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the buildings to a condition that will at least give us some idea of their origin, 

 construction, and intention 1 



Professor T. W. Rhys Davids. — I have listened with great pleasure to 

 Mr. CoUins's instructive paper. I am very glad to see that now Mr. Collins, 

 Avhom I recollect when I was in Ceylon, is here in England, he has not 

 forgotten what he learned when he was in that part of the world, but is able 

 to bring questions such as this before the Victoria Institute. The question 

 he has dwelt with to-night is, however, one of such magnitude, that it is 

 absolutely impossible to do full justice to it within the short limits of such 

 a paper as he could place before you, or in any s^^eech that could be made 

 upon it. I can only advert to the remarks I have made in my Hibbert 

 lectures on this subject. As Mr. Collins has pointed out, there are two 

 great elements of resemblance between Buddhism and Christianity. The 

 first is the resemblance of the legends of Buddha, in a great many instances, 

 to the stories in the apocryphal gospels, as well as, in some cases, to the 

 gospels themselves. The second is the question of morality. I am sorry 

 Mr. Collins has taken up Bunsen's work on the first point, because that is — 

 and there I entirely agree with him — an entirely uncritical production. 

 I think it would have been far better if he had taken Professor Seydel's 

 work. In it he draws attention in an elaborate way to all these 

 resemblances, and arrives at the conclusion that the Christians have 

 borrowed from the Buddhists. I, for one, confess that I do not think so. 

 The evidence of the bringing over of the Buddhist beliefs to Europe at the 

 time the gospels were put into their present form is exceedingly slight, and 

 I do not think it ever really took place. On this, as on the second point, I 

 am more inclined to adopt the opinion put forward by Mr. Coles, that such 

 resemblances as are to be discovered are due to the moral notions 

 found in both religious being the common heritage of mankind. When 

 we find that the Buddhists have five commandments which greatly 

 resemble the commandments of the Old Testament, I do not think 

 it is at all necessary to suppose that either of them is borrowed from the 

 other. I think it quite possible to suppose that the two ideas are due to 

 entirely independent origins. I have noted one or two things on which I 

 differ from Mr. Collins. One principal point is with regard to the Vedas. 

 I was astonished to find Mr. Collins saying that, the further you go back in 

 history, the clearer the atmosphere becomes, until you get into a realm of 

 literature in which you find yourself grappling with the ritual and sacrifices 

 of the priests in the temples. The fact is that in the Vedas there is no 

 mention of temples or of priests, and I do not think there is any 

 mention of ritual. In the books written after the Vedas there is, no 

 doubt, considerable mention of ritual ; but this is not to be found in the 

 Vedas themselves. The priesthood A\(as in an entirely unformed condition, 

 and the worship practised was that of an immense number of gods. With 

 regard to the monotheism or pantheism summed up in the worship 

 of Brahma, the idea was long behind the rest. It is not found at all in 



