ite different: the common point is
that one whom all are anxious to honour sees that those around him
show no consideration to the sick and unhappy and reproves them in the
words of the text, words which admit of many interpretations, the
simplest perhaps being "I bid you care for the sick: you neglect me if
you neglect those whom I bid you to cherish."

But many passages in Buddhist and Christian writings have been
compared where there is no real parallel but only some word or detail
which catches the attention and receives an importance which it does
not possess. An instance of this is the so-called parable of the
prodigal son in the Lotus Sutra, Chapter iv, which has often been
compared with Luke xv. 11 ff. But neither in moral nor in plot are the
two parables really similar. The Lotus maintains that there are many
varieties of doctrine of which the less profound are not necessarily
wrong, and it attempts to illustrate this by not very convincing
stories of how a father may withhold the whole truth from his children
for their good. In one story a father and son are separated for fifty
years and _both_ move about: the father becomes very rich, the son
poor. The son in his wanderings comes upon his father's palace and
recognizes no one. The father, now a very old man, knows his son, but
instead of welcoming him at once as his heir puts him through a
gradual discipline and explains the real position only on his
deathbed. These incidents have nothing in common with the parable
related in the Gospel except that a son is lost and found, an event
which occurs in a hundred oriental tales. What is much more
remarkable, though hardly a case of borrowing, is that in both
versions the chief personage, that is Buddha or God, is likened to a
father as he also is in the parable of the carriages.[1121]

One of the Jain scriptures called Uttaradyayana[1122] contains the
following remarkable passage, "Three merchants set out on their
travels each with his capital; one of them gained much, the second
returned with his capital and the third merchant came home after
having lost his capital; The parable is taken from common life; learn
to apply it to the Law. The capital is human life, the gain is
heaven," etc. It is impossible to fix the date of this passage: the
Jain Canon in which it occurs was edited in 454 A.D. but the component
parts of it are much older. It clearly gives a rough sketch of the
idea which is elaborated in the parab