Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
quarians. In particular it cannot be denied that this influence was of great importance in the worship of Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu, and that much of what is related of Christ in the Gospels was transferred to Krishna. We can no longer doubt, therefore, the possibility of the hypothesis that the composer of the Bhagavad-Gita also, in which this deification of Krishna reaches, in a measure, its climax, used Christian ideas and expressions, and transferred sayings of Christ related in the Gospels to Krishna, from the same motive and by the same right by which the story of the life of Krishna was adorned with incidents which the Christians narrated of Christ. If now we can find in the Bhagavad-Gita passages, and these not single and obscure, but numerous and clear, which present a surprising similarity to passages in the New Testament, we shall be justified in concluding that these coincidences are no play of chance, but that, taken all together, they afford conclusive proof that the composer was acquainted with the writings of the New Testament, used them as he thought
I.-Passages which differ in expression but agree in meaning.
Bhagavad-Gita.
New Testament.
He who has brought his members under subjection, but sits with foolish mind thinking in his heart of the things of sense, is called a hypocrite. (iii. 6.)*
But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Mutt. v. 28.)
But know they who, scorning it, do not keep my decre., are bereft of all understanding, senseless, lost. (iii. 32.)†
In every object of sense, desire and inclination are inherent. Let a man not subject himself to them, they are his foes. (iii. 34.)
Thy birth is later, that of Vivasat was earlier; how am I to understand that thou didst declare it in the beginning ? (iv. 4.)
Many are my births§ that are past, many are
[OCTOBER, 1873.
fit, and has woven into his own work numerous passages, if not word for word, yet preserving the meaning, and shaping it according to his Indian mode of thought, a fact which till now no one has noticed. To put this assertion beyond doubt, I shall place side by side the most important of these passages in the Bhagavad-Gita, and the corresponding texts of the New Testament. I distinguish three different kinds of passages to which parallels can be adduced from the New Testament: first, such as, with more or less of verbal difference, agree in sense, so that a thought which is clearly Christian appears in an Indian form of expression-these are far the most numerous, and indicate the way in which the original was used in general; secondly, passages in which a peculiar and characteristic expression of the New Testament is borrowed word for word, though the meaning is sometimes quite changed; thirdly, passages in which thought and expression agree, though the former receives from the context a meaning suited to Indian conceptions.
There is in this sloka a polemical allusion to the abuse made of the Yoga, by regarding abstinence from external works as the main point. Lassen remarks,-"even now indeed India abounds with men, who, either carried away by the fame of sanctity, or by the resolution to extort rewards from the gods as it were by force, bind themselves by the strictest vows, and in fasting, silence, and immoveable positions of the body, yet indulge lascivious desires within and dream of pleasures in the future." In the Bha gavad-Gita, the peculiar stress laid on the inner purity of the mind, which, in this form, scarcely occurs elsewhere in Indian literature, would itself alone' suggest the influence of Christian ideas, even if other vestiges of it could not be pointed out.
fAlso John, xiv. 23-24. We often meet with the expressions éraddha and bhakti, which, as in the Christian idea of rioris and dyár, point to a believing in and trustful consecration to a person. There appears to be no doubt
A man that is an heretick... reject; 'knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself. (Tit. iii. 10, 11.)
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal boly, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. (Rm. vi. 12.) Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. (Rom. viii. 7.)
Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abrahan? (John viii. 57.)
I know whence I came, and whither I ga: but
that these ideas are not originally Indian representations (as they are not found anywhere else in heathendom), but that they have, been taken over from Christianity, as Dr. A. Weber among others (Indische Studien, II. 396 ff.) supposes, and has partly demonstrated.
In this sloka is expressed with almost dogmatic precision the Christian doctrine of concupiscence, which becomes sin only when man willingly obeys its inspirations. Conf also James, i, 14-15. With reference to the expression nemies' conf. also Matt. x. 36, which, by ascetic authors, is applied mystically to lust which dwells in man.
The aratáras all belong to the time of the Purinas (hence to a post-Christian age), and Thomson believes also that many of them owe their origin to the Land of the Bible,' but whether before or after the Christian era is a question he does not venture tc decide, though doubtless many points of resemblance exist between Krishna and our Saviour'; the tenth avatára (Kalkin) is said strongly to