A Message of Peace — Page 20
M ESSAGE OF P EACE 20 homeland. Even now, the Hindus view Buddhism with disdain and they begrudge its success. According to Jesus Christ (peace be on him) ‘ A Prophet is not without honour save in his own country. ’ 12 Buddha migrated to another country and gained tremendous success there. It is reported that one third of the world is populated by the followers of Buddha. As far as the large majority of adherents is concerned, the real centre lies in China and Japan, but his message has reached as far as Southern Russia and America. Now we return to the original subject of discussion: the age when one religion was unaware of the existence of the other. In that general state of ignorance, it was but natural that every people should have considered their own religion and their own book to be the only one. Eventually when coun- tries became linked to each other through the spread of knowledge, this trend of monopolising God resulted in the creation of another obstacle in the path of mutual under- standing. People began to expect the religions in every other country to agree with theirs, or else they stood rejected. It was no easy task to rid such religions of the poetical exaggera- tions built around them over the ages. So the followers of every religion braced themselves to vehemently oppose the other. So, also, the religion of Zend-Avesta raised the flag with the claim that, ‘No one else is like us’ and they monop- olised the institution of prophethood to their own family. They related such a long history of their religion, that those who used to pride the longevity of Vedic history were put to shame. 12. See ( Mathew, 13:57) and ( Mark, 6:4). [Publisher]