Christianity and Buddhism

One of the sad features of our time is the fact that the so-called educated society, after recently admiring materialism and rationalistic theories, began to be carried away by opposite systems, such as spiritualism, hypnotism and others. On the one hand, this phenomenon is quite understandable as an obvious reaction against materialism, which deceived the hopes placed on it that it would reveal and explain all the secrets of existence, and therefore ceased to satisfy the ever-vigilant inquisitiveness of thought; but on the other hand, it is also sad in the sense that it shows how modern cultural society has been shaken in its worldview and how much it has lost the very ability to have a sound understanding of the truths of spiritual life. Common sense says that if those systems that were recently proclaimed comprehensive and completely sufficient (although it would be enough to look at the history of philosophy or the mental development of mankind to be convinced of the naivety and falsity of this assumption) turned out to be woefully incapable of satisfying the highest demands of the spirit, but the falsity of which was clearly proven by representatives of the Christian religion, then obviously the latter is right and it alone can satisfy the mind thirsting for truth. Meanwhile, the perverted mind of modern cultural society does not recognize this logical conclusion, and with irritated nervousness or caprice, having become convinced of the failure of its hopes for its favorite system of worldview, which has turned out to be completely untenable, rushes to the opposite extreme, from materialism to extreme spiritualism, from unbelief to superstition. How, in fact, can we explain the strange fact that people who had lost their sound faith in Christianity, undermined in them by rationalistic theories, with some melancholy began to look for truth outside of Christianity, and not believing its completely historical facts, which find justification for themselves in their very conformity with the requirements of sound logical thinking, began to believe in some fantastic nonsense of Eastern Brahmins or Buddhist lamas, seeing in them almost coincidence with the last word of scientific knowledge and, in any case, the fruits of a wonderful, all-illuminating speculation? It is no secret to anyone that the fascination with Buddhism, especially recently, has taken on a kind of epidemic character, and if people of science, focusing their attention on this system, try to understand the meaning of this religious system, then others, more guided by the vague demands of unsatisfied feelings, turn to it as a panacea for all spiritual longings and troubles: poets glorify Buddhism as a great spiritual system, surrounding its founder with an aura of extraordinary greatness, 1 various psychopaths, who have lost the last spark of common sense in religious doubts and wanderings, open temples for him in the centers of the Christian world, such as in Paris, and exalted women, like the notorious Blavatsky, travel to the very wilds of India and Tibet to bow there on the spot before the Buddhist “magatmas” and surprise the world with tales of their mind-blowing miracles. 2 Once there is a known need, there are certainly suppliers of the required material, and one cannot help but notice that recently a tendency has begun to emerge significantly in the literature - one way or another to bring Christianity closer to Buddhism, to put the former in a causal relationship with the latter. This tendency was discovered by Schopenhauer, who in his Parerga and Paralipomena expressed the desire for biblical scholars to become more closely acquainted with Indian religions in order to understand the kinship between Christianity and Buddhism. His followers went further, they accepted the desire of their teacher as reality, and researchers such as Seidel, Brodbeck and others directly tried to derive Christianity from Brahmanism and Buddhism. This idea became popular in Germany and, for example, recently a certain Rudt gave a lecture in Mannheim to a meeting of women and girls, in which, no longer at all embarrassed, he preached that Christianity is only an echo of Buddhism and its origin should be sought not at all in Judaism, as they had done before, but in the teachings of Buddha. 3 The statement, of course, is bold, and in order for it to have any credibility, it must be somehow confirmed by some more or less convincing data, and this task was taken on by a certain Russian, N. Notovich, who recently published a book in Paris in French, which in its way represents one of the signs of our time. The book was published under the title “The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ” 4 and is aimed at unraveling that mysterious period in the life of Jesus Christ, which is completely passed over in silence by the evangelists, namely the period from His first visit to the Jerusalem temple at the age of 12 to full adulthood, when He had already entered openly into public service as the Messiah. This is indeed a period that has repeatedly aroused the curiosity of researchers who wanted to somehow lift the mysterious veil lowered over it by the evangelists, but all efforts, of course, were in vain, because what is hidden by God cannot be revealed to man. But Mr. Notovich obviously holds a different view and actually published a book that completely explains the riddle and makes completely understandable what before him was considered incomprehensible in its mystery. In a word, he found out how and where Jesus Christ spent the mysterious years before his Baptism, and his book was an extraordinary success, which is also a significant fact for characterizing our time. Suffice it to say that within a few months it went through up to ten editions and was translated from French into several foreign languages! What is the essence of the matter and what is the key to this extraordinary success of the book of some hitherto completely unknown Russian Notovich? 5 The answer is very simple and, unfortunately, far from flattering for our time. The point is this. The named N. Notovich, obviously not knowing where to lay his violent head, exhausted by all sorts of failures in various bold undertakings, went to distant and inaccessible Tibet and, having got there, unfortunately broke his leg and was admitted for treatment to one of the Buddhist monasteries (namely, to the Gimis monastery near Leh), where good lamas looked after him. During this involuntary confinement in the monastery (this is how he himself tells the story of his discovery in the preface to his book), he had the opportunity to become well acquainted with the worldview and life of lamas or magatmas, learned a little Tibetan language and had the opportunity to rummage even in the monastery library. Imagine his amazement when he found there, among other manuscripts, one Tibetan manuscript, which had the title: “The Life of Saint Issa, the best among the sons of men.” When one of the lamas who were closer to him read and explained this story to him, Notovich could not help but come to the conviction that this was nothing more than an Indian legend about Jesus Christ and, moreover, concerned precisely a period in His life that had hitherto remained under the cover of obscurity. The manuscript begins with a brief summary of the history of the Jews from the Egyptian captivity to the birth of Issa (i.e. Jesus), followed by a biography of the latter. According to this biography, Issa was the son of poor but pious parents, sent and chosen by God to “restore those who have fallen into sin and help the suffering.” Already in adolescence He began to preach repentance, and at the age of 13 he enjoyed great fame and glory. At this time He married and fled to India, where he began to reject castes. By his preaching, He convinced the people to reject their idols. The priests tried to stir up the people against Him, but their efforts were in vain, and they themselves had to flee. From India Issa went to Persia, but the priests there forbade the people to listen to him. The magicians achieved his expulsion from their country, as a result of which He returned from there to Palestine when he was already 29 years old. Here, with his preaching, He aroused the suspicion of the Roman government, which saw him as a dangerous agitator, and the procurator Pilate tried to convince the priests and elders to put him to death. Having failed in this, he himself, with the help of false witnesses, achieved his condemnation to death. Issa was crucified and buried, but on the third day a rumor spread that his tomb was empty and “the highest Judge sent his angels to bring to heaven the mortal remains of the saint, in whom part of the divine Spirit dwelt on earth.” Then His followers spread the message about Him throughout the whole earth. Interspersed with this story are various sayings that obviously have the purpose of showing that the teachings of this Issa are in a moral, theological and historical sense in close connection with Christianity. So, that's the essence of this sensational publication. This is obviously a whole discovery, and, moreover, the discovery of an extraordinary historical fact. Thus, the hitherto suspected only causal connection between Christianity and Buddhism finds here documentary confirmation, and that is why the modern reading public, greedy for everything unusual, pounced with nervous greed on this sensational novelty, as confirming and satisfying its thirst to seek clarification of all questions of religious life in the depths of the mysterious East. And at the sight of this passion, the question involuntarily arises: are we really living at the end of the 19th century - that century, which until recently put on its banner the motto of the most sober, critical attitude towards all historical phenomena, which, in the name of such a motto, subjected to merciless criticism even the most sacred documents of Christianity, which had proven their historical truthfulness almost two thousand years ago by universal recognition, which even largely rejected these documents as unreliable and decided to believe only in facts accurately attested by a “commission of learned specialists?” Alas, yes, in this particular century, and at the very end of it, and here the well-known proposition involuntarily suggests itself that extremes converge, since unbelief has completely fraternized with superstition, and, moreover, with superstition worthy of the darkest Middle Ages. Indeed, in fact, the book of Mr. Notovich is nothing more than a literary farce, designed specifically for the gullibility of modern society, and the farce is all the more impermissible because it concerns the most sacred area, which cannot be invaded with unwashed hands. Fortunately, there were critics who adequately appreciated this book, and among them belongs the famous Orientalist and expert on Indian literature Max Müller, 6 although the very fact that such a colossus of Indian studies was required to expose this trick in itself leads to sad thoughts. But let's turn to the analysis of the book itself. According to Notovich, 7 the manuscript he found fully proves that: Christ was in India, studied the Sanskrit and Pali languages ​​there, read the Vedas and the Buddhist canon, and then, imbued with the views of Buddhism, returned to Palestine, where he founded a new religion. The very story about his life and activities could have been written down in India by inquisitive lamas from the words of some Jewish merchants who had to be in India on trade business shortly after the crucifixion of the Galilean Teacher. The manuscript is written in Pali, the sacred language of southern Buddhism; subsequently it was transferred from India to Nepal and Mahada around 200 A.D., and from Nepal to Tibet, where it was carefully preserved in Lassa, the capital of Tibetan Buddhism. Since the Pali language was incomprehensible to the natives, the manuscript was translated into the local Tibetan language, and Tibetan translations of it are, according to Notovich, in several Buddhist monasteries, and by the way in the Gimis monastery, where he was lucky enough to find one copy of it. There is nothing incredible in all this yet. The language of Mahada, or rather Magada, as well as of southern Buddhism in general, was undoubtedly Pali, and Buddhism penetrated into Tibet through Nepal. But the assertion that the Jewish merchants who arrived in India shortly after the crucifixion, directly turns out to be something made and implausible, knew not only what happened to Christ in Palestine, but also what happened to Jesus or Issa at the time when he lived for fifteen years in India among the Brahmins and Buddhists, studying their sacred languages ​​and their sacred books. Another incongruity is that the Jewish merchants who arrived in India on trade business were lucky enough to meet the very people who knew Issa when he studied Sanskrit and Pali and the priestly books written in them. To say this is to lose sight of the fact that India is a very large country and such coincidences are less plausible there than elsewhere. Then it seems even stranger that those persons to whom Issa was known as a simple inquisitive Jew who studied Indian wisdom could immediately recognize that this was precisely the same person who was put to death under Pontius Pilate. Even his very name was not the same. In India, he allegedly bore the name Issa, very similar to the Arabic name Isal Masih, Jesus the Messiah, while, by some strangeness, the name of Pontius Pilate remained unchanged during the transition from Hebrew to Pali and from Pali to Tibetan. It must be remembered that this part of Tibet was later converted to Islam. Thus, already at the first touch of criticism, several oddities and inconsistencies are discovered in the manuscript found by Notovich. But even stranger is the incongruity that, despite Notovich’s assurance that copies of this manuscript in Tibetan translation are preserved in many Tibetan monasteries, until now none of the researchers of Tibetan literature have ever encountered the slightest indication of it anywhere. If Mr. Notovich had been better acquainted with the Buddhist literature of Tibet and China, he would never have allowed himself to admit that the life of Issa, discovered by him, is well known in Tibetan literature, although it was read only by learned Buddhists. European Orientalist scholars have at their disposal excellent catalogs of manuscripts and books of Buddhists from Tibet and China. The complete catalog of the canon of sacred Buddhist books (Tripitaka) in Chinese was translated into English by Max Müller's student Ven. Bunyiu Nanjio (Rev. Bunyiu Nanjio M.A.) and published by the famous Clarendon printing house in 1883. It contains no less than 1,662 titles. The Tibetan catalog is a remarkable work of its kind, and it was published in the XX volume of Asiatic Researches by Kozma Körözy, the famous Hungarian traveler who spent many years in the monasteries of Tibet and is known as an outstanding expert on Tibetan literature. It was recently republished by Feer in the Annales du Musée Guimet. This catalog is not limited to sacred books alone, but contains everything that is remarkable in the old, classical literature of Tibet. All this literature falls into two collections known as Kunjur and Tanjur. Kunjur consists of 108 large volumes, divided into seven sections, 8 and Tanjur consists of 225 volumes. The difference in content between them is that Kunjur contains mainly sacred books, namely the word of Buddha, and Tanjur contains books related to grammar, philosophy, etc., which, although also considered an integral part of the canon, are not recognized as sacred. Thus, the manuscript discovered by Notovich certainly had to be listed in one of these collections, if not in Kanjur, then in Tanjur, and yet it is not listed in either one or the other, and one thing remains to be concluded: either Mr. Notovich made a discovery that should shame all learned Orientalists of our time, or he committed a forgery, which is all the more shameful as it concerns the most sacred area of ​​​​knowledge. Max Müller, without stopping at all on the first half of the alternative, as completely absurd and impossible, is ready to lean towards the second; but wanting to discover all possible condescension, he is inclined to think that Notovitch himself became a victim of deception on the part of the cunning magatmas, who have more than once shown an inclination to make fun of the “Western barbarians” who intruded with their uninvited curiosity into the reserved areas of their religious knowledge, as was the case, for example, even with such researchers as Lieutenant Wilford and Jacollio, not to mention Blavatsky, who was completely blinded tricks of cunning magatmas. “It’s more pleasant to think,” says the famous Orientalist, “that Buddhist monks can sometimes be jokers than that Mr. Notovich is a rogue.” 9 But reality seems to favor the latter assumption. This is indicated primarily by the fact that Mr. Notovich took all measures to make something truly extraordinary out of his manuscript and present its publication as a kind of feat of self-denial. Thus, he reports that the Roman Catholic Cardinal Rotelli, having learned about the contents of the manuscript, offered him a large sum of money not to publish it, for fear that its publication would undermine the people’s faith in Christ, and Renan allegedly was not averse to publishing it in his own name in order to become famous for this discovery. Likewise, the missionaries (from the Moravian brothers) staying in the Tibetan city of Leh caused him all kinds of obstacles to the success of his enterprise and tried to destroy all traces of such documents. All this is extremely implausible and clearly sounds like a fabrication, designed, moreover, for the grossest sensation among the gullible, albeit so-called intelligent crowd. Leaving aside Renan, in relation to whom only, perhaps, these tales have some credibility, although it must also be said about him that he was not at all such a petty ambitious person as Notovitch wants to make him out to be, the message regarding other related persons already clearly sins against all probability, and in relation to Cardinal Rotelli, the Roman Catholic press unanimously refutes this invention. And why should the cardinal agree to the deal attributed to him with Notovich? If the story of Issa were historically reliable, this would eliminate many difficulties. In any case, it would show irrefutably that the Jesus of the Gospels was a real person, and not a myth, as some rationalists think. The teaching attributed to him in the Tibetan document is in many ways similar to the Gospel teaching, and if there is a difference, if especially in the first there is almost no miraculous element at all, then the cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church could calmly put forward against this document a tradition that is confirmed by the two-thousand-year existence of the Church of Christ and, in any case, is quite capable of providing a counterbalance to such a Tibetan document that has not yet been recognized by anyone. Even more incredible is what Mr. Notovitch says about missionaries from the Moravian Brethren. Notovich makes it clear that these missionaries do not enjoy the trust of the population in Leh and that the Buddhist monks would never show them the manuscript containing the life of Issa. This is strange again: why not? If Issa is one and the same with Jesus Christ, then both Buddhist monks and Moravian missionaries could see from here that they believe in the same teacher, which is very important for mutual rapprochement. But the further we go, the more inconsistencies and contradictions there are. “How to explain,” writes Mr. Notovich, that these missionaries themselves did not seize those documents, copies of which I saw in the Gimis Monastery? But how could they do this when, according to Notovich himself, the Tibetan magatmas never showed them these manuscripts! Notovich goes even further. “This is just my guess,” he says, “but if it is true, then only the copies were stolen by the missionaries, and the originals remained in Lassa... At the end of this year I intend to go to Tibet in order to find the original documents related to the life of Jesus Christ. I hope that I will succeed in this undertaking, despite the opposition of the missionaries, for whom I, however, will never cease to have the deepest respect.” Everything here is extremely confusing and self-contradictory. At the same time, only the embodied misunderstanding itself, entangled in the insoluble contradictions of self-invented lies, can convict missionaries of such a vile act as the theft and destruction of such important historical documents as the life of Jesus Christ, and have the deepest respect for them. Finally, this is not enough. Publishing his document as if obtained in distant Tibet, Mr. Notovich lost sight of the fact that Tibet, even with its mysterious Lassa, is no longer so inaccessible that it is impossible to verify what was done or is being done there at a given time. In Lech there are, in addition to the Moravian missionaries, several English missionaries, several missionary ladies and a doctor. All these are persons whom you can contact to verify this fact. So what happens? It’s simple that none of them ever saw any Russian “gentleman” in Lech or near it, no Russian gentleman lay in any monastery with a broken leg, and the local doctor never set anyone’s broken leg. Of course, it is also possible to assume here that Mr. Notovich carefully concealed his Russian origin and cured his broken leg himself, with the help of compassionate magnates, but nevertheless, the extremely striking fact is that none of the local residents - both Europeans and natives - heard anything like this. And when the rumor about the publication in Paris of some newly discovered life of Christ reached Tibet, it naturally aroused keen interest there too, but not at all in favor of Mr. Notovich, as can be judged from the following letter from an English lady from Lech dated July 29 of this year to Max Müller. "Yesterday," writes this lady, "we were in the large Gimis monastery, the largest of the local Buddhist monasteries, - there are 800 lamas in it. Have you heard about one Russian who could not get admission into this monastery, but finally broke his leg outside its walls and was allowed into it? His goal was to write off the Buddhist life of Christ, who is here. According to him, he succeeded in this and then published it in French. There is not a single word of truth in this entire story! There was no Russian here. Over the past fifteen years, no one has entered this monastery with a broken leg! There is no “Life of Christ” at all! Now it has become clear to me that those people who divulge in England that they lived in Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and comprehended the secrets of esoteric Buddhism there are simply deceivers. All these monasteries are the dirtiest places. Lamas are the dirtiest people among their dirty people. They are terribly ignorant and simply idolaters.” 10 After such evidence there is hardly anything left to add on the issue under consideration. Obviously, this whole “unknown life of Christ” with all the circumstances accompanying its discovery is a daring and vile invention, which is all the more disgusting because it touched an area so sacred to every Christian. 11 And in parallel to this daring and vile invention can only be put the shameful gullibility with which intelligent society, until recently captivated by the brilliance of the critical wit of the Strauss and Renans, who practiced exposing the “mythical element” in the Gospels, became a victim of the most gross deception of the first rogue! Truly, this is one of the signs of our time, and a very sad sign... We mean the great poem by the English poet Edward Arnold “Light of Asia” (“Light of Asia”), in which Buddha is glorified. An analysis of this poem can be read in Kellogg’s work, “The Light of Asia and the Light of the World” (Kyiv, 1893). These Buddhist “magatmas” (hermits) are such miracle workers that Madame Blavatsky, according to her report, while in Calcutta, received letters from them from Tibet not by mail, but by air, about which “miracle” she spoke with delight to her friends and acquaintances. Unfortunately for her, some of her friends turned out to be great skeptics and, having carefully examined these letters, became convinced that they were written not on Tibetan paper and not with the ink of the mysterious “Magatmas,” but simply on English paper and English ink bought in Calcutta. Compare: – the treatise of the Bremen pastor Dr. Otto Veek, “Buddha und Christus”, as well as Hübbe-Schleiden, “Jesus ein Buddhist”? (Verlag: Braunschweig, C.A.Schwetschke). N. Notovitch, Vie inconnue de Jésus-Christ. Cartes et illustrations, Paris, Paul Ollendorf, 1894, Prix 3fr. 50cent. However, it cannot be said that it is completely unknown. The name of this particular Notovich, if we are not mistaken, repeatedly appeared on the pages of French and other foreign newspapers as a kind of adventurer who was not averse to exploiting various major political facts in his favor, such as the fraternization of Russians with the French, although with obvious failure, since the interests of his own person were too intrusively put forward everywhere... See his article: The Alleged Sojourn of Christ in India, in October. book of the magazine “Nineteenth Century” for 1894, p.515 et seq. In the attached analysis, we use the data presented in this particular article by the English Orientalist. Notovich's book has a preface where he expresses his own opinions and considerations. These are the departments: 1) Dulva, teaching (Vinaya); 2) Sherch-gin, wisdom (Pragnaparamita); 3) P’hal-ch-hen, Buddha’s wreath (Buddha-avatansaka); 4) Kon-tsegs, mountain of treasures (Ratnakuta); 5) Mdo or Sutras, sayings (Sutrana); 6) Myang-Khdas, final deliverance (Nirvana) and 7) Gyut, mystery (Tantra). See Max Müller in the mentioned article, pp. 518 and 519. The Alleged Sojourn of Christ in India, in October. book of the magazine “Nineteenth Century” for 1894 p. 521 (... than that M. Notovitch is a rogue). PS. to the article by Max Müller The Alleged Sojourn of Christ in India, in October. booklet of the Nineteenth Century magazine for 1894, p. 521. Other critics who drew attention to this blasphemous farce came to the same conclusions. So prof. Prefion, in his article in Die Christliche Welt No. 20 of 1894, without any hesitation declares Notovich's discovery a gross fraud, precisely on the basis of 1) contradictions on the part of the publisher himself, 2) the literary nature of the document, which has nothing truly Tibetan or Indian in it, and 3) on the basis of obvious anachronisms and other contradictions in the content itself. It is clear from everything, the critic concludes, that this is the work of the publisher himself, in whose eyes Christ is a Buddhist Jew, with a socialist tint in his character. Professor of the University of Lausanne Louis Emery also published a sharp review of this fiction in the local Gazette on May 8 and believes that Mr. Notovich can only “giggle in his beard” in view of the movement that he made with his fiction among the gullible intelligentsia of the capital of the most advanced country in the world!.. Notovich's farce attracted the attention of the Greek press, and its analysis was published in the organ of the Patriarch of Constantinople Έκκλησιαστική Άληϑειά in No. 32, dated October 14. 1894.