Part 86 (1/2)

[301:3] ”Of the high antiquity of Buddhism there is much collateral as well as direct evidence--evidence that neither internecine nor foreign strife, not even religious persecution, has been able to destroy. . . .

Witness the gigantic images in the caves of Elephanta, near Bombay and those of Lingi Sara, in the interior of Java, all of which are known to have been in existence at least four centuries prior to our Lord's advent.” (The Mammoth Religion.)

[301:4] Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 250.

[302:1] Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. vi.

[302:2] Ibid. pp. x. and xi.

[302:3] Ibid. pp. vii., ix. and _note_.

[303:1] Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 50.

[303:2] Quoted by Prof. Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. viii.

[303:3] Rhys Davids' Buddhism, p. 86.

[303:4] Science of Religion, p. 243.

[303:5] Rhys Davids' Buddhism.

[303:6] Ibid. p. 184.

”It is surprising,” says Rhys Davids, ”that, like Romans wors.h.i.+ping Augustus, or Greeks adding the glow of the sun-myth to the glory of Alexander, the Indians should have formed an ideal of their Chakravarti, and transferred to this new ideal many of the dimly sacred and half understood traits of the Vedic heroes? Is it surprising that the Buddhists should have found it edifying to recognize in _their_ hero the Chakravarti of Righteousness, and that the story of the Buddha should be tinged with the coloring of these Chakravarti myths?” (Ibid. Buddhism, p. 220.)

[303:7] In Chapter x.x.xix., we shall explain the _origin_ of these myths.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE EUCHARIST OR LORD'S SUPPER.

We are informed by the _Matthew_ narrator that when Jesus was eating his last supper with the disciples,

”He took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, _this is my body_. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it, _for this is my blood_ of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”[305:1]

According to Christian belief, Jesus _inst.i.tuted_ this ”_Sacrament_”[305:2]--as it is called--and it was observed by the primitive Christians, as he had enjoined them; but we shall find that this breaking of bread, and drinking of wine,--_supposed to be the body and blood of a G.o.d_[305:3]--is simply another piece of Paganism imbibed by the Christians.

The _Eucharist_ was inst.i.tuted many hundreds of years before the time a.s.signed for the birth of Christ Jesus. Cicero, the greatest orator of Rome, and one of the most ill.u.s.trious of her statesmen, born in the year 106 B. C., mentions it in his works, and wonders at the strangeness of the rite. ”How can a man be so stupid,” says he, ”as to imagine that which he eats to be a G.o.d?” There had been an esoteric meaning attached to it from the first establishment of the _mysteries_ among the Pagans, and the Eucharistia is one of the oldest rites of antiquity.

The adherents of the Grand Lama in Thibet and Tartary offer to their G.o.d a sacrament of _bread and wine_.[305:4]

P. Andrada La Crozius, a French missionary, and one of the first Christians who went to Nepaul and Thibet, says in his ”History of India:”

”Their Grand Lama celebrates a species of sacrifice with _bread_ and _wine_, in which, after taking a small quant.i.ty himself, he distributes the rest among the Lamas present at this ceremony.”[306:1]

In certain rites both in the _Indian_ and the _Pa.r.s.ee_ religions, the devotees drink the juice of the Soma, or _Haoma_ plant. They consider it a _G.o.d_ as well as a plant, just as the wine of the Christian sacrament is considered both the juice of the grape, and the blood of the Redeemer.[306:2] Says Mr. Baring-Gould:

”Among the ancient Hindoos, _Soma_ was a chief deity; he is called 'the Giver of Life and of health,' the 'Protector,' he who is 'the Guide to Immortality.' He became incarnate among men, was taken by them and slain, and brayed in a mortar. But he rose in flame to heaven, to be the 'Benefactor of the World,' and the 'Mediator between G.o.d and Man.' Through communion with him in his sacrifice, man, (who partook of this G.o.d), has an a.s.surance of immortality, for by that _sacrament_ he obtains union with his divinity.”[306:3]