195 



" Jolin was a Gnostic, whicli word lias the same meaning as 

 Buddhist," and the evidence is assumed to be complete that 

 John the Baptist inherited Buddhistic lore.* These seem 

 to me to be gratuitous assumptions of the most ghost-like 

 consistency. 



6. Another assumption of the same author is that the 

 pecuHar name which Gautama Buddha so often applies to 

 himself, Tathdgata,-\ means "he that should come.'' It is 

 difficult to see how the word, mysterious though it may be, 

 can be twisted to such a meaning. Dr. Oldenberg translates 

 the same word by " the perfect one." There is, at all events, 

 not much in common between the two ideas ; but, whatever 

 be the real import of TatJidgata (literally, such a one, or, 

 having arrived at such a state or condition), our author para- 

 phrases it, to assimilate it to the phraseology of the New 

 Testament, by certain words of John the Baptist, or, as he 

 calls hira, the Essene ; and, in accordance with this transla- 

 tion of the name, he speaks of the owner of it as the ChriM of 

 tlie Buddhists. He asserts that the Hindus, 600 years before 

 the Christian era, were in possession of prophecies of a coming 

 Messiah, and that they recognised the fulhlment in Gautama 

 Buddha. Thus he says : — " Gautama Buddha, the preacher 

 of a ' tradition from beyond,' from a supermundane world, 

 Avas regarded as one of the incarnations of the first of seven 

 Archangels, of Serosh, the Vicar of God, and the first among 

 the co-creators of the universe." All this would be extremely 

 curious could a single passage be found in the Pali texts to 

 show that the early Buddhists regarded the founder of their 

 sect as the incarnation of any one. An incarnation in this 

 sense is foreign to the character of early Buddhism alto- 

 gether, and certainly is not consonant to the Buddhistic 

 doctrines as to the Kamma, or Karma, in relation to succes- 

 sive births. Nor can it be shown that the Buddhists knew 

 anything of " Serosh, the Vicar of God, and the first among 

 the co-creators of the universe." Nor is there any real proof 

 of so intimate a connexion between Buddhism and Parsism in 

 doctrine, as Mr. Bunsen postulates. Indeed, the very transla- 

 tion of prZrrr^a/i'a by 'tradition from beyond " is an illustra- 

 tion of how Mr. Bunsen likes to bring distant analogies too 

 near, if they only suit his purpose. The Sanscrit pdravttfa, 

 is, no doubt, analogous in its derivation to the Latin word 



* Bnnsen's Anqcl-Mestiiah, pp. 148 ct seq., and 343. 

 + Ibid., pp. 1 Sand 341. 



