Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.34

c8.34

We need not cite any more fabulous embellishments of this description: their character cannot be mistaken. As it seemed to the Christian Church an obvious necessity, that all power and excellence, which the prophets of the Old Testament possessed, must have dwelt with enhanced glory in the person of Jesus, it was in the same way natural that the Buddhists should attribute to the founder of their Church all wonders and perfections, which, in the Indian mind, were attributed to the most powerful heroes and sages. Among the foundations, on which Indian intuitions rest, regarding that which pertains to an all-powerful hero and conqueror of the world, the ancient nature-myth, the original signification of which had long since ceased to be understood, is obviously not wanting; and thus it is not a matter of surprise, if one and another of the traits which were mentioned in the circles of monks and lay-disciples as indicating the nobility of Buddha, comes at last through many media to be connected with that which many centuries before, among the herdsmen and peasants of the Vedic age, and much earlier still among the common forefathers of the Indian, Grecian, and German stocks, popular fancy had associated in song with the sun-hero, the beaming type of all earthly heroism. This is the element of propriety which cannot be denied to Senart's theory of the solar Buddha.