THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. 327 



" That the name of Chrishna and the general outline of his 

 story were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, and prob- 

 ably to the time of Homer, we know very certainly." " The 

 Buddhists (a sect established one thousand years before Christ) 

 claim that his incarnation in the womb of a virgin was foretold 

 several thousand years before it came to pass." " In the Sanscrit 

 Dictionary, which was compiled more than two thousand years 

 ago, we have the whole story of the incarnate Deity born of a 

 virgin and miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reigning 

 tyrant of his country." "His birth was concealed through fear 

 of the tyrant Cansa, to whom it had been predicted that one born 

 at that time and of the royal line of Devaci would destroy him. 

 At the time of his birth the tyrant ordered all new born males 

 to be slain ; yet this wonderful babe was preserved by biting the 

 breast instead of sucking the poisoned nipple of a nurse commis- 

 sioned in this way to kill him." " He passed a life of a most 

 extraordinary and incomprehensible nature. He saved multitudes 

 partly by his arms, and partly by his miraculous powers. He 

 raised the dead by descending for that purpose to the lowest 

 regions. Pie was the meekest and best tempered of beings. He 

 washed the feet of the Brahmans and preached very nobly and 

 sublimely." a One sect of Hindoos hold that Chrishna was dis- 

 tinct from all other avatars (divine messengers) and that he was 

 the person of Vishnu (God) himself in human form." " Chrishna 

 is the last avatara, or manifestation of the Deity, who according 

 to their sacred books will reappear a little before the general dis- 

 solution of the world." 



Capt. Francis Wilford says (Asiatic Researches, vol. 10), " that 

 long before Christ a renovation of the universe was expected all 

 over the world, with a Saviour, a king of peace and justice. 

 This expectation is frequently mentioned in the Puranas. Vishnu 

 comforts the earth, his consort, and assures mankind that a 

 Saviour would come to redress their grievances and put an end 

 to the tyranny of demons, that he would be incarnated in the 

 body of a shepherd and be born of a virgin. The Brahminical 

 books declare that these prophecies were fulfilled in the person 

 of Chrishna ; and they relate that a miraculous star directed the 



