Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.65

c8.65

We know about Buddha's native country and about the family from which he came. We know about his parents, the early death of his mother, and about her sister, who brought up the boy. We know a number of other facts which extend over the several parts of his life. It would indeed be quite inconceivable, even in India, if the Church which called itself by the name of the son of the Sakya house had, within a century after his death, ceased to preserve, even though veiled in legend, a correct memory of the most important names of the persons round Buddha, and of certain leading public events in his life. Who would admit it possible for the memory of Joseph and Mary, of Peter and John, of Judas and Pilate, of Nazareth and Golgotha, to be forgotten or supplanted by inventions in the early Christian Churches of the first century? Here, if anywhere, it is fair to accept simple facts as such.