on and identify them with their now living
European descendants, there is little to hope from their scholarship
except a mosaic of learned guesswork. The latter scientific mode of
critical analysis may yet end some day in a consensus of opinion that
Buddhism is due wholesale to the "Life of Barlaam and Josaphat," written
by St. John of Damascus; or that our religion was plagiarized from that
famous Roman Catholic legend of the eighth century in which our Lord
Gautama is made to figure as a Christian Saint, better still, that the
Vedas were written at Athens under the auspices of St. George, the
tutelary successor of Theseus.

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* See Twelfth Book of Mahabharata, Krishnas fight with Kalayavana.
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For fear that anything might be lacking to prove the complete obsession
of Jambudvipa by the demon of "Greek influence," Dr. Weber vindictively
casts a last insult into the face of India by remarking that if
"European Western steeples owe their origin to an imitation of the
Buddhist topes* .... on the other hand in the most ancient Hindu
edifices the presence of Greek influence is unmistakable" (p. 274).
Well may Dr. Rajendralala Mitra "hold out particularly against the idea
of any Greek influence whatever on the development of Indian
architecture." If his ancestral literature must be attributed to "Greek
influence," the temples, at least, might have been spared. One can
understand how the Egyptian Hall in London reflects the influence of the
ruined temples on the Nile; but it is a more difficult feat, even for a
German professor, to prove the archaic structure of old Aryavarta a
foreshadowing of the genius of the late lamented Sir Christopher Wren!
The outcome of this paleographic spoliation is that there is not a
tittle left for India to call her own. Even medicine is due to the same
Hellenic influence. We are told--this once by Roth--that "only a
comparison of the principles of Indian with those of Greek medicine can
enable us to judge of the origin, age and value of the former;" .... and
"a propos of Charaka's injunctions as to the duties of the physician to
his patient," adds Dr. Weber, "he cites some remarkably coincident
expressions from the Oath of the Asklepiads." It is then settled.
India is Hellenized from head to foot, and even had no physic until the
Greek doctors came.

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* Of Hindu Lingams, rather.
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Sakya Muni's Place in History

No Orientalist, save pe