a
to these radiant and benevolent genii and to the heaven of boundless
light which is entered by those who repeat the name of its master.
Also there is good evidence to connect the early worship of Amitabha
with Central Asia. Later Iranian influence may have meant
Mithraism and Manichaeism as well as Zoroastrianism and the school of
Asanga perhaps owes something to these systems.[1152] They may have
brought with them fragments of Christianity or doctrines similar to
Christianity but I think that all attempts to derive Amitabhist
teaching from Christianity are fanciful. The only point which the two
have in common is salvation by faith, and that doctrine is certainly
older than Christianity. Otherwise the efforts of Amitabha to save
humanity have no resemblance to the Christian atonement. Nor do the
relations between the various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas recall the
Trinity but rather the Persian Fravashis.

Persian influences worked more strongly on Buddhism than on Hinduism,
for Buddhism not only flourished in the frontier districts but
penetrated into the Tarim basin and the region of the Oxus which lay
outside the Indian and within the Iranian sphere. But they affected
Hinduism also, especially in the matter of sun-worship. This of course
is part of the oldest Vedic religion, but a special form of it,
introduced about the beginning of our era, was a new importation and
not a descendant of the ancient Indian cult.[1153]

The Brihatsamhita[1154] says that the Magas, that is Magi, are the
priests of the sun and the proper persons to superintend the
consecration of temples and images dedicated to that deity, but the
clearest statements about this foreign cult are to be found in the
Bhavishya Purana[1155] which contains a legend as to its introduction
obviously based upon history. Samba, the son of Krishna, desiring to
be cured of leprosy from which he suffered owing to his father's
curse, dedicated a temple to the sun on the river Candrabhaga, but
could find no Brahmans willing to officiate in it. By the advice of
Gauramukha, priest of King Ugrasena, confirmed by the sun himself, he
imported some Magas from Sakadvipa,[1156] whither he flew on the
bird Garuda.[1157] That this refers to the importation of
Zoroastrian priests from the country of the Sakas (Persia or the
Oxus regions) is made clear by the account of their customs--such as
the wearing of a girdle called Avyanga--[1158]given by the Purana. It
also says that th