Hindu and Buddhist Memes in Christianity
Living in the global village as we do, it is instructive to trace the origins of iconic stories within the palimpsest of culture, especially those that hold power over the religious imagination of people and have the potential to create discord. This will help celebrate humanity’s shared heritage and look at each other in friendship. Often it will reveal the tangled nature of our collective memories.
We know that the Panchatantra stories traveled west from India and became Kalilah wa-Dimnah in Arabic (after the names of the two jackals Karaṭaka and Damanaka). The name of the influential philosophical movement of Brethren of Purity (ikhwan al-safa) is itself traced to one of the Panchatantra stories as mentioned here: “The appellation is presumably taken from the story of the ringdove in Kalilah wa-Dimnah in which it is related that a group of animals by acting as faithful friends (ikhwan al-safa) to one another escaped the snares of the hunter.”[1]
These stories and others from the Kathāsaritasāgara were incorporated in The Thousand and One Nights. Scholars have also noted parallels between the Panchatantra and Aesop’s fables.
The origin of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, two of the most famous Christian saints of the Middle Ages is less widely known. This legend was so hugely popular that, from time to time, the Church announced that the relics of the two had appeared miraculously and were then installed with solemn ceremony. Barlaam and Josaphat found their way into the Roman Martyrology (27 November), and into the Greek calendar (26 August).
The legend tells how an Indian king persecutes his son, Josaphat, who astrologers have foretold, will establish the Christian Church. In due course, Josaphat meets the hermit Saint Barlaam and converts to Christianity. In the end, the prince’s father accepts the son’s conversion and retires to the desert to spend his last days with the old teacher. Church scholars now acknowledge that Barlaam and Josaphat is a play on the names Bhagavan and Bodhisattva, and it is a reworking of the story of Buddha’s enlightenment. The original story was a Mahayana text that was translated into Arabic and European languages [2]. Indeed, this legend should not startle us for St. Ann, St. Lucy, St. Denis and St. Brigid, represent pre-Christian deities Anna, Lucia, Dionysus and Brighid were similarly assimilated.
The echo of Indian stories in the early gospels and the influence of Vedanta and Buddhism on Gnosticism is also well accepted. In particular, the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas (which was discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945) resonates with Indian ideas of spirituality. Although scholars have focused primarily on the connections between the Buddhist sutras and the Gospels, this can be enlarged also to include the parallels between the life of Krishna and Jesus, and this is credible since many scholars acknowledge that Buddhism is essentially a continuation of the Vedic tradition (Sanātana Dharma) Below is a quote from the Sanskrit and New Testament scholar Christian Lindtner[3].
In earlier as well as later Indian Buddhist sources we can often read, that the Sramana Gautama is identified with Brahmā (m.), or Mahābrahmā, that his Dharma is identified with Brahman (n.), that he and his monks — those that follow the true mārga — are the true brahmans, in other words that the ratnatraya of Buddhism is the true form of Brahmanism. Furthermore, Brahman and Nirvana are used as synonyms (not just in Buddhist texts), the Buddha is said to know the Veda(s), and the purpose of following his teaching about Dharma (dharmadeśana) is to become one with Brahman.
There are, of course, numerous scriptural passages to the same effect: that Gautama was considered (and considered himself) an authority on matters of Brahman, that he, in other words, was considered as a Vedic scholar. The Buddha, in short, is the true Brahmā, who teaches about the true Brahman to his disciples, the true brahmans. If this is historically true, one can in this sense claim that ancient Buddhism is reformed Brahmanism.
New Testament parallels
The question of the possible relationship between the New Testament and Indian texts has a long history. The great philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) went so far as to suggest that the canonical gospels had an Indian basis [4]:
The New Testament … must be in some way traceable to an Indian source: its ethical system, its ascetic view of morality, its pessimism, and its Avatar, are all thoroughly Indian. It is its morality which places it in a position of such emphatic and essential antagonism to the Old Testament so that the story of the Fall is the only possible point of connection between the two.
The famed Indologist Max Müller also spoke of the connections [5]:
Between the language of The Buddha and his disciples, and the language of Christ and his apostles, there are strange coincidences. Even some Buddhist legends and parables sound as if taken from the New Testament, though we know that many of them existed before the beginning of the Christian era.
Rudolf Seydel believed that the originals of the events in the gospels are in the Lalitavistara Sūtra, and he listed fifty-one parallels. Some of these are virginal conceptions by Mary and Maya, the annunciation by the angels, the star in the east, the tree that bends down to aid the mother, and the old sage who predicts the child’s future.
Further specific parallels are in Luke’s infancy narrative, in the story of the good thief, the story of the temptation of Jesus, the prediction of his death as in John 12.34, or the story of the aged Simeon in Luke 2:25 (the Buddhist Asita), or the passage John 7:38.
It is hard to say that the Buddhist texts borrowed from the Christian gospels since the life stories of the Buddha were translated into Chinese from Sanskrit as early as the eleventh year of the reign of Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty (69 CE), and this is much prior to the time the gospels were written down.
Michael Lockwood’s book [6] summarizes the scholarly references on the connections between Buddhism and Christianity.
Another important perspective is the operation of the Church and the Buddhist temple. Our evidence comes from the French Lazarist missionaries, Evariste Huc, and Joseph Gabet, who were amongst the first Westerners to visit Lhasa in the 1840s. Their travels through Asia and Tibet were chronicled in Huc’s book Souvenirs d’un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine pendant les années 1844, 1845 et 1846. Huc was astonished by the similarities between Buddhist and Catholic rituals:
The cross, the miter, the dalmatica, the cope, … , the service with double choirs, the psalmody, the exorcisms, the censer at suspended from five chains, the benedictions given by the Lamas by extending the right hand over the heads of the faithful, the chaplet, ecclesiastical celibacy, spiritual retirement, the worship of the saints, the fasts, the processions, the litanies, the holy water, all these are analogies between the Buddhists and ourselves.
Huc explained the similarities in the borrowings by the Tibetans from the West. But Tibetan Buddhism has an old history that connects it to the Buddhist monasteries of China and India with ancient prescriptions of ritual and worship, and it is implausible it borrowed the practices of a remote creed. It is more likely that the Tibetan and the Catholic rituals have a common source.
Just over thirty years ago, Zacharias P. Thundy asserted that the gospels of Matthew and Luke have allusions to the Buddhist and Hindu traditions and the Indian influence on them is deep and pervasive [7]. There is also an intriguing Swami Vivekananda connection with many detailed parallels between Indian and Christian sources together with references [8].
More recently the Christian Lindtner looked at the Greek versions of the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and argued that much material in the gospels is a direct word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence translation of the corresponding Buddhist material [9].
He believes the original Sanskrit is from the mūla-sarvāstivāda-vinaya (MSV) and the saddharma-pundarīka-sūtra (SDP), also known as the Lotus Sūtra. The complete text of MSV was translated only in recent years and, therefore, this constitutes important new evidentiary material.
Lindtner argues that the Christian trinitas (trinity) corresponds to the triratna of Buddhism, which crowns a flag standard on the frieze sculptures at Sanchi that is a couple of hundred years before the birth of Christianity. He further claims that puns, symbols, codes, and parables were translated into the gospels, and there are obscure passages that only make sense in the Sanskrit original.
The parallels or borrowings do not reduce the differences between the practice of Christianity and Buddhism. Even if Christianity borrowed Buddhist stories, they were put to a quite different use.
Those who don’t believe in the theory of diffusion of motifs and stories would assert that all this is simply a coincidence.
Book of Revelation
Most biblical scholars agree that the author of the Book of Revelation of the New Testament is Ἰωάννης (Ioannes) or John of Patmos, who is not to be confused with John the Apostle. Patmos is an Aegean island off the coast of Roman Asia, where this John was exiled because of persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian (ruled from 81–96).
The Book presents a cosmic picture as is common in the Puranas: “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the Sun, with the Moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” (Revelation 12.1)
More significantly, it echoes the central idea of the Upaniṣads, that is there is no Sun or Moon lighting up the world of Ātman or Brahman, for it is the light and not a thing. As light, it is a transcendent presence that exists everywhere.
From the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (2.2.15) and the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (2.2.10).
There the Sun does not shine, nor the Moon, nor the stars;
lightning does not shine there, much less this earthly fire.
When That shines, everything shines after It;
by Its light, all this is illumined.
It says that the light of consciousness (Ātman or Brahman) is the source of all illumination, even beyond the physical lights of the cosmos. Echoing this but transposing it to the idea of a physical space, this is what John of Patros says of the Holy City: “The city does not need the Sun or the Moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light.” (Revelation 21.23)
The Japamālā and the Rosary
In the Indian tradition, the garland of prayer beads (rosary) has a very ancient history, and it goes back to the earliest times. The prayer beads come from the idea of mantra, where repetition of a name or sound has beneficial effects. The garland of prayer beads is called the Japamālā, where “japa” means “recitation” and “mālā” means “garland”.
The Japamālā has 108 beads (or its half, 54) and the reason behind this number is the central Vedic doctrine of the equivalence between the outer and the inner. In the outer world, the Sun and the Moon are approximately 108 times their respective diameters away from Earth, and so it is assumed that one can by taking the name of the divinity 108 times make a symbolic journey from the body to the inner Sun [10].
The word “rosary” [in the Christian context] comes from the Latin “rosarium, meaning “crown of roses” or “garland of roses”. According to Catholic scholars, in 1214 St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order, had a vision of Mary, inspiring him to spread the Rosary wherever he went. A standard rosary has 59 beads, a crucifix, and a medal. This count is rather random (53s Hail Mary plus 6 Our Father beads), whereas the 54 or 108 beads of the japamālā have a deep theological basis.
The mystery in the name is why should the Christian rosary have the reference to the crown or garland of roses. Lindtner suggested this was a simple mistake in the transmission of the Sanskrit original like in other material of the Gospels. The word “rosary” is a translation of the “japamālā” misheard as “japā-mālā” for the word “japā” means “rose” [as in japā-kusuma”, “rose-flower”]
Notes
This essay first appeared in Swarajya Magazine in February 2016. It is reprinted in a lightly revised version.
[1] P. K. Hitti. History of the Arabs, Revised, 10th Ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
[2] J.C. Hirsh (ed.). Barlam and Iosaphat: a Middle English life of Buddha. Oxford University Press, 1986.
[3] C. Lindtner, From Brahmanism to Buddhism. Asian Philosophy, 9, 217–246, 1999.
[4] A. Schopenhauer, Religion: A Dialogue and Other Essays. (tr. by T.B. Saunders). George Allen and Unwin, 1899.
[5] M. Müller, Introduction to the Science of Religion. London, 1873.
[6] M. Lockwood, Buddhism’s Relation to Christianity. Tambaram Research Associates, 2010. https://www.academia.edu/32342417/Buddhism_s_Relation_to_Christianity
[7] Z. P. Thundy. Buddha and Christ: Nativity Stories and Indian Traditions (Studies in the History of Religions). Brill, 1993.
[8] Sandeep, Parallels between Buddha and Jesus. https://auromere.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/parallels-between-buddha-and-jesus/#more-8619
[9] C. Lindtner, Buddhist sources of the New Testament Gospels. https://jesusisbuddha.com/CLT.html
[10] S. Kak, The astronomy of the Vedic altars and the Ṛgveda. Mankind Quarterly 33, 43–55, 1992. https://www.academia.edu/45160914/The_Astronomy_of_the_Vedic_Altars_and_the_Rgveda
