Resonances of Buddhism and Christianity

Resonances of Buddhism and ChristianityAuthor(s): José PereiraSource: Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 16 (1996), pp. 115-127Published by: University of Hawai'i PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1390161 .

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METHODOLOGY AND PRACTICE

Resonances of Buddhism and Christianity

Jose Pereira Fordham University, New York

Both Buddhism and Christianity claim to possess the plenitude of the salvific truth, the truth that is believed to lead to the deliverance from the

painful ephemerality of the human condition and to the fulfillment of what is taken to be man's final destiny. But both religions also admit, explicitly or implicitly, that such truth exists at least in a fragmentary state outside their institutional organisms. In other words, they combine the claim to absoluteness with a concern for ecumenicity.

According to orthodox Christian belief, the salvific truth is made known to mankind through revelation, mediated through inspired individuals, who may or may not be aware of their inspiration: those aware of it are what the Christian tradition designates as prophets. The Epistle to the Hebrews, traditionally ascribed to the apostle Paul, asserts that, "when in former times God spoke to our forefathers He spoke in fragmentary and varied fashion through the prophets. But in this final age He has spoken to us in the Son whom He has made heir to the whole universe, and through whom He created all orders of existence" (Heb. 1:1-3).1 Augustine (354- 430), the major theologian of the early Western Church, remarks that, in the form of Christ, God has been speaking to man at all times (and presumably all places). He compares Christ to a Roman judge, a state official whose exceptional importance was displayed by his being carried on a sedan chair on the shoulders of men and whose approach was announced by a number of heralds. "So great a judge was to come," observes Augustine, referring to Christ, "that many heralds needed to go before Him. From absolutely the world's beginning, Christ never ceased to prophesy about Himself and to announce His coming."2 However, not all the heralds of Christ who preceded Him needed to be prophets in the strict sense. For, as Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), perhaps the greatest Catholic theologian of our secular age, notes, "There are various revelations all over the earth which do not carry with them evidences of their divinity.... There is nothing impossible in the notion of a revelation occurring without evidences that it is a revelation."3

How is a Christian to decide which statements of religious belief outside

Buddhist-Christian Studies 16 (1996). ? by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved.



JOSE PEREIRA

the Christian tradition can be accepted as revealed? A twofold criterion may be postulated: first, that the statements owe nothing to Christian influence; second, that they express truths that Christians believe to have been vali- dated by the revelation of Christ. Assuming that there are some Buddhist statements of belief that are consonant with some of the Christian, the first criterion is easily satisfied since the religion of the Buddha preceded Chris- tianity by five centuries. While that religion's Mahayana development is contemporary with the rise of Christianity, no contact between the two faiths at that time has been conclusively demonstrated, and, at any rate, the impact of the older faith on the younger is more plausibly assumed than is an influence in the opposite direction. With regard to the second criterion, in what follows I shall endeavor to show that some Buddhist professions of belief resonate with others of the Christian to such an extent that even their verbal formulations are sometimes practically the same and one almost seems to hear the accents of one Voice speaking through the confessions of the two faiths.

So much for the acceptability of Buddhist beliefs for Christians. Could Christian beliefs, in like fashion, be acceptable to Buddhists, and on what basis? Two principles advanced by the great Mahayana scripture, the Lotus Sutra, could provide such a basis. The first principle is that of tactfulness or skill in method (upayakausalya) as it is known, according to which the Buddha adapts his teaching, which in its pure state is sublime beyond human comprehension, to the understanding of his fallible audience. Al- though classical Buddhist thinkers, such as those of the T'ien-T'ai and Hua-Yen schools, apply this principle systematically only within the ambit of Buddhism, there is nothing in the principle itself that prevents its being extended to faiths like Hinduism and Christianity. The second principle is that of the limitlessness and ubiquity of the Buddha, who assumes various forms in different ages and places and under different circumstances, but all for the same purpose, the salvation of living beings. Each of these bud- dhas has a distinctive name. Christ could be one such buddha, having names like the Redeemer of the World (Samsarataraka) and the Mortal for the Service of the World (Jagadupakitimartya).4 Indeed, in chapter 7, the Lotus Sftra refers to a buddha whose name well describes (the resur- rected) Christ-the Passed Beyond the Misfortunes and Anxieties of All the Spheres of the Cosmos (Sarvalokadhatupadravodvegapratyuttimra).

I turn now to the resonances between the two religions. There are many, and I shall discuss only the following seven, all relating to the Founder of the faith (the Buddha or Christ) and only those that can be discerned through the encounter of the Buddhist and Christian scriptures and classical theologians. No reference will be made to modern interpreters of both faiths. Those seven are (1) the identity of the Founder with a transcendent being or event, (2) the identity of the Founder with suffering human beings, (3) the Founder as master turned servant, (4) the Founder as accessible to



BUDDHA AND CHRIST

, ?

Photo by Philippe Gross

What was myfundamental face before I was born?

-Zen koan

all human beings, (5) the Founder as the source of all truth everywhere, (6) the Founder as teacher of similar parables, and (7) the Founder as originator of a universal religion. In discussing these points, I consider their Buddhist modalities first, then their Christian resonances. The passages of the documents of the one faith that seem to be literal (or substantial) equivalents of the corresponding texts of the other will be shown in italics.

I. IDENTITY OF THE FOUNDER WITH A TRANSCENDENT BEING OR EVENT

The first point is the identity of the Founder with a transcendent being or event. In Buddhism, nothing transcends the law or dharma (Pali, dham- ma), and the Buddha's relation to it is like one of identity. Speaking to his disciple Vakkali, the Buddha declares, "Vakkali, whoever sees the dharma, sees me; whoever sees me, sees the dharma. In truth, Vakkali, seeing the dharma, he sees me; seeing me, he sees the dharma" (Samyutta Nikaya 22.87.13).5 The Milindapanha echoes this language in its report of one of the many imagined conversations between the Greek king Menander (Milinda) and the Buddhist monk Nagasena. How is one to know of the Buddha's preeminence? inquires the king. Nagasena counters with another question: How is one to know of the famous but long-deceased teacher of writing, Tissa? Through seeing his writing, replies the king. Nagasena's

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retort to this is, "In the same way, great king, whoever sees the dharma sees the Lord, for the dharma, great king, was taught by the Lord."6

In Christianity, no being transcends the Father, the first Person of the Trinity; Christ, the second coequal Person of that Trinity, is one with Him. The apostle Philip was slow to grasp this relation of Christ to the Father and said to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father and we ask no more." Jesus answered, "Have I been all this time with you, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Then how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?" (John 14:8-10).

For the followers of the Buddha, the Buddhist message, the dharma, is contained in the Buddhist scriptures, the Three Baskets (Tripitaka/Tipi- taka), the Lotus Sutra, and the other sacred writings of the Mahayana; for the followers of Christ, the Christian message, the gospel, is enshrined in the Christian scriptures, the New Testament. The Lotus Sutra predicates the quasi identity of the Buddha with the scripture, that is, with itself. Speaking to the Buddha Medicine King (Bhaisajyaguru), the Buddha (Sakyamuni) says, "in the land where this method of teaching [the Lotus Sutra] is preached, taught, written, recited, or chanted, in that land, O Medicine King, a shrine to the Buddha is to be erected, huge, adorned with jewels, spacious and lofty. There is no need to place in it relics of the Buddha. And why not? Because deposited in it is that which is of one substance with the body of the Buddha [the Lotus Sutra itselfl" (Lotus Sutra 10).7

Similarly, for some Christian theologians, the gospel has a sort of identity with its proclaimer, Christ, the Logos or Word. Origen (185?-254?), believed by many to be the greatest teacher of the early Church after the Apostles, commenting on Christ's words "take this [bread] and eat; this is my body" (Matt. 26:26), contends that "the bread that the Lord says is His body is the word that nourishes souls, a word proceeding from God the Word, and bread from the celestial bread."8 Reflecting on these words, Jacques- Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704), the Baroque avatar of Augustine, queries:

What similarity has he [Origen] been able to find between the body of our Savior and the word of His gospel? Here is the basis for the idea: the eternal wisdom [or Logos], which was generated in the bosom of the Father, rendered itself sensible in two ways. It rendered itself sensible in the flesh that it took in the bosom of Mary, and it further rendered itself sensible by the divine Scriptures and by the word of the gospel-in such a fashion that we can say that this word and these Scriptures are like a second body that it assumes to appear before our eyes. This in fact is what we see: this Jesus who conversed with the Apostles still lives for our sakes in the gospel; there, for our salvation, He spreads the word of eternal life.9



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2. IDENTITY OF THE FOUNDER WITH SUFFERING HUMAN BEINGS

The second point is the identity of the Founder with suffering human beings. Noticing that a monk had fallen ill from a bowel disturbance and was not being cared for by his fellow monks, the Buddha asked why he had been neglected and was told that, as the monk was of no use to any- body, no one waited on him. At this the Buddha remarked, "Monks, you have not a mother or a father to care for you. If you, monks, do not look after one another, who indeed will? Whoever, monks, would care for me should nurse the sick" (Mahavagga 8.26.3).10

In the same way, in what was perhaps the most solemn discourse of His life Christ identified Himself with the needy (who are of no use to any- body) when reporting the words of the tremendous sentence He would pronounce on the Day of Judgment, particularly on the damned:

"The curse in upon you; go from my sight to the eternal fire that is ready for the devil and his angels. For when I was hungry you gave me nothing to eat, when thirsty nothing to drink; when I was a stranger you gave me no house, when naked you did not clothe me; when I was sick and in prison, you did not come to my help." And they [the damned] too will reply, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did nothing for you?" And He will answer, "I tell you this: anything you did not do for one of these, however humble, you did not do for me." (Matt. 25:41- 45)

3. THE FOUNDER AS MASTER TURNED SERVANT

The third point is the Founder as master turned servant or as the servant master. On the Buddhist side, the Diamond Flag Scripture (Vajradhvaja Sutra) of the Mahayana declares, "The Bodhisattva... appointing himself as a friend among all beings ... regarding himself in all the world as ready for service as they wish ... regarding himself as a channel for all service."1 The Bodhisattva is an "enlightenment being," his entire person pervaded by spiritual illumination. However, he has not entered nirvana; he still abides in the world of transmigration. But even the Buddha, the Enlight- ened One who has passed beyond the flux of rebirths, condescends to be a servant to those still in the transmigratory flux. As Matrceta (second cen- tury A.D.), the theologian poet of the emerging Mahayana, expositor of the basic insights of Buddhism with elegance and simplicity, puts it in his Hymn of a Hundred and Fifty Verses to the Buddha: "Master though you are, Lord, your masterhood is never seen in your person: like a servant, all employ you for their purposes as they please" (Satapancasatka 117).12

The concept of the servant master applies exactly to Christ as well.

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Speaking of Him, the Gospel of John reports that, "after washing their feet and taking His garments again, He sat down. 'Do you understand what I have done for you?' He asked. You call me 'Master' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Then if I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. I have set you an example. You are to do as I have done for you" (John 13:10-15). Indeed, it would seem that, according to Christ's thinking, being a master consists precisely in being a servant. The Gospel of Luke reproduces His following words: "In the world, kings lord it over their subjects; and those in authority are called their country's 'Benefactors.' Not so with you: on the contrary, the highest among you must bear himself like the youngest, the chief among you like a servant" (Luke 22:25-26).

4. THE FOUNDER AS ACCESSIBLE TO ALL HUMAN BEINGS

The fourth point is the Founder's universal approachability, his consorting with all manner of people. In the words of the Buddhist scripture, the Bud- dha explained how he had behaved when he had attended assemblies of warriors, brahmins, laymen, ascetics, gods, demons, and the god Brahma himself. In the following words, addressed to his favorite disciple, Ananda, the Buddha describes how he behaved among one of these groups: "I well know, Ananda, that when I approached various assemblies of the warrior class-even before I had sat down, spoken, or begun a discussion-whatever might have been their sort, I made myself of like sort, and whatever was their language, so was my language. And in talk of the dharma, I instructed them, roused them, set them on fire, and delighted them" (Digha Nikdya 16.3.23).13

Christ, likewise, consorted with all manner of human beings: with His mother, the noblest of them; with Judas, one of the vilest; with Magdalen, the harlot; and with Zacchaeus, the rapacious tax collector. Unlike John the Baptist, Christ enjoyed Himself in the company of those who loved the good life (although not attached Himself to material things) and was blamed for it: "For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He is possessed.' The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners'" (Matt. 11:18-19). It can be said, then, that Christ was all things to all men, as was one of His chief followers, the apostle Paul, who thus describes himself:

I have made myself every man's servant, to win over as many as possible. To Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; as they are subject to the Law of Moses, I put myself under the Law to win them, although not myself subject to it. To win Gentiles, who are outside the Law, I made myself like one of them, although I am not in truth



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outside God's law, being under the Law of Christ.... Indeed, I have become everything in turn to men of every sort... All this I do for the sake of the Gospel, to bear my part in proclaiming it. (1 Cor. 9:19-23)

5. THE FOUNDER AS THE SOURCE OF ALL TRUTH EVERYWHERE

The fifth point is the Founder as the source of universal truth. In the Bud- dha's words, reported by the Impulse to Determination Scripture (Adhya- sayasamcodana Sutra) of the Mahayana: "Anything, Maitreya, that is well said, is a word of the Buddha."'4 This idea is elaborated by Matrceta in his Paean of Praise to the Praiseworthy One (VarnCarhavarnastava). "O Bud- dha," exclaims the poet, "Whatever is well said in the world derives from your teaching: such faultless expression [that characterizes this teaching] is specific to the Buddha alone" (Vardarhavarnastava 7.17).15

Speaking for the Christian side, Augustine contends that the truths in Hellenic and Roman paganism have Christ as their source: "Neither must we miss studying the [Greek and Latin] literature because their inventor is said to be Mercury. Else, because the pagans dedicated their temples to justice and virtue, and chose to worship in stones what was to be borne in the heart-not for that reason must justice and virtue be avoided by us: indeed, any good and true Christian understands that the truth, wher- ever it is found, is his Lord's, which, confessing and acknowledging, he will repudiate superstitious fancies even when found in the sacred scriptures" (De doctrina christiana 2.18).16 Augustine's teacher Ambrose (ca. 339-398) put it more succinctly, asserting that "whatever is true, by whomever it be said, is said by the Holy Spirit" (In Epistolam Beati Pauli ad Corinthios Primam 12).17

6. THE FOUNDER AS TEACHER OF SIMILAR PARABLES

The sixth point concerns the Founder as a teacher of similar parables. The parable in question is that of the runaway son, in both its Buddhist (Lotus Sutra 4) and its Christian (Luke 15:11-32) versions.

The Lotus Sutra version is as follows. A man leaves his father and runs away to a foreign country, where he has a difficult life, becoming poorer as he grows older, and so develops a sense of his own inferiority. In his wan- derings in search of menial employment, he arrives at a city where his father, who has been looking for him everywhere, has settled, become enormously rich, and is living in splendor in a palace, attended by many citizens and slaves. Dazzled by the majesty of his parent, failing to recognize him, and fearing arrest, the son flees. But the father has recognized him, and seeks to bring him back by force, but succeeds only in terrifying him. The father then acts more tactfully, having his servants offer the son employment for good wages, although the tasks assigned are menial. Then



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the father divests himself of the majesty that his son found so daunting, puts on humble garb (and so condescends to the son's level, so to speak), visits him at work, and promotes him to a higher post. Promotion follows promotion, and eventually the old man puts the young one in charge of all his wealth. As he seems to rise in his employer's esteem, the servant's con- fidence grows, until he is able to entertain the idea that he could conceiv- ably be the son of a rich and powerful man. At that point, the father

publicly proclaims that his faithful servant is really his son and appoints him heir to all that he owns. In making his proclamation, he could have used the words of Paul: "You are no longer a servant [doulos, usually 'slave'] but a son" (Gal. 4:7).

The version in Luke is as follows. A rich man has two sons. The younger asks for his inheritance and leaves, going to a distant country and squan- dering his money on a life of debauchery, until he becomes destitute. A famine afflicts the country where he resides; to keep himself alive he takes a job as a pig herder and is willing to eat even the husks thrown to the

pigs. In his distress, he returns to his father, begs for forgiveness, and asks to be treated as a servant. The father, overjoyed, not only forgives him, but orders a celebration in his honor, to the annoyance of the elder son, who

complains that he, who had never abandoned his father, had been

neglected while the deserting wastrel is now being pampered. In both parables, the father is a loving and compassionate parent, unwill-

ingly separated from his son and overjoyed at his return. In many details, however, the parables differ vastly. In the gospel parable, the prodigal has no doubts as to whose son he is and that he is entitled to a share of his father's wealth. Given that share, he squanders it and falls on hard times. He then repents of his misdeeds, but his father has nothing to do with the fact that he repents. When the prodigal returns home, both father and son

recognize each other at once. In the Lotus Sutra parable, on the other hand, the son leaves the house of a presumably poor parent and becomes convinced of the inferiority of his origin. He has no wealth to squander, and, when he arrives at the palace of his father (now grown fabulously rich), it is the father who recognizes the son, not the son the father. The awareness as to who he really is dawns on the son only after the father's long and tactful efforts.

In the gospel parable, the father is the compassionate God, who wel- comes the repentant sinner. In the Lotus Satra parable, the father is the compassionate Buddha, who condescends to the level of unenlightened man-who like every other human being is really the Buddha's son-to make him aware of his sonship. However, in differing in this detail from the Christian version of the parable, the Buddhist version does not diverge from Christian thinking but in fact comes closer to it, in that it reflects another idea shared by Buddhism and Christianity, that of the condescen- sion (synkatabasis, as the Greek fathers term it) of a transcendent being to

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the level of inferior humans so as to exalt them to his own state. This idea can be discerned in the words of Paul: "During our minority we were slaves... but when the appointed time came, God sent His own Son [(who) emptied Himself, assuming the condition of a slave (Phil. 2:17)]... born under the law, to redeem the subjects of the law, in order that we might attain the status of sons" (Gal. 4:3-5).

7. THE FOUNDER AS ORIGINATOR OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION

The seventh and last point is about the Founder as originator of a universal religion, that is, for all mankind, not simply for any particular tribal or ethnic group. Buddhism is the first world religion, of which we have clear evidence, whose message was addressed to all men, as the Buddhist scripture confesses, in the words of the Founder himself, uttered to his disciples when he sent them on their first preaching mission: "Go, monks, journey for the welfare of the many, the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, and for the benefit, welfare, and happiness of gods and men.... Monks, preach the Law [dharma] that is salutary at its beginning, salutary in its middle, salutary at its end" (Mahavagga 8.26.3).18 With these words the Buddha instructs his monks to preach the law not just to Lic- chavis or Sakas, or to Indians and Chinese, but to all those who are in need of compassion, that is, humankind in general.

Matrceta uses similar words to emphasize the universality of the Bud- dhist faith. Exclaims the poet in his Hymn of a Hundred and Fifty Verses, "You have granted this hospitality of the Law unstintingly to all, 0 Blessed One, without distinction of birth, age, caste, place or time" (Satapazcasatka 110)19 According to the Lotus Sutra, this hospitality embraces not just humans but all living beings: a literal universality not claimed by any other faith. In that remarkable scripture, the Buddha declares:

Listen to me, assemblies of gods and men, come to me and behold me! I am the Buddha, the Passed to the Beyond, the Blessed One, the unexcelled, born in this world for its salvation. To millions of living beings I preach the law that is pure and supremely beautiful, one in its equableness and truth, in emancipation and in nirvana. With one voice I proclaim the law, everlastingly making enlightenment its cause. It is equable; there is no inequality in it; there is in it no hostil- ity and no attachment. I have no partiality whatsoever, no affection and no reproach. I preach the same law to mortals; what Ipreach to one being I do to another. (Lotus Sutra 5.19-22)20

After Buddhism, the next religion to preach a universal message was Christianity, again in the words of the Founder Himself, delivered in the most solemn manner possible, at the very moment of His departure from the world: "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go,

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therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands that I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time" (Matt. 28:19-20).21 In the following passage, Augustine exalts the universality of the Christian religion, emphasizing it by his repeti- tion of the words universal and all (italicized below):

This is the religion, which contains the universal way of liberating the soul, as no one can be liberated except through this way. This is, in a fashion, the royal way, which alone leads to the kingdom, not to be shaken by temporal pomp, but secure in the firmness of eternity . . . this universal way of liberating the soul, which is none other than the Christian religion.... This is therefore the universal way of liberating the soul, that is, the way granted to all races by divine mercy. . . . This, I say, is the universal way of the believers to be liberated, about which the faithful Abraham received the oracle: "all nations in the world shall bless themselves by your descendants" [Genesis 22:18].... This way therefore is not only of one race but of all races. (De civitate Dei 10.32)22

It will have been noticed that, in addition to proclaiming the universal

scope of Christianity, Augustine maintains its absoluteness, that is, its claim to be the sole way to salvation. Such a claim is also made by Buddhists with regard to their faith. For the Lotus Sutra, Buddhism is the sole vehicle to liberation: "In the world there is no second vehicle or means to final liberation, what talk of a third?" (Lotus Sftra 7).23 In the words of Candra- kirti (ca. 560-ca. 620), the consummate interpreter of the thought of that supreme genius of Buddhist speculation, Nagarjuna (ca. 105-ca. 202): "This religious teaching [the Buddhist] that instructs you in all the antidotes to mundane defilements and rescues you from distress and transmigration: this religious teaching, charged with protectivepower, has no double among other religious systems" (Prasannapada on Nagarjuna's Madhyamakagss- tram, introductory stanza).24 And as Santideva (695-743), whose work is a

perfect fusion of poetry and Mahayana theology, exclaims: "May the Bud- dhist religion, the one medicine for the sufferings of the world, the cause of all fulfillment and happiness, and attended by prosperity and by honor- may this Buddhist religion long endure!" (Bodhicarydvatara 10.57).25

As I have suggested, both Buddhism and Christianity strive to balance their claims to absoluteness with a concern for ecumenicity-that is, the

openness to the truth, as they see it, in faiths besides their own. These are but some of the resonances between Buddhism and Christianity; there are so many as to make the two religions seem almost to be two varia- tions on the same theme, a fact that led the eminent historian of religion Ernest Renan (1823-1892) to remark that Buddhism was "Catholicism without God."26

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NOTES

1. With the exception of the passages from the New Testament, which are adapted from the New English Bible, all translations (from French, Latin, Pali, and Sanskrit) are mine.

2. Augustine, Sermo 379, in NativitateJoannis Baptistae, in Migne, Patrologia Latina (hereafter ML), 39:1674.

3. John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, pt. 1, chap. 2, sec. 2, subsec. 5, p. 79.

4. Descriptive compound used by Ramanuja, in the introduction to his Gitab- hasya, to describe the incarnate Krsna.

5. "yo kho Vakkali dhammam passati so mam passati. yo mam passati so dhammam passati. dhammam hi Vakkali passanto mam passati, mam passanto dhammam passati" (Sariyutta Nikaya [London: Pali Text Society, 1960], 3:120).

6. "evam eva kho maharaja yo dhammam passati so bhagavantam passati, dhammo hi maharaja bhagavata desito ti" (Milindapanho, ed. V. Trenckner [London: William & Norgate, 1880], p. 71).

7. "yasmin khalu punah bhaisajyaraja prthivipradese'yam dharmaparyayo bhasyeta va desyeta va likhyeta va svadhyayeta va safgayeta va, tasmin bhaisajyaraja prthivipradese tathagathacaityam karayitavyam mahantam ratnamayam uccam pragrhitam. na ca tasminavasyam tathagathasarirani pratisthapayitavyani. tat kasya hetoh? ekaghanameva tasmin tathagatasariram upaniksiptam bhavati, yasmin prthivipradese'yam dharmaparyayo bhasyeta va desyeta va patyeta va sangayeta va likhyeta va likhito va pustakagatah tisthet" (P. L. Vaidya, ed., Saddharmapundarika- sutra [Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1960], p. 145).

8. "Panis iste quem Deus Verbum corpus esse fatetur, verbum est nutritorium ani- marum, verbum de Deo Verbo procedens, et panis de pane coelesti" (Origen, Series veteris interpretationis commentariorum Origenis in Matthaeum, in Migne, Patrolo- gia Graeca, 13:1734, no. 85. This quote is from the part of Origen's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew preserved only in a Latin translation).

9. "Quelle ressemblance a-t-il pu trouver entre le corps de notre Sauveur et la parole de son Evangile? Voici le fond de cette pensee: c'est que la sagesse 6ternelle, qui est engendr6e dans le sein du Pere, s'est rendue sensible en deux sortes. Elle s'est rendue sensible en la chair qu'elle a prise au sein de Marie, et elle se rend encore sensible par les Ecritures divines et par la parole de l'Evangile: tellement que nous pouvons dire que cette parole et ces Ecritures sont comme un second corps qu'elle prend pour paraitre encore a nos yeux. C'est la en effet que nous la voyons: ce Jesus, qui a converse avec les ap6tres, vit encore pour nous dans son Evangile; et il y repand encore, pour notre salut, la parole de vie eternelle" (Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, Panegyrique de l'apotre Saint Paul, point 1).

10. "natthi te bhikhkhave mata natthi pita ye te upatthaheyum. tumhe ce bhikhkhave annamannam na upatthahisatha atha ko carahi upatthahissati. yo bhikhkhave mam upatthaheyya so gilanam upatthaheya" (TheMahavagga, vol. 1 of The Vinaya Pitaka, ed. Hermann Oldenberg [London: Pali Text Society, 1879], p. 302).

11. "iti hi bodhisattva atmanam... mitrasamanam sarvasattvesu niyojayamana ... yathakamakaraniyavasyamatmanam sarvaloke sampasyan . . . sarvopakarana- tirthamatmanam sampasyan" (quoted by Santideva in his Siksasamuccaya, commentary on 1.4, in P. L. Vaidya, ed., Siksasamuccaya of Santideva [Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1961], pp. 16-17).

12. "prabhutvamapi te natha sada natmani vidyate. vaktavya iva sarvairhi svairam svarthe niyujyase" (D. R. Shackleton Bailey, The Satapancasatka of Matrceta [Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951], p. 124).

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13. "abhijanami kho panaham ananda anekasatam khattiyaparisam upasanka- mitva, tatra pi maya sannisinnapubbafi ceva sallapitapubban ca sakaccha ca samapajjitapubba. tatha yadisako tesam vanno hoti tadisako mayham vanno hoti, yadisako tesam saro hoti tadisako mayham saro hoti, dhammiya ca kathaya sandas- semi, samadapemi, samuttejemi, sampahamsemi" (The Digha Nikaya, ed. T.W. Rhys Davis and J. Estlin Carpenter [London: Pali Text Society, 19031, 2:109).

14. "yatkifcinmaitreya subhasitam sarvam tadbuddhabhasitam" (quoted by San- tideva in his Siksasamuccaya, commentary on 1.2, in Vaidya, ed., Siksasamuccaya ofSantideva, p. 12; cf. Anfguttara Nikaya 4.164: "yam kifci subhasitam, sabbai tam tassa bhagavato vacanam").

15. "yavatsubhasitam loke sarvam tattavasasanat. sugatavenikaivaisa niravadya- bhilapita" (Jens-Uwe Hartmann, ed., Das Varnarhavarnastava des Matrceta [Gottin- gen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987], p. 227).

16. "Neque enim litteras discere non debuimus, quia eorum repertorem dicunt esse Mercurium; aut quia iustitiae virtutique templa dedicarunt, et quae corde gestanda sunt in lapidibus adorare maluerunt, propterea nobis iustitia virtusque fugienda est: imo vero quisquis bonus verusque christianus est, Domini sui intelli- gat, ubicumque invenerit veritatem, quam confitens et agnoscens, etiam in Litteris sacris superstitiosa figmenta repudiet" (ML 34:49).

17. "quidquid enim falsum est, ab homine est... quidquid enim verum a quo- cumque dicatur, a Sancto dicitur Spiritu" (ML 17:258).

18. "caratha bhikkhave carikam bahujanahitaya bahujanasukhaya lokanukam- paya, atthaya hitaya sukhaya devamanussanam... desetha bhikkhave dhammam adikalyanam majjhekalyanam pariyosanakalyanam" (Oldenberg, ed., The Maha- vagga, p. 21).

19. "upapattivayovarnadesakalaniratyayam. tvaya hi bhagavan dharmasarvati- thyam idam krtam" (Bailey, ed., The Satapancasatka ofMatrceta, p. 117).

20. "srnotha me devamanusyasafigha upasankramadhvam mama darsanaya. tathagato' ham bhagavananabhibhuh santaranartham iha loki jatah [verse 19]. bhasami ca pranisahasrakotinam dharmam visuddhamabhidarganiyam. eka ca tasyo samata tathatvam yadidam vimuktiscatha nirvrti ca [verse 20]. svarena caikena vadami dharmam bodhim nidanam kariyana nityam. samam hi etadvisamatva nasti na kasci vidvesu na ragu vidyate [verse 21]. anuniyata mahya na kacidasti prema ca dosasca na me kahifcit. samam ca dharmam pravadami dehinam yathaikasattvasya tatha parasya [verse 22]" (Vaidya, ed., Siksasamuccaya ofSantideva, p. 87).

21. These are the words that Christ uttered in his last mission to the Apostles. When he sent them on an earlier mission, the scope of his message was more restricted: "These twelve [Apostles] Jesus sent with the following instructions: 'Do not take the road to gentile lands, and do not enter any Samaritan town; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'" (Matt. 10:5-6).

22. "Haec est religio, quae universalem continet viam animae liberandae, quo- niam nulla nisi in haec liberari potest. Haec est quodammodo regalis via, quae una ducit ad regnum, non temporali fastigio nutabundum, sed aeternitatis firmitate securum ... ista liberandae animae universalis via, quae non est alia, nisi religio christiana.... Haec est igitur animae liberandae universalis via, id est, universis gentibus divina miseratione concessa.... Haec est inquam, liberandorum creden- tium universalis via, de qua fidelis Abraham divinum accepit oraculum: 'in semine tuo benedicentur omnes gentes' [Gen. 22:18].... Via ergo ista non est unius gentis, sed universarum gentium" (ML 41:312-316).

23. "na bhiksavah kilcidasti loke dvitiyam nama yanam parinirvanam va, kah punarvadastrtiyasya?" (Vaidya, ed., Siksasamuccaya ofSantideva, p. 120).

24. "yacchasti vah klesaripunasesan santrayate durgatito bhavacca. tacchasanat



BUDDHA AND CHRIST 127

tranagunacca sastram etaddvayam canyamatesu nasti" (P. L. Vaidya, ed., Madhya- makasastra of NCgdrjuna with the Commentary Prasannapadd by Candrakirti [Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1960], p. 1).

25. "jagadduhkaikabhaisajyam sarvasampatsukhakaram. labhasatkarasahitam ciram tisthatu sasanam" (P. L. Vaidya, ed., Bodhicarydvatara of Santideva with the Commentary Parjikk of PrajnCdkaramati [Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1960], p. 287).

26. Ernest Renan, "Premiers travaux sur le Bouddhisme: 'Cette religion athee a ete eminemment morale et bienfaisante. C'est le catholicisme sans Dieu,'" in Oeuvres completes de Ernest Renan, ed. Henriette Psichari (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1955), 7:772.



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Resonances of Buddhism and Christianity