h heads_ marks the multitude of infants slain
by his savage mandate; and every object in the sculpture
illustrates the events of that Avatar."[167:3]

Another feature which connects these stories is the following:

Sir Wm. Jones tells us that when Crishna was taken out of reach of the
tyrant Kansa who sought to slay him, he was fostered at _Mathura_ by
Nanda, the herdsman;[167:4] and Canon Farrar, speaking of the sojourn of
the Holy Family in Egypt, says:

"St. Matthew neither tells us where the Holy Family abode in
Egypt, nor how long their exile continued; but ancient legends
say that they remained two years absent from Palestine, and
lived at Matareeh, a few miles north-east of Cairo."[167:5]

Chemnitius, out of Stipulensis, who had it from Peter Martyr, Bishop of
Alexandria, in the third century, says, that the place in Egypt where
Jesus was banished, is now called Matarea, about ten miles beyond Cairo,
that the inhabitants constantly burn a lamp in remembrance of it, and
that there is a garden of trees yielding a balsam, which was planted by
Jesus when a boy.[167:6]

Here is evidently one and the same legend.

_Salivahana_, the virgin-born Saviour, anciently worshiped near Cape
Comorin, the southerly part of the Peninsula of India, had the same
history. It was attempted to destroy him in infancy by a tyrant who was
afterward killed by him. Most of the other circumstances, with slight
variations, are the same as those told of Crishna and Jesus.[167:7]

_Buddha's_ life was also in danger when an infant. In the southern
country of Magadha, there lived a king by the name of Bimbasara, who,
being fearful of some enemy arising that might overturn his kingdom,
frequently assembled his principal ministers together to hold discussion
with them on the subject. On one of these occasions they told him that
away to the north there was a respectable tribe of people called the
Sakyas, and that belonging to this race there was a youth newly-born,
the first-begotten of his mother, &c. This youth, who was Buddha, they
said was liable to overturn him, they therefore advised him to "at once
raise an army and destroy the child."[168:1]

In the chronicles of the East Mongols, the same tale is to be found
repeated in the following story:

"A certain king of a people called Patsala, had a son whose
peculiar appearance led the Brahmins at court to prophesy that
he would bring evil upon