worse still, Buddha is made to quote his own
subsequent teachings; for the "Dhammapada" claims to consist of the
sacred words of the "enlightened one." Most of the legends of Buddhism
were wholly written after the beginning of the Christian era, and it
cannot be shown that any were written in their present form until two or
three centuries of that era had elapsed. T.W. Rhys Davids says of the
"Lalita Vistara" which contains a very large proportion of them, and one
form of which is said to have been translated into Chinese in the first
century A.D., "that there is no real proof that it existed in its
present form before the year 600 A.D." The "Romantic Legend" cannot be
traced farther back than the third century A.D. Oldenberg says: "No
biography of Buddha has come down to us from ancient times, from the age
of the Pali texts, and we can safely say that no such biography was in
existence then." Beal declares that the Buddhist legend, as found in the
various Epics of Nepaul, Thibet, and China, "is not framed after _any_
Indian model of any date, but is to be found worked out, so to speak,
among northern peoples, who were ignorant of, or indifferent to, the
pedantic stories of the Brahmans. In the southern and primitive records
the terms of the legend are wanting. _Buddha is not born of a royal
family; he is not tempted before his enlightenment; he works no
miracles, and he is not a Universal Saviour._"

The chances are decidedly that if any borrowing has been done it was on
the side of Buddhism. It has been asserted that thirty thousand
Buddhist monks from Alexandria once visited Ceylon on the occasion of a
great festival. This is absurd on the face of it; but that a Christian
colony settled in Malabar at a very early period is attested by the
presence of thousands of their followers even to this day.

In discussing the specific charge of copying Buddhist legends in the
gospel narratives, we are met at the threshold by insurmountable
improbabilities. To some of these I ask a moment's attention. I shall
not take the time to discuss in detail the alleged parallels which are
paraded as proofs. To anyone who understands the spirit of Judaism and
its attitude toward heathenism of all kinds, it is simply inconceivable
that the Christian disciples, whose aim it was to propagate the faith of
their Master in a Jewish community, should have borrowed old Indian
legends, which, by the terms of the supposition, must have been widely