nger, envy and fear, fled and fainted. From the
zenith came a murmur of voices, the sound of dancing, the kiss of
timbril and of lute.

That is Oriental poetry. Oriental philosophy is less ornate. From the
former the Buddha could not have come. From the latter he probably
did, if not in flesh at least in spirit. To that spirit antiquity was
indebted, as modernity is equally, for the doctrines of a teacher
known variously as Gotama the Enlightened and Sakya the Sage. Whether
or not the teacher himself existed is, therefore, unimportant. The
existence of the Christ has been doubted. But the doctrines of both
survive. They do more, they enchant. Occasionally they seem to
combine. The Gospels have obviously nothing in common with the _Lalita
Vistara_, which is an apocryphal novel of uncertain date. The
resemblance that is reflected comes from the _Tripitaka_, the Three
Baskets that constitute the evangels of the Buddhist faith.

In an appendix to the _Mahavaggo_, it is stated that disciples of
Gotama, who knew his sermons and his parables by heart, determined the
canon "after his death." The expression might mean anything. But a
ponderable antiquity is otherwise shown. Asoko, a Hindu emperor, sent
an embassy to Ptolemy Philadelphos. The circumstance was set forth
bilingually on various heights. In another inscription Asoko
recommended the study of the _Tripitaka_ and mentioned titles of the
books. Ptolemy Philadelphos reigned at Alexandria in the early part of
the third century B.C. The _Tripitaka_ must therefore have existed
then. But the thirty-seventh year of Asoko's reign was, in a third
inscription, counted as the two hundred and fifty-seventh from the
Buddha's death, a reckoning which makes them much older. Their
existence, however, as a fourth inscription shows, was oral.
Transmitted for hundreds of years by trained schools of reciters, it
was during a synod that occurred in the first quarter of the first
century before Christ that, finally, they were written.

In them it is recited that Maya, the mother of Gotama, was immaculate.
According to St. Matthew, Maria, the mother of Jesus, was also.
Previously, in each instance, the coming of a Messiah had been
foretold. The infant Jesus was visited by magi. The infant Buddha was
visited by kings. Afterward, neither Jesus or Gotama wrote. But both
preached charity, chastity, poverty, humility, and abnegation of self.
Both fasted in a wilderness. Both were tempted by a d