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Mr. Collins speaks of the influence of the Christians in India, I think there 

 can be no doubt that he is right. In the Dabistan, a work that has not 

 been sufficiently read, we find an account by an unknown author, so judicial 

 in its character that it is impossible to say to what religion the writer belonged. 

 It is suggested that he was a Shiah Mussulman. Nevertheless, we find plenty 

 there about Christians. With regard to the iuscriijtions that have been 

 spoken of, we find that there is one preserved in the Delhi Museum. There 

 are other inscriptions elsewhere in Armenian, and plenty more in Pahlawi. 

 So much about the influence of Christianitj', if you move only within a 

 limited range ; but the moment you go to the region of conjecture, and 

 consider how far Indian civilisation aftected Greece, you have nothing but 

 philology to depend on. History there ceases ; whereas, when you say the 

 Greeks have influenced India, history helps you on, for we know they have 

 been there. Again when you say that Buddhism was prior to Christianity 

 in its teaching, if you examine the matter and go to the facts, it is very 

 difficult to show how far the disciples of Buddha went ; although we know 

 he sent them beyond the Himalayas. How far they may have aftected the 

 Alexandrine teaching is a matter which at once removes us from the sphere of 

 the actual. But when you inquire, Did Christian missionaries go to Thibet? 

 you find, as I have shown, that they did, and that they left a ritual behind 

 them. It all depends on where you draw the line. Therefore, without 

 presuming to decide a question on which so many learned doctors apparently 

 disagree, I will say a few words about Buddha. Buddha, as you may know, is 

 a word which is the same as But, the common Muhamraedau word for idol ; 

 and typical idolatry, among the Arabs, was represented, not so much by 

 idols as by putting forward the doctrine of the admiration of Buddha, whose 

 image was represented more numerously, although only a revered teacher, 

 than that of, perhaps, any other real idol in Asia. Consequently you find 

 that you have, in the beginning of the eighth century, in the distant tribes 

 of Arabia, the word But, as explaining what was idolatry to them. As 

 to Brahma, I do not know whether it would be right for me to throw out the 

 conjecture, that Brahma was never a really personal god. It was subsequently 

 to the " abstraction " of Brahma that the single temple in India to that deity 

 Avas built ; such a god as Brahma could not have existed, — for this reason, 

 that Brahma is the great human mind and yearning, and that this is 

 represented primarily by the Brahmins as a corporate body, and then 

 by a personification of that body. Italian has, by a curious coincidence, 

 preserved the spirit of the word in "bramo," — " I desire." What was 

 meant by the word "Brahma " ? In Brahniinism you see asceticism, and are 

 told that by study and the practice of a pure life, and by an acknowledg- 

 ment of the evidences of sin, and by sacrifices — to which a remarkable 

 reference has been made, — you can gradually rise to a position far above 

 even that of the gods, because, by struggling with your own passions, and 

 by having succeeded in subduing them, you have accomplished what 

 you have had a yearning after all your life. In the personification of the 



