264 



THE KEY. W. ST. CLAIR T1SDALL, D.B V ON 



Christianity, for we have seen its Indian origin, at least in part. 

 Paradise was situated in the West in early Egyptian, Greek, 

 Keltic, and many other myths, and may well have been so in 

 Chinese also. As to the general question whether Mahayanism 

 has borrowed anything from any form of Christianity, it would 

 be difficult, in this as in every other case, to prove a universal 

 negative. Opinions will always differ on certain features of the 

 religion, and, remembering how ready Mahayanism showed 

 itself to accept a whole host of religious ideas from the religions 

 of China and Japan, there seems no reason whatever a priori to 

 doubt that it would adopt the same attitude towards Nestorian- 

 ism. But with regard to the kinship which some have sought to 

 establish (in defiance of all history) between the two faiths, I 

 am inclined to think that a much more reasonable view is that 

 expressed by Professor De Groot, who tells us that Taoism, Con- 

 fucianism, and Buddhism "are* three branches, growing from a 

 common stem, which has existed from prehistoric times. This 

 stem is the Eeligion of the Universe, its parts and phenomena. 

 This Universism .... is the one religion of China. As these 

 three religions are its three integrant parts, every Chinese can 

 feel himself equally at home in each, without being offended 

 or shocked by conflicting and mutually exclusive dogmatic 

 principles. In the age of Han, two centuries before and two 

 after the birth of Christ, the ancient stem divided itself into 

 two branches, Taoism and Confucianism, while simultaneously 

 Buddhism was grafted upon it. 



" Indeed Buddhism at that time found its way into China in a 

 Universistic form, called Mahfiyana, and would therefore live 

 and thrive upon the ancient stem. In this way the three 

 religions appear before us as three branches of one trunk ; as 

 three religions, yet one." Buddhism " found its way into 

 the Empire of China during the reign of the House of Han, and 

 perhaps even before that time. It was more particularly the 

 Mahayana form of Buddhism that entered China, i.e., ' the great 

 or broad way ' to salvation, which claimed to lead all beings 

 whatever, even animals and devils, through several stages of 

 perfection unto the very highest stage of holiness, that of the 

 Buddhas or gods of Universal Light, equivalent to absorption 

 in universal Nothingness (Nirvana). This ' Broad Way ' could 

 be trodden by following a religious discipline, consisting 

 principally of asceticism and self-m or tifi cation. Accordingly it 

 bore a striking resemblance to the Tao of Man, which ... by 



* Religion in China. 



