38 REV. ^Y. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, M.A., D.D.^ ON THE INFLUENCE 



borrowed from Taoism and from local heathen sects. Its 

 preachers have adapted their teaching and practices to those 

 around them in order to commend their religion to the 

 Chinese. 



It is therefore not a priori improbable that the Mahayanists 

 learned something from Christianity, even though Christians 

 were somewhat few in China in early days. Yet, wherever we 

 test the doctrines that some think have been adopted under 

 Christian influence, the result is to disprove the theory. 

 Examples of this are : the " Western Paradise " ; the doctrine 

 of Trikaya {i.e., of the triple body of the Dharmakaya) ; the 

 supposed Mahay ana " Trinity," consisting of Amitabha, Ta Shih 

 Chih, and the f^oddess Kwan-yin ; the identification of Kwan- 

 yin with the Virgin Mary and also with the Holy Spirit ; and 

 the worship of Amitabha Buddha, the Euler of the " Western 

 Paradise." But Amitabha is such in the Saddharma Pundarika, 

 a Sanskrit Buddhist work dating from a.d. 250 or earlier, and 

 containing much material that was accepted by Mahayanists in 

 India long before they met wdth Nestorian Christianity in 

 China. If Christian elements were really incorporated into 

 Chinese Mahayanism under Nestorian influence, they have long 

 since vanished.* Some assert that the Buddhists derived belief 

 in the Virgin Birth of Buddha from the Gospels ; but the 

 Buddhists held no such doctrine ; on the contrary, many 

 passages in their books clearly state that his father was Suddho- 

 dana. 



In the Lalita Vistara and other romantic stories about Buddha, 

 both in Sanskrit and in Chinese versions, many marvels are 

 attributed to him. It is quite possible that, as in Krishna's 

 case, some of these tales may have originally been distortions of 

 accounts of our Lord's miracles, or imitations of them, and may 

 have been associated with Buddha in India in comparatively 

 early days. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove this, 

 especially as some of them are found in a simpler form in the 

 Tipitakas, and are more ancient than the introduction of 

 Christianity into India. 



In the books of the T'ai P'ing, or " Vegetarian," sect of 

 Chinese Buddhists there occur phrases which have been 

 "picked up, perhaps at second hand," from Christian sources. 

 The leaven of Christianity is thus working, steadily but slowly, 

 among Chinese Buddhists, but has not yet produced such plain 

 proofs of its presence as in India. 



* Moule, The Chinese People, p. 184. 



