1858.] Buddhism and Odinism. 49 



second or " Havamal" included the moral precepts ; and the third 

 was devoted to the magic powers of Odin. "With the Buddhists, the 

 division of their books is equally threefold : they too have their 

 Sutra, Yinaya and Dharma, or fundamental principles, morals and 

 metaphysics ; and if we make a sufficient allowance for the altered 

 physical condition and social states of the two races, the difference 

 will be but slight. 



Laing, in his translation of the Heimiskringla, after a careful ex- 

 amination of geneological data, deduces the date of Odin to be 

 about the end of the third century before Christ. That would be 

 nearly three centuries after the death of Buddha. But if we bear in 

 mind that the Buddhist colonists to the West must have progressed 

 but slowly, and many of them started from India even in the 

 middle of the third century before Christ, in the reign of Asoka, 

 and that in their translation from their Indian or Scythic homes to 

 the banks of the Baltic, their religion suffered considerably in its 

 purity, we will be at no loss to find the cause for the anachronism in 

 question. To the same cause may be attributed the confusion that 

 may be noticed in the name of Buddha. Gautama is his name elect, 

 and this name is curiously enough reproduced in Norway as that 

 of his son. This may be an accident. But the fact of the name 

 being well known in two such distant places, is of itself a matter 

 worthy of notice, and offers strong temptation to the enquiry, is 

 Tuisto a Norwegian reproduction of the Buddhist Tusita ? 



In the Buddhist mythology, the greatest opponent to goodness 

 is an immortal named Mara. He plays the same part as an adviser 

 of evil that Satan does according to the Christian theologians. 

 For years he tried to mislead S'akya Sinha from his resolve to attain 

 Buddhahood, and invariably stood in the way of all who attempted 

 to excel in knowledge or religion. In his career of mischief he has 

 travelled to Scandinavia, and without even much altering his name 

 " still rides the modern Saxon in his sleep (nightmare) as he did the 

 Yngling kiug Vanland."* He commanded a prominent position in 

 the Odinic mythology, and was known exactly by the same appella- 

 tion (Mara) and for the same disposition which has given him an 

 infamous notoriety among the Buddhists. 



* Laing's Sea Kings of Norway I. 92. 



H 



