546 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[October 1, 1886. 



by the comparison between the splendour of the position he 

 was to abandon and the poverty in which lie afterwards 

 lived ; and in countries distant from Kapilavastn the incon- 

 sistencies between such glowing accounts and the very names 

 they contain passed unnoticed by credulous hearers," * — as 

 has happened since. 



Hardy mentions in his " Manual of Buddhism," p. 1-41, 

 the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Maya. On this 

 point Mr. Rhys Davids remarks, dealing always, however, 

 with ideas which he regards as purely legendary, " As a 

 dagaba holding sacred relics cannot be used to guard any 

 less sacred object, so ' the Buddha's ' mother can bear no 

 other child, and on the seventh day after his birth she dies." 

 There is no historical authority, it need hardly be said, for 

 Maya's death in this manner, any more than there is for her 

 perpetual virginity. But it corresponds well with the solar 

 ideas which had existed for ages before Gautama's time, and 

 were bound in due course to gather around his story when 

 he had been dead long enough for the real facts to be for- 

 gotten. For, soon after the birth of the sun-god of the year, 

 the constellation of the Virgin, which had been on the 

 horizon visibly at dawn, was lost in his light. Whether we 

 consider the daily or yearly apparent motion of the sun, the 

 constellation would disappear soon after the appearance of 

 the sun-god — in one case as his light invaded the heavens, 

 in the other as his progress carried him forwards from the 

 constellation, so that when dawn approached the constella- 

 tion had already set. The interpretation may be varietl (but 

 is by no means necessarily done away with) if other natural 

 symbolisms are recognised for Maya. 8he may represent, as 

 M. Senai't suggests, the sovereign creative power, or, as the 

 same writer thinks possible, she may be the half-obscure 

 goddess of the vapours of the morning, dying away from the 

 first hour in the dazzling I'adiance of her sun. " In reality," 

 he remarks, " she survives under the name of the Creatress, 

 the nurse of the universe," just as Isis survived, and as 

 Mary survives according to Catholic ritual, as Lux perpetua, 

 Turris eburnea, Stella Maris, and, above all, as Regina Cceli 

 — " Queen of Heaven." 



Before leaving this point, I may note that as there is 

 abundant authority for one part of the description, " virgin- 

 born saviour," so is there for the other. I cannot do better 

 than quote here the opinion of M. I'Abbe Hue, the well- 

 known French missionary in the East. In speaking of the 

 Buddha he says, " In the ej'es of Bviddhists this personage 

 is sometimes a man, at others a god. Or, rather, he is both 

 one and the other — a divine incarnation, a man-god, who 

 came into the world to enlighten men, to i-edeem them, and 

 to point out to them the path of salvation. . . . This idea of 

 redemption by a divine incarnation," adds M. Hue, " is .so 

 general and popular among the Buddhists that, dm-ing our 

 travels in Uj)per Asia, we everywhere found it expressed in 

 a neat formula. If we addressed to a Mongol or a Thiliefcui 

 the question, ' Who is the Buddha?' be would immediately 

 reply, 'The Saviour of Men'" ("Hue's Travels," vol. i., 

 pp. 326, 327). This must have rather startled a Catholic 

 missionary. 



MYTHS OF THE SUN-GOD'S BIRTH. 



We have now to show that the ancient sun-myths agreed 

 in presenting the three following features : — First, the sun- 

 god was announced by a star ; secondly, he was born in a 

 cave ; and thirdly, sacrificial oflerings were presented to 

 him. 



Taking a few of the undoubted representatives of the 

 sun-god, we find Osiris (virgin-born) was announced by a 

 star in the east on December 25, or three days after the 



* Khys Davids' " Buddhism," pp. 182, 183. 



winter solstice. He was exposed in effigy to the adoration 

 of the people in the form of a babe lying in a manger (see 

 the " Chronicles of Alexandria," an ancient Christian work *), 

 offerings of precious articles and perfumes being made by 

 the people through the priests or wise men. 



Horus, the other Egyptian sun-god, also virgin-born, was 

 in like manner worshipped at Christmas time, his image as 

 a babe laeing placed in a specially sacied inmost recess of the 

 temple known as the birthplace of Horus. The people 

 passed through the holy adytum to worship before this 

 sacred recess ; but at Christmas time the image was brought 

 out of the sanctuary with special cei'emonies. 



Mithras, the Persian sun-god, whose arrival was announced 

 by a group of stars, was born in a cave or grotto at early 

 dawn. He was visited by Magi, and presented with gifts of 

 gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 



Adonis, or Thammuz, was placed in a cave shortly after 

 birth. 



Of Apollo and Bacchus, both sun-gods, we have the same 

 account. 



Crishna, whose birth had been announced by a special 

 star, was born in a cave and cradled among herdsmen. 

 After his birth the Indian prophet Nared, having heard of 

 his fame, visited his mother and reputed father at Clakool, 

 examined the stars, and declared him to be of divine 

 descent. Crishna received the adoration of the shepherds 

 as a heaven-born child, and was presented with gifts of 

 sandal-wood and perfumes. 



The birth of the Buddha (Gautama) was announced in 

 the heavens by an asterisui which was seen rising above the 

 eastern horizon. Bunsen tells us it was called the Messianic 

 star, a term no doubt corresponding with the name given by 

 astronomers to the star whose heliacal rising announced the 

 birth of the sun of the new year. He was visited at his 

 birth by a prophet Asita, and by wise men, who hailed him 

 as the God of Gods at dawn. " Asita wept at the thought 

 that he himself was too old to see the day when the law of 

 salvation would be taught by the infant whom he had come 

 to contemplate." f The Buddha's virgin mother, jMaia, was 

 on a journey at the time of his birth, and according to one 

 account he was born under a tree, while another assigns an 

 inn as his birthplace. This variety, by the way, characterises 

 many of the stories of the birth of solar gods and heroes ; 

 for while Apollo, according to one story, was bom in a cave 

 at dawn, according to another he was born under a tree, his 

 mother being on a journey. The same story is told of the 

 birth of Lao-tsze, the Chinese virgin-born Teacher. It may 

 further be remarked that though the Gospel according to 

 Matthew speaks of the birthplace of Christ as a house or 

 inn ; while that according to Luke speaks of it as a stable 

 ( and alone repeats the story of the taxing, which is taken 



* Pigord says : — " Deinceps Egyptii parituram Virginem magno 

 iu honore habuerunt ; quin soliti sunt pueruni effingere jacentem in 

 prajsepe, quali postea in Bethlehemetica speluncd natus est." 



f Jataka, 54. I liave quoted from Viscount Amberk'y's analysis, 

 'but would refer tlie reader to Mr. Ehys Davids' " Buddhism," p. 18.5. 

 Of course it must be understood that these details gatlierod only in 

 long later ages around tlie record of Gautama. As in all other 

 cases in which liistoric persons have come to be associated with 

 ideas belonging to solar mytlis, there is not a particle of real 

 evidence in Gautama's case in favour of any events of a supernatural 

 character having attended the conception and birth of the future 

 teacher, or having marked any part of his career even until liis 

 death. W'c have not quite such decisive evidence in his case as we 

 liave in later stories (specially in the record of Mahomet ) to show 

 that no miraculous events actually marl^ed the career of the teacher. 

 But inasmuch as we have no evidence whatever that such events 

 occurred (for old tales, composed long after all contemporaries had 

 passed away, assuredly do not count as evidence), and as only over- 

 whelming evidence could convince reasoning men that such events 

 were supposed by contemporaries to have happened, we may quite 

 safely dismiss all such stories to their appropriate limbo. 



