ON KRISHNA, AND SOLAR MYTHS. 185 
It would be very hard to prove any connexion between that document which 
has lain hid in the Egyptian tomb for all these years, and the Nicene Creed, 
as drawn up solong afterwards. There is hardly any old poem in the Vedic 
literature to which you can turn, in which you do not find such similarities. 
It is reasonable to suppose that religious thoughts and feelings which are 
the outpourings of human minds and hearts, often find expression to a certain 
extent in the same form, and actuated by the same influences, so that we 
may frequently find similarities where it would be very difficult to prove 
the slightest connexion. 
Tue AvutHuor.—There has been so formidable an array of objections to 
my paper that I am afraid I shall not be able in the time at our disposal 
to reply even to a tithe of them. There are, however, one or two points that 
have struck me somewhat differently from the rest. I think the description 
of Krishna as a perfect man, and also as the embodiment of the will of the 
Supreme Being, is very different from all the pictures, as far as I have studied 
them, both of Hindooism and the heathenism of other nations. There was 
no idea more common than that the Gods descended in human form ; no 
idea more common than that which made man divine ; but when we come to 
Krishna, and consider his person and teaching, we have such an evident 
resemblance in his most prominent features to the more prominent features 
of the Saviour’s nature and teaching, that we feel there must have been some 
reason for it. If the similarity is merely the result of philosophic thought or 
of man’s imagination it would seem wonderful indeed ; but we have, further 
than this, the fact that there are a great many similarities in other directions, 
as Mr. Boscawen has remarked ; and I would ask, how is it that so many 
of the heathen gods, according to the latest descriptions of them, are so very 
like the Saviour oftentimes in His manifestations, and very often, also, in 
His teachings,—why, for instance, should there be the wonderful idea of 
birth from a virgin in so many cases as Mr. Proctor affirms? We shall find 
that a great number of these histories were written only for the purpose 
of upsetting Christianity ; as, for instance, in the notorious history of 
Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus, to gratify Julia Domna, as also in 
the transformation of the Persian Mithras by Manes. There is one 
particular point to which attention ought to be specially directed, and 
that is the incongruity between the character of Krishna and his teachings 
as developed in the Gita. There is also the same incongruity between the 
teachings of Buddha and the history of his character, as given in the latest 
Buddhist writings. 
Mr. Boscawen.—There is just one thing I should like to add. I do not 
quite see the force of Mr. Collins’ argument with regard to these similarities. 
If they are to be traced to the influence of Christianity, how does he account 
for the resemblances which we know are to be found long before the time of 
Christ ? I do not know whether he has read the Speaker’s Commentary, in 
which some remarkable resemblances are stated by one who has no bias on 
the ‘side of Assyrian studies, and he finds a curious similitude between 
Merodach of the Babylonian literature, and the Messiah of the Hebrew 
