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THE SAVIOUR CHRIST
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His time, too, men from outside countries must have come, to drink at the very Fountainhead of Wisdom Divine. Some of the Greeks are known to have visited India about that time.
There is one little circumstance which seems to show that the foundation of the New Testament of the Bible was laid not 1,800-1,900 years ago, but about 500 years still earlier. Those of the texts in the gospels which refer to the promised " coming of the son of man ”e.g., “ There be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the son of man come in his kingdom" (Matt. xvi. 28, see also Luke ix. 27)_could not possibly hold good of later times than about 60 years after the Nirvana of Mahārīra Himself. The reason is this that Nzrvana has been no longer attainable by the inferior type of humanity that has appeared on our globe since that time. A period of 42,000 years still remained to complete the age of the current cycle on the Nirvana of Mahāvīra which occurred 2,456 years ago, and it has been predicted about it that no one will be able to attain salvation during this period. The hearens will be shut up, so to speak, then. In the Bible, too, there is a concealed reference to this shutting up of the heavens for three years and sis months' (Luke iv. 25), which would mean 42,000 years if every month of the period be taken to be equal to a thousand years. Not one soul born during this period has attained salvation or can attain it, the claims of men to the contrary (if any) notwithstanding.
If we now read in the literal sense the text about the coming of the son of man, which expression is used interchangeably in the Bible with the kingdom of
F. 12
