se, many
of the myths _previously current_ regarding the god _Sumana_, worshiped
both on Adam's peak, and at the cave of Dambulla, _were added to the
Buddha myth_.[303:5] Much of the legend which was transferred to the
Buddha, had previously existed, and had clustered around the idea of a
_Chakrawarti_.[303:6] Thus we see that the legend of _Christ_ Buddha, as
with the legend of _Christ_ Jesus, _existed before his time_.[303:7]

We have established the fact then--_and no man can produce better
authorities_--that Buddha and Buddhism, which correspond in such a
remarkable manner with Jesus and Christianity, were long anterior to the
Christian era. Now, as Ernest de Bunsen says, this remarkable similarity
in the histories of the founders and their religion, could not possibly
happen by chance.

Whenever two religious or legendary histories of mythological personages
resemble each other so completely as do the histories and teachings of
Buddha and Jesus, the older must be the parent, and the younger the
child. We must therefore conclude that, since the history of Buddha and
Buddhism is very much older than that of Jesus and Christianity, the
Christians are incontestably _either sectarians or plagiarists of the
religion of the Buddhists_.

FOOTNOTES:

[289:1] Maya, and Mary, as we have already seen, are one and the same
name.

[289:2] See chap. xii. Buddha is considered to be an incarnation of
Vishnu, although he preached against the doctrines of the Brahmans. The
adoption of Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu was really owning to the
desire of the Brahmans to effect a compromise with Buddhism. (See
Williams' Hinduism, pp. 82 and 108.)

"Buddha was brought forth not from the matrix, but from the right side,
of a virgin." (De Guignes: Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 224.)

"Some of the (Christian) heretics maintained that Christ was born from
the side of his mother." (Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 157.)

"In the eyes of the Buddhists, this personage is sometimes a man and
sometimes a god, or rather both one and the other, a divine incarnation,
a man-god; who came into the world to enlighten men, to redeem them, and
to indicate to them the way of safety. This idea of redemption by a
divine incarnation is so general and popular among the Buddhists, that
during our travels in Upper Asia, we everywhere found it expressed in a
neat formula. If we addressed to a Mongol or Thibetan the question, 'Who
is Buddha?' he would immediatel