Where Did Jesus Die? — Page 188
? 188 events of Buddha’s life had not been recorded until the time of Jesus. (a) The Buddhist priests, therefore, had a great opportunity to ascribe to Buddha, anything they wished to ascribe. After relating some examples of the moral teaching, the Promised Messiah as writes:— Let it be considered, that these moral teachings and this mode of preaching, i. e. , speaking in parables (which was the method of Jesus), combined with other circumstances at once suggests that this was imitation of the teach- ing of Jesus. When Jesus was in India and preached here and there, then the followers of Buddhism met him, and finding him a holy person and man of blessings, recorded these events in their books—Nay, they declared him to be the Buddha, for it is human nature to try and hold a good thing wherever found; so much so, that people try to note and remember any clever remark made by any person before them. (a) Dr. Eitel writes: ‘It can be proved that almost every single tint of this Christian colouring which Buddhist tradition gives to thelife of Buddha is comparatively of modern origin. There is not a single Buddhist M. S. in existence which could vie. in antiquity and undoubted authenticity, with oldest codices of the Gospels. ’ (Eitel: Lectures on Buddhism, 3rd ed. , London, 1884, p. 16) Dr. Hermann Oldenberg writes: ‘It must be premised as a cardinal state- ment: a biography of Buddha has not come down to us from ancient times, from the age of Pali texts, and we can safely say no such biogra- phy was in existence then. ’ (Oldenberg: Buddha, His Life, His Doctrine, Order, p. 78, William and Norgate, 1882)