HAGAVAD GITA AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

No other portion of Hindu literature has made so great an impression on
Western minds as the Bhagavad Gita, "The Lord's Lay," or the "Song of
the Adorable." It has derived its special importance from its supposed
resemblance to the New Testament. And as it claims to be much older than
the oldest of the Gospels or the Epistles, it carries the inference that
the latter may have borrowed something from it.

A plausible translation has been published in Boston by Mr. Mohini M.
Chatterji, who devoutly believes this to be the revealed word of the
Supreme Creator and Upholder of the universe.[74] He admits that at a
later day "the same God, worshipped alike by Hindus and Christians,
appeared again in the person of Jesus Christ," and that "in the Bible He
revealed Himself to Western nations, as the Bhagavad Gita had proclaimed
Him to the people of the East." And he draws the inference that "If the
Scriptures of the Brahmans and the Scriptures of the Jews and
Christians, widely separated as they are by age and nationality, are but
different names for one and the same truth, who can then say that the
Scriptures contradict each other? A careful and reverent collation of
the two sets of Scriptures will show forth the conscious and intelligent
design of revelation." The fact that the Bhagavad Gita is thoroughly
pantheistic, while the Bible emphasizes the personality of God in
fellowship with the distinct personality of human souls, seems to
interpose no serious difficulty in Mr. Chatterji's view, since he says
"'The Lord's Lay' is for philosophic minds, and therefore deals more at
length with the mysteries of the being of God." "In the Bhagavad Gita,"
he says, "consisting of seven hundred and seventy verses, the principal
topic is the being of God, while scarcely the same amount of exposition
is given to it in the whole Bible;" and he adds, "The explanation of
this remarkable fact is found in the difference between the genius of
the Hebrew and the Brahman race, and also in the fact that the teachings
of Jesus Christ were addressed to 'the common people.'"[75]

The air of intellectual superiority which is couched in these words is
conspicuous. Mr. Chatterji also finds an inner satisfaction in what he
considers the broad charity of the Brahmanical Scriptures. He quotes a
passage from the Narada Pancharata which speaks of the Buddha as "the
preserver of revelation for those outside of the Vedic au