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carnate in the person of Krishna. The very names are peculiar : the tribe 

 to which Krishna belongs is that of Yadu : it is true that Yadu is men- 

 tioned in the Kig Veda (i. 174-9) as the brother of Turvasu ; but it is im- 

 possible not to observe the similarity between Yadu and Yahuda. Krishna's 

 father's name is Vasudeva : Vasu in the Vedas means, good, or rich ; it was 

 also the appellation of certain semi-divine beings : dcra, of course, means 

 merely divine. The real mother of Krishna was Devaki, the meaning of 

 which is divine woman. There may be nothing iu these singular approxima- 

 tions, perhaps, if they are taken alone ; but there are so many suggestions of 

 the probable influence of the gospel story in the Purana and the Malia-Bharata, 

 that they become worth considering. There is the story of the slaying of 

 the infants by the tyrant king Kansa at the birth of Krishna, a king whose 

 name may mean " lust," if it be derived as some suppose from Kam, and 

 whom it was a part of Krishna's mission to destroy. On Krishna's birth he 

 was put into a basket for winnowing rice— suggestive of the manger. To 

 escape Kansa he is taken by his father to Gokula, which means, literally, 

 cow-house ; but many have connected it with the Egyptian word " Goshen." 

 As Krishna grows up he is tempted, and at last overthrows a great 

 serpent, upon whose head he treads " assuming the weight of three worlds." 

 This serpent, which generally figures in the Hindu representations of Krishna, 

 is thus introduced at the commencement of the story : Parlkshit was the 

 king of the men of the present age, and had become liable to a curse by 

 thi'owing the skin of a snake upon a holy sage, and was therefore sentenced 

 to die iu seven days by the bite of an infernal serpent. To' this Parlkshit 

 (the Avord means tried, proved, tested) the story of Krishna is related in 

 the Bhiigavata-Purana. These certainly look very like parodies of the 

 histories in the Bible of the fall of man, and the triumph of Jesus. But 

 it would be impossible here to quote a tithe of the incidents in the history 

 of Krishna suggestive of the Christian story. His saying that " They who 

 love him shall never see death " ; the conquest of Indra, the god of the 

 air ; the sheltering the men of Braj from Indra's deluge of rain by the 

 mountain which he holds up on the tip of his finger, Avhich mountain his 

 followers are to worship ; his being met as he enters Mathura by a 

 deformed woman, who anoints him with sandal-wood oil, and his making 

 her straight and beautiful ; his raising a widow's son to life, as related iu 

 the Maha-Bharata ; his once washing the feet of those present at a great 

 sacrifice ; his final descent into Hades, and rescuing certain persons from 

 the dead : — these are certainly sufficiently striking. But the most notable 

 part of all is the character of the Bhagavat-glta, a poem which so struck 

 Warren Hastings that in a letter written, now nearly a century ago, in 

 October, 1784, he spoke of it as a "single exception, among all the known 

 religions of mankind, of a theology accurately corresponding with that of 

 the Christian dispensation." It is not quite this : but the doctrines of the 

 unity of God, and of redemption through an incarnation, are its themes. 

 Of course, Krishna is the incarnate Redeemer, and thus he speaks : — 

 " Supreme happiness attendeth the man whose mind is at peace, whose 

 carnal affection and passions are subdued, who is thus in God and free from 

 sin." " He my servant is dear to me who is free from enmity, the friend of 

 all, merciful .... and whose mind and understanding are Jixed on me 

 alone," and so in numberless other passages. Stranger than all, perhaps, is 

 the conclusion of the story, which is that Dwarka, '' the city of many gates," 

 which Krishna built on the western point of Guzerat, and where he and his 

 followers repaired, was overwhelmed in the sea, so that not only the city, 

 but the whole oi the family and descendants oi Krishna perished forever 

 from off the face of the earth. There may be here, no doubt, a recol- 



