Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c13.65

c13.65

A great deal has been made, by Weber and others, of the supposed resemblances between the Kṛṣṇa legend and the Gospel story². Nanda, the foster-father of Kṛṣṇa, goes up to Mathurā to pay his taxes (kara) to Kamsa; Kṛṣṇa is born in a cow-shed (gokula); the wicked Kamsa, in order to slay him, massacres the infants of Mathurā; Kṛṣṇa raises the son of a widow from the dead; Kubjā anoints him with precious ointment, and so forth. But these parallels (with the possible exception of the "Massacre of the Innocents") are vague and unsatisfactory, in spite of the vast amount of ingenuity which has been expended on them. Still less convincing are the parallels between the Gospels and the *Bhagavad Gītā*, collected with such industry by Lorinser¹. In the same way, Weber takes the incident in the *Mahābhārata* of the visit of Nārada and other Sages to the mysterious island of *Śvetadvīpa* or White Island, to be a poetical account of an actual visit on the part of some Indian travellers to Alexandria or Persia or some other Christian country. The description of the White Island is purely imaginary, and there is no reason to suppose that any reference to Christianity is intended in the remotest fashion². Even less satisfactory are the supposed parallels between the life of Gautama and that of Christ. It is, however, probable that the striking resemblances which Lamaist ritual of to-day bears to Catholic ceremonies may be due to the influence of the Christian Church in Persia. These resemblances seem to be something more than coincidence. They startled the Abbé Huc when he visited Lhassa in 1842. "The crozier, the mitre, the chasuble, the cardinal's robe, . . . the double choir at the Divine Office, the chants, the exorcism, the censer with five chains, the blessing which the Llamas impart by extending the right hand over the heads of the faithful, the rosary, the celibacy of the clergy, their separation from the world, the worship of saints, the fasts, processions, litanies, holy water,—these are the points of contact which the Buddhists have with us¹.''