75 
1892.] V. A. Smith -—On the Civilization of Ancient India. 
true, the question must be decided in the converse way. For the doc¬ 
trine referred to is not one of such natural growth as to justify the as¬ 
sumption that it arose independently in India as well as in Galilee. 
As to the Bhagavadgita it is certain that it shows the influence of 
Christian teaching, though Lorimer goes much too far in maintaining 
this proposition. 
Wilson long ago traced back to a Christian basis the whole doctrine 
of hhaldi , the unconditional, believing devotion to the Lord, that is to 
the sectarian god with whom the work is concerned. 
The frequent designation of the teacher under the traditional epi¬ 
thet of sveta, white, or of a name in which sveta forms a part, seems to refer 
to white men, Christian missionaries. 
The full information given in the Mahabharata (12, 12771, seqq.) 
about the travels of the Indian wise men (Ekata, Dwita, Trita, and 
especially, Narada) over the sea, as far as S'vetadwipn, the ‘ Island of the 
(sveta) white men,’ in order to learn there the doctrine of the One God, 
is intelligible only when understood to refer to the journeyings of pious 
Indians to Alexandria, and the knowledge of Christianity which they 
there acquired. 
The knowledge of the name of Christ, the son of the divine Virgin, 
obtained in this way, and further diffused by Christian missionaries and 
the residence of natives of India in Christian countries, aud by the 
partially divine honour paid to him by his followers could not fail to 
remind the Indians of the semi-divine Krishna, son of Devaki, whose 
name seems to mean divine. r 
Thus it has come to pass that many Christian incidents and legends, 
especially those of Christ’s birth among the shepherds, the stable, 
the manger as his place of birth, the taxing by Osesar Augustus, the 
massacre of the innocents at Bethlehem, and others of the sort, are 
repeated in the Indian legends of Krishna. 
The ordinary legends state that the child Krishna, in order to save 
him from hostile machinations, was removed on the night of his birth 
from the lying-in-room by his father and made over to his foster- 
parents, the shepherd couple, Nanda and Yasoda. But certain detailed 
rules concerning the festival of Krishna’s nativity exist, and are found 
in texts of quite modern date, which narrate the incidents in a different 
way, that clearly betrays a foreign origin. According to this version, 
Devaki, the child’s mother, stays quietly lying in the manger, nursing the 
infant, while numerous groups of shepherds, angels, and others stand 
around blessing and praising. Even the ox and ass are not wanting. The 
star, which stands still in the sky, and fixes the date for the festival, 
is Roliini, or Aldebaran. 
