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828
GITA-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
religion. And I have stated above that modern Christian scholars have now admitted the position that the Christian religion came into existence suddenly, and that there was some cause outside the Jewish religion which was responsible for its having done so. Besides, the similarity between the Christian and the Buddhistic religions is so strange and so complete, that it is impossible for such a similarity to arise in an independent way. It would be different if it could be proved that it was totally impossible for Jewish people to have come to know anything about Buddhism. But history clearly proves that after the date of Alexander-and certainly at the date of Asoka (that is, at least 250 years before Christ) --Buddhist monks had found their way to Alexandria in Egypt, and Greece, in the east of Europe. It is stated in one Asokan stone inscription itself that Asoka had entered into a treaty with Antiochus, who was a Greek king ruling over the Jewish and the surrounding countries. In the same way, there is a statement in the Bible itself, that learned persons had travelled into Jerusalem from the East when Christ was born (Matthew 2.1). Christians say that these sages were Magis, belonging to the Iranian religion, and not from India. But whatever is said, the meaning is the same. Because, history clearly tells us that long before this date, Buddhism had spread to Kashmir and Kabul, and that it had travelled to the East of Europe as far as Iran and Turkey. Besides, Plutarch himself has clearly recorded * that a monk from India used to come every
* See Plutarch's Morals-Theosophical Essays, translated by O. N. King (George Bell & Sons), pp. 96 and 97. There is a reference in the Mahāvamśa written in the Pali language (29. 39) to a Greek, that is, yavana town named Alasan dā ( yona-nagarā 'lasanda); and it is stated there that some years before the Christian era, while the work of building a temple was going on in Ceylon, many Buddhist monks had gone from that place to Ceylon for the celebration. The English translator of the Mahāvamsa says that a town named Alasandā established by Alexander in Kabul is meant in this place, and not Alexandria in Egypt. But this is not correct; because, this small place would not have been referred to by anybody 29 a city of yavanas. Besides, the stone inscription of Asoka mentioned above, itself contains a clear reference to Buddhist monks having been sent to the kingdom of the yavanas,
