ruption applicable to one sect only; but, on the contrary, we shall find it apply in a very considerable degree to the whole of them.
It will not apply alone to the gospel of Paul, or of Montanus, or of Marcion, or of the Egyptians, but it will apply to them all indiscriminately, orthodox and heterodox, without any partiality to any one of them. But it cannot be reasonably expected that the exact place should be pointed out where every one of the facts stated in the whole of the numerous gospels, or histories of the religion, came from. The only question will be, whether sufficient be pointed out to convince the mind of the impartial reader of the identity of the systems, or of the truth of the proposition meant to be established.
It will now be shewn, in the first place, that from the history of the second person of the Indian Trinity, many of the particulars of the gospel histories of the Christians have been compiled.
The book called the Bhagavat Geeta, which contains the life of Cristna, is allowed to be one of the most distinguished of the puranas, for its sublimity and beauty. It lays claim to nearly the highest antiquity that any Indian composition can boast: and the Rev. Mr. Maurice, a very competent judge, allows, that there is ample evidence to prove that it actually existed nearly four thousand years ago. Sir William Jones says, “That the name of Chrishna, and the general outline of his story, were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer, we know very certainly.” In fact, the sculptures on the walls of the most ancient temples,—temples by no one ever doubted to be long anterior to the Christian æra—as well as written works equally old, prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, the superior antiquity of the history of Cristna, to that of Jesus. The authority of the unwilling witness, Sir W. Jones, without attempting any other proof of this fact, is enough. But in the course of this work many other corroborating circumstances will be produced, which, independently of his authority, will put the matter beyond question.
2. These observations being premised respecting the Bhagavat Geeta, we will now consider some of the leading facts which are stated in it relating to the God Cristna, Crisna, or Chrishna.[1] These we shall find are copies of the Christian gospel histories, or the Christian gospel histories are copies from them, or they have both been copied from an older mythos.
In the first place, the Cristna of India is always represented as a Saviour or Preserver of mankind, precisely the same as Jesus Christ. While he is thus described as a Saviour, he is also represented to be really the Supreme Being, taking upon himself the state of man: that is, to have become incarnate in the flesh, to save the human race, precisely as Jesus is said to have done, by the professors of the orthodox Christian faith. This is the Verbum caro factum est of St. John, to which I alluded in Book III. Chap. III. Sect. 4,
As soon as Cristna was born, he was saluted with a chorus of Deutas or Devatas or Angels, with divine hymns, just as it is related of Jesus in the orthodox Gospel of Luke, ch. ii. 13, 14. He was cradled among shepherds, to whom were first made known the stupendous feats which stamped his character with marks of the divinity. The circumstances here detailed, though not literally the same as those related of Jesus, are so nearly the same, that it is evident the one account has been taken from the other. The reader will remember the verse of the gospel history, And there were shepherds tending their flocks by night. Luke ii. 8.
Soon after Cristna’s birth, he was carried away by night and concealed in a region remote from his natal place, for fear of a tyrant whose destroyer it was foretold he would become; and who had, for that reason, ordered all the male children born at that period to be slain. This story is
- ↑ Sir W. Jones always spells the name of this celebrated person Chrishna.
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