Jesus In India — Page 86
86 J e s u s i n I n d i a extent that the Buddha’s age at the time was nearly the same as Jesus’. As it appears from Buddhist literature, the Devil did not appear to the Buddha in a corporeal and personified form. It was only a vision seen by the Buddha and the talk of the Devil was a satanic inspiration. The Devil, as he appeared to him, suggested to the Buddha that he should abandon his course and follow him and that if he did so, he would give him all the wealth of the world. Likewise, Christian scholars believe that the Devil who appeared to Jesus did not come to him in any corporeal form, like a human being, before the very eyes of the Jews, traversing the streets in his physical body and talking to Jesus so as to be audible to those present. On the contrary, the meeting was of the nature of a vision seen only by Jesus. The talk too was a kind of inspiration. As is the Devil’s old wont, he put his evil intentions into Jesus’ heart, which Jesus did not accept, and, like the Buddha, rejected all the Devil’s temptations. The question now arises as to why there was so much resemblance between the Buddha and Jesus. The Aryas in this connection say that Jesus, God forbid, became acquainted with Buddhism in the course of his journeys in India, and having acquired knowledge of the facts of Buddha’s life, incorporated them in the Gospel on return to his native country; that Jesus composed his moral precepts by plagiarizing the moral teaching of the Buddha, and that just as the Buddha called himself the Light and Knowledge and adopted other titles, so did Jesus assume all such titles, so much so, that, even the long story of the Temptation of the Buddha was appropriated by him. This, however, is no more than a dishonest fabrication by the Aryas. It is quite