The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 270
270. Essence of Islam-III faith and its teachings, the Metteyya would appear in this country and re-establish these moral teachings in the world. We find that Jesus appeared 500 years after the. Buddha and, just as the Buddha had foretold the time for the decline of his faith, Buddhism suffered deterioration and decadence. It was then that Jesus, having escaped from the cross, travelled to these areas where the Buddhists recognized him and treated him with great reverence. . . . . It must be noted that the name Metteyya in Buddhist literature undoubtedly refers to the Messiah. On page 14 of the book Tibet, Tartary, Mongolia by H. T. Prinsep, it is written about the Metteyya Buddha, who in reality is the. Messiah, that the first Christian missionaries, having heard and seen at first conditions obtaining in Tibet, came to the conclusion that in the ancient books of the. Lamas there were to be found traces of the Christian religion. On the same page it is stated that there is no doubt about it that these earlier writers believed that some disciples of Jesus were still alive when the Christian faith reached there. On page 171 it is stated that there is not the slightest doubt that at that time everybody was eagerly waiting for the great Saviour to appear. Tacitus says that the Jews were not the lone holders of this belief,. Buddhism too was responsible for laying the foundations of this expectation, inasmuch as it prophesied the coming of Metteyya. The author of the English work has moreover added a note to the effect that the books Pitakattayan and Attha-katha contain a clear prophecy about the advent of another Buddha who would appear a thousand years after Gautama or Sakhiya Muni. Gautama states that he is the twenty-fifth Buddha and that the Bagwa. Metteyya is still to come, that is why after he has gone,