyah, Isaac T., A Comparative Study of Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, Indian Book Gallery, Delhi, 1983 (first edition 1925).
• Walker, Susan, Speaking of Silence: Christians and Buddhists on the Contemplative Way, Paulist Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8091-2880-2.
• Yu, Chai-shin, Early Buddhism and Christianity, A comparative Study of the Founders' Authority, the Community, and the Discipline, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1981.
• Grabar, André (1968). Christian iconography, a study of its origins. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691018308.
• Foucher, Alfred (1994 (reprint)). The beginnings of Buddhist Art. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 8120609026. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

External links

• The Dalai Lama answers questions on Buddhism & Christianity
• Was Jesus a Buddhist?
• Similarities and differences 1
• Similarities and differences 2
• Christianity as explained by Buddhism
• Buddhist sources of the New Testament Gospels