Buddhist Influence in Early Christianity

[Guest guest]

Yvette Rosser <yvetterosser> wrote:

Srinivasan Kalyanaraman recently submitted a posting

titled, "Academicians claim Buddha turned into

European saint", this article was similar to to topic

of a lecture that I delivered in 1994 about the

Buddhist influence in Palestine and Greece during the

two centuries prior to the birth of Christ.

 

The following is an extract from that lecture:

 

In India, around 270 B.C., the great king Ashoka

ascended the throne, and after his conversation to

Buddhism, he sent missionaries around the world to

preach the word of the Lord Buddha. There are

records, left by Ashoka, that indicate "his missions

were favorably received" in countries to the West.

There are also records from Alexandria, which indicate

that a steady stream of Buddhist monks and

philosophers who, living in that area--at the

crossroads of commerce and ideas--influenced the

philosophical currents of the time.

 

There are strong similarities between Buddhist

monastic teachings and Jewish ascetic sects, such as

the Essenes, that were part of the spiritual

environment of Palestine at the time of Christ's

birth. The Essenes were a monastic order that did not

marry. They lived in the desert and were very simple

in their life styles. They did not believe in animal

sacrifice and were vegetarians. They believed in the

pre-existence of the soul and in angels as divine

intermediaries or messengers from God. They were

famous for their powers of endurance, simple piety and

brotherly love. They were interested in magical arts

and the occult sciences. John the Baptist was an

Esscene. His time of preparation was spent in the

wilderness near the Dead Sea. Jesus was greatly

influenced by his stay with John the Baptist. Many of

the basic tenets found in the teachings of Jesus can

be traced back to the ideas flourishing among groups

such as the Essenes. Were these groups influenced

through several centuries of dialogue with Buddhist

monks who traveled through Palestine?

 

Before, during, and after the death of Christ, there

were Buddhist missionaries who visited Greece, Egypt

and other countries in the Mediterranean area. One

such visit is documented in 20 B.C. in Athens. In

this account an ambassador from India was accompanied

by a Buddhist philosopher who burned himself (to prove

some point of impermanence?). His tomb became a

famous tourist attraction and is mentioned by several

historians. It has been argued that in St. Paul's

first letter to the Corinthians, he alludes to this

well-known event when he writes that "though I give my

body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me

nothing."

 

It is well documented that there was commercial trade

between the Indian Subcontinent and Mesopotamia,

Syria, Egypt and the countries of the Fertile

Crescent, for almost 2500 years before the birth of

Christ. Cuneiform records dating from 2400 B.C.

describe shipments of cotton cloth, spices, oil,

grains, and such exotic items as peacocks. Ideas as

well as merchandise had been exchanged between the

Middle East and India for centuries. Pythagoris is

said to have been influenced by Oriental ideas and a

Greek prince, Seleucus Nikator, shortly after the time

of Alexander the Great, gave his daughter in marriage

to the Indian sovereign and sent an ambassador,

Megasthenes, to the court of Chandragupta, who was the

grandfather of Ashoka. There were practitioners of

Buddhism, living in the western parts of Askoka's

empire, who were from Greece and also from Palestine.

This is known because one of the famous edicts of

Ashoka, carved on a pillar in what is now western

Afghanistan (Bactria), is written in both in Greek and

in Aramaic, the languages spoken in Palestine at the

time.

 

Stories of Buddhist origin, and some of the basic

concepts of Buddhism, were known in the West prior to,

during, and after the time of Jesus. The most famous

Buddhist story that made its way into Christendom is

the tale of "Barlaam and Josephat," which enjoyed

considerable notoriety during the Middle Ages and

ultimately resulted in the canonization, in the

sixteenth century, of Buddha, as a Catholic saint. In

the story of Barlaam and Josephat, Josephat, which is

a corrupted version of the word "Boddhisattva", was an

Indian prince who was heir apparent to a throne

occupied by his father, a tyrannical idolater who

persecuted Christians. At Josephat's birth prophets

predicted his future greatness as successor to the

king, but one wise man said that the prince would

achieve greatness not as a worldly king, but because

he would convert to Christianity. To shelter his son,

and prevent his conversion, the king kept him locked

in the palace. Eventually, the young prince was

allowed to leave the palace and saw a crippled man, a

blind man and a senile man, and so learned of life's

darker side (that life is suffering?). Josephat soon

met a monk named Barlaam, who converted him to

Christianity. The story continues that when Josephat

went to search for Barlaam he had to suffer

austerities and was tempted by the devil to give up

his faith. He eventually found Barlaam and the two

lived as hermits until their deaths. Relics of these

saints were worshipped in Europe and there were

several churches built to Josephat in Russia, one in

Vienna and in Portugal--they were canonized by the

Catholic Church in the 16th century... Saint Josephat,

the Boddhisattva.

 

Anyone who knows the story of the life of the Buddha

will see the exact repetition of the tale in the story

of Barlaam and Josephat: The fact that he was an

Indian prince even provides the correct setting, the

predictions at his birth of spiritual greatness, his

early life spent locked in the castle and finally his

exposure to people in pain and old age which led, in

the case of the Boddhisattva, to enlightenment and in

the case of Josephat to conversion. Even the

austerities and temptations that they had to endure

are parallel. There is no doubt that this is a

Buddhist story transplanted and retold within a

Christian context. The Buddhist origins of the story

were obscured when the tale was retold in Europe, but

earlier versions of the story exist in Arabic, which

do not refer to Josephat's conversion, but which

testify to the story's Buddhist roots. The fact that

Saint Josephat was very popular in Europe, where his

relics were worshipped, is an ironic aspect of

Buddhist influence on Christianity .

 

Alexandria was an important center of early Christian

thought. There is mention of a teacher called

Ammonius Sakka, who had a great influence on the

thinkers of the first century of the common era.

Some scholars speculate that Ammonius Sakka could be a

reversed form of "Sakya - Muni", one of the names of

the Buddha, which means "the sage of the Sakya clan".

(Sakya was Buddha's family name.) This

philosopher-teacher who believed in reincarnation, has

been called a Neo-Platonist. He was the teacher of

Plotinus and Origen. Origen who was one of the early

philosophers of the Christian church whose writings

were later expunged at the Council of Nicea.

 

What are some other points of convergence between the

practices of Christianity and Buddhism? There is a

wealth of similarities: shaving or cutting of the

hair of monastic initiates, ringing of bells, domed

basilicas, shared legends, the practice of confession,

relic veneration, celibacy, rosaries, monasticism, and

the burning of incense. A comparison of the Sermon on

the Mount with verses from the Dhammapada yields a

rich collection of interconnections and similarities.

Even if some of these similarities are synchronistic

in nature and are not borrowed, nonetheless, there are

still many elements that have distinctive Buddhist

overtones and which are not found within the

predominant Jewish practices of the time. There are

many stories about the life of Jesus and Buddha that

are so similar that it is hard to believe that there

was not some borrowing or merging of myths that

occurred.

 

The story of the conception and birth of Christ in the

Gospel of Luke has an uncanny resemblance to the birth

stories of Buddha. In both cases the mother was a

pure woman who had a vision and from this vision

became pregnant with a extraordinary child, without

the help of sexual intercourse. At their birth, each

baby was surrounded by persons and events that marked

them for greatness. Each was delivered outside while

the mother was on a journey. Their births were both

announced by angels in the heavens. It may be hard

for us creatures of the twentieth century to

appreciate the role of angels, but previously, they

played an important part in the scheme of things:

bringing messages, making great spiritual

announcements with pomp and splendor. After the birth

of Buddha, a hermit sage, who had heard the

celebrations of the angels, was told by them with

great rejoicing that "In the city of Kaplilavastu, to

king Suddhodana, a son is born. This boy will sit on

the throne of enlightenment and become a Buddha." In

the Christian story, the angels appeared in great

awe-inspiring beauty and told the shepherds that a

child was born that day who is Christ the Lord. Both

narratives stress the fact that at the birth of the

infant, along with the angels, holy people came to pay

homage to the savior who had descended into the world

of humans.

 

In the Bible there is a story about the righteous man

Simeon, who was informed by the Holy Spirit that he

"should not see death before he had seen the Lord's

Christ." Inspired by the Spirit, he came to the

temple on the day that Jesus was brought in for his

naming ceremony, where he took the child into his arms

and said that he was destined for greatness. Mary and

Joseph marveled at the words of this old sage. In the

Buddhist story the hermit Asita performed the same

role in announcing to the amazed parents that this

child was destined for spiritual greatness. In both

stories an elderly wise man was the first to inform

the parents that their sons were no ordinary boys.

 

The Biblical accounts of the birth of Christ are

somewhat different in Luke and in Matthew. In Matthew

the account of the visitation by the Magi is dealt

with in great detail. These Magi were astrologers

from the East, where astrology had been a developed

science for centuries. They represented the pinnacle

of foreign scholarly achievement; and it was they,

rather than the Hebrew, who were able to discern that

the baby who lay in the manger in Bethlehem was a very

special child. The word "Magi," is a Persian word

that named a class of learned men who sought to master

the occult sciences. This is the root of our word,

Magic. Only later were they referred to as kings,

initially they were called Holy Men. References to

Magi in the Palestine of Jesus's day usually had

negative connotations, but in Matthew's account, the

reference is quite positive. Similarly, the infant

Gautama was first adored by four divine archangels who

presided over his birth in the wooded grove near

Lumbini. Later, sages came to pay homage to the child

and amazed his father. In both stories there is a

reference to a star that announces the birth of the

great child.

 

There are other similarities in the lives of these two

great beings. Some may say that this type of

comparison is inevitable when great spiritual leaders

come into the world. However, I will relate some of

the events in their lives that bear resemblance. Both

Buddha and Christ were precocious youths who

confounded their teachers with their gifted knowledge.

Both began their spiritual quest at about the age of

thirty. Both fasted and prayed in the wilderness and

both were tempted by the devil while practicing these

austerities. The setting of these two accounts is

almost identical as are the events. Both men were

fasting when tempted by the devil, who tried to entice

them into worldly pleasures and trick them into using

the magical powers that they possessed. Both men

overcame the temptation and soon left their seclusion

and took up the mission of a life of teaching and

traveling. Jesus's life at this time seems very much

like the age-old life of an Indian mystic or holy man.

He traveled from village to village and lived off the

hospitality of the people of the village. There are

some differences, but, nonetheless, both Buddha and

Christ got into trouble with the ruling aristocracies

by their deliberate blindness to social status and by

taking food and refuge from courtesans and

prostitutes.

 

Both masters told their disciples to leave behind

their homes and families and to follow him. Both

sent his followers out to preach their message. Both

were social revolutionaries who reacted against the

conservative elements of their time. Both put an end

to animal sacrifice, which was popular in both

Hinduism and Judaism at that time. There are many

similarities in the lives of these two great beings.

Both forgave evil doers, both conquered death in a

metaphysical sense. The earth shook when each of them

died. Their messages are also similar: they told

their followers to overcome anger, to practice

non-violence, to "turn the other cheek" to be pure of

mind and body.

 

There is a school of thought that says that Jesus

traveled to India during the lost years of his youth.

Supposedly, there is a temple in the state of Kashmir

that is dedicated to Saint Issa. The priests there

say that Jesus traveled there two thousand years ago.

Many of the miracles performed by Jesus are similar to

miraculous powers possessed by holy men in India.

Jesus even taught his disciples to perform these

miracles such as Peter walking on the water. There is

a work by a Russian who lived at the end of the 19th

century, Nicolas Notovitch, who claims to have seen an

ancient document that told the story of Saint Issa and

his return to his home in the West and his subsequent

violent death. These tales are unsubstantiated and

somewhat fanciful, however it is said that the priests

at the Kashmiri Temple to Saint Issa are devout and

completely believe in the story. There are also

visionaries such as Edgar Casey who had similar

visions of Jesus. Jesus did adopt a remarkably

Indian-like approach to wandering, begging and

preaching immediately upon beginning his public

career.

 

There is, of course, documented evidence that

Buddhists traveled to the region where early

Christianity was developing. It must be remembered

that Christianity did not become the established

religion for several hundred years and actually it was

not the accepted religion of the European masses for

almost a thousand years. During this period, when

church theology was being formulated, there was much

discussion about the true nature of the savior and

many of the early ideas of the church were discarded

in favor of ideas that would support the establishment

of a centralized Church. These factors are a

discussion for another time, but suffice it to say

that many scholars have tried to prove that the

Councils at Nicea expunged all references to

reincarnation from the words of Jesus. He was after

all, influenced by the Essenes, who did believe in

transmigration of souls.

---end of excerpt---