A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s7.25

v2.c19.s7.25

Again, the parallel to the miracle of the feeding of the multitude, does not occur earlier than in the Jātaka commentary. Just as Jesus feeds 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes, the Buddhist narrative tells us that 500 monks were fed with a cake which increased of itself. There is, however, a considerable difference between the two. In the Gospel we have a miracle which Jesus performs in order to feed a multitude of poor people, and in which he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses, whilst in the Jātaka commentary we have a comical, not to say silly, fairy-tale, in which the miracle is performed by a saint in order to convert a miser. Indeed, the miracle of Jesus has more in common with the miraculous feeding of the children of Israel with quails and manna (Exodus XVI, cf. Numbers XI, 31 f.) than with the Buddhist fairytale.² There is also an account of a miracle of feeding in the Mahāyāna-Sūtra Vimala-Kīrti-Nirdeśa.¹ Many Bodhisattvas have assembled for a pious conversation. It is time for the meal, and by his miraculous power, Vimalakīrti causes a being from the world of sweet perfumes to produce a tiny fragment of food, which satisfies the whole assembly, and yet does not grow smaller. This miraculous feeding differs as widely from that of the Jātaka as it does from that of the Gospel. Finally, if we remind ourselves of the fairy-tale motif of "Table, fill thyself!", which has its counterpart even in the Mahābhārata² in the self-filling pot which was the gift of the sun-god, we shall come to the conclusion that all these miracles of feeding are but variations of a motif which could quite well crop up afresh as a new invention at different times and in different places.