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Title: The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ
The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery
Author: Nicolas Notovitch
Release Date: July 1, 2009 [eBook #29288]
Language: English
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THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST
The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery
by
NICOLAS NOTOVITCH
Translated by J. H. Connelly and L. Landsberg
Printed in the United States of America
New York: R.F. Fenno. 1890.
Table of Contents
_Preface_ vi
_A Journey in Thibet_ 1
_Ladak_ 33
_A Festival in a Gonpa_ 45
_The Life of Saint Issa_ 61
_Resumé_ 89
_Explanatory Notes_ 117
Preface
After the Turkish War (1877-1878) I made a series of travels in the
Orient. From the little remarkable Balkan peninsula, I went across the
Caucasus to Central Asia and Persia, and finally, in 1887, visited
India, an admirable country which had attracted me from my earliest
childhood. My purpose in this journey was to study and know, at home,
the peoples who inhabit India and their customs, the grand and
mysterious archæology, and the colossal and majestic nature of their
country. Wandering about without fixed plans, from one place to another,
I came to mountainous Afghanistan, whence I regained India by way of the
picturesque passes of Bolan and Guernaï. Then, going up the Indus to
Raval Pindi, I ran over the Pendjab--the land of the five rivers;
visited the Golden Temple of Amritsa--the tomb of the King of Pendjab,
Randjid Singh, near Lahore; and turned toward Kachmyr, "The Valley of
Eternal Bliss." Thence I directed my peregrinations as my curiosity
impelled me, until I arrived in Ladak, whence I intended returning to
Russia by way of Karakoroum and Chinese Turkestan.
One day, while visiting a Buddhist convent on my route, I learned from a
chief lama, that there existed in the archives of Lhassa, very ancient
memoirs relating to the life of Jesus Christ and the occidental nations,
and that certain great monasteries possessed old copies and translations
of those chronicles.
As it was little probable that I should make another journey into this
country, I resolved to put off my return to Europe until a later date,
and, cost what it might, either find those copies in the great convents
or go to Lhassa--a journey which is far from being so dangerous and
difficult as is generally supposed, involving only such perils as I was
already accustomed to, and which would not make me hesitate at
attempting it.
During my sojourn at Leh, capital of Ladak, I visited the great convent
Himis, situated near the city, the chief lama of which informed me that
their monastic library contained copies of the manuscripts in question.
In order that I might not awaken the suspicions of the authorities
concerning the object of my visit to the cloister, and to evade
obstacles which might be opposed to me as a Russian, prosecuting further
my journey in Thibet, I gave out upon my return to Leh that I would
depart for India, and so left the capital of Ladak. An unfortunate fall,
causing the breaking of a leg, furnished me with an absolutely
unexpected pretext for returning to the monastery, where I received
surgical attention. I took advantage of my short sojourn among the lamas
to obtain the consent of their chief that they should bring to me, from
their library, the manuscripts relating to Jesus Christ, and, assisted
by my interpreter, who translated for me the Thibetan language,
transferred carefully to my notebook what the lama read to me.
Not doubting at all the authenticity of this chronicle, edited with
great exactitude by the Brahminic, and more especially the Buddhistic
historians of India and Nepaul, I desired, upon my return to Europe, to
publish a translation of it.
To this end, I addressed myself to several universally known
ecclesiastics, asking them to revise my notes and tell me what they
thought of them.
Mgr. Platon, the celebrated metropolitan of Kiew, thought that my
discovery was of great importance. Nevertheless, he sought to dissuade
me from publishing the memoirs, believing that their publication could
only hurt me. "Why?" This the venerable prelate refused to tell me more
explicitly. Nevertheless, since our conversation took place in Russia,
where the censor would have put his veto upon such a work, I made up my
mind to wait.
A year later, I found myself in Rome. I showed my manuscript to a
cardinal very near to the Holy Father, who answered me literally in
these words:--"What good will it do to print this? Nobody will attach to
it any great importance and you will create a number of enemies. But,
you are still very young! If it is a question of money which concerns
you, I can ask for you a reward for your notes, a sum which will repay
your expenditures and recompense you for your loss of time." Of course,
I refused.
In Paris I spoke of my project to Cardinal Rotelli, whose acquaintance I
had made in Constantinople. He, too, was opposed to having my work
printed, under the pretext that it would be premature. "The church," he
added, "suffers already too much from the new current of atheistic
ideas, and you will but give a new food to the calumniators and
detractors of the evangelical doctrine. I tell you this in the interest
of all the Christian churches."
Then I went to see M. Jules Simon. He found my matter very interesting
and advised me to ask the opinion of M. Renan, as to the best way of
publishing these memoirs. The next day I was seated in the cabinet of
the great philosopher. At the close of our conversation, M. Renan
proposed that I should confide to him the memoirs in question, so that
he might make to the Academy a report upon the discovery.
This proposition, as may be easily understood, was very alluring and
flattering to my _amour propre_. I, however, took away with me the
manuscript, under the pretext of further revising it. I foresaw that if
I accepted the proposed combination, I would only have the honor of
having found the chronicles, while the illustrious author of the "Life
of Jesus" would have the glory of the publication and the commenting
upon it. I thought myself sufficiently prepared to publish the
translation of the chronicles, accompanying them with my notes, and,
therefore, did not accept the very gracious offer he made to me. But,
that I might not wound the susceptibility of the great master, for whom
I felt a profound respect, I made up my mind to delay publication until
after his death, a fatality which could not be far off, if I might judge
from the apparent general weakness of M. Renan. A short time after M.
Renan's death, I wrote to M. Jules Simon again for his advice. He
answered me, that it was my affair to judge of the opportunity for
making the memoirs public.
I therefore put my notes in order and now publish them, reserving the
right to substantiate the authenticity of these chronicles. In my
commentaries I proffer the arguments which must convince us of the
sincerity and good faith of the Buddhist compilers. I wish to add that
before criticising my communication, the societies of _savans_ can,
without much expense, equip a scientific expedition having for its
mission the study of those manuscripts in the place where I discovered
them, and so may easily verify their historic value.
--_Nicolas Notovitch_
The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ
_A Journey in Thibet_
During my sojourn in India, I often had occasion to converse with the
Buddhists, and the accounts they gave me of Thibet excited my curiosity
to such an extent that I resolved to make a journey into that still
almost unknown country. For this purpose I set out upon a route crossing
Kachmyr (Cashmere), which I had long intended to visit.
On the 14th of October, 1887, I entered a railway car crowded with
soldiers, and went from Lahore to Raval-Pinidi, where I arrived the next
day, near noon. After resting a little and inspecting the city, to which
the permanent garrison gives the aspect of a military camp, I provided
myself with the necessaries for a journey, where horses take the place
of the railway cars. Assisted by my servant, a colored man of
Pondichery, I packed all my baggage, hired a tonga (a two-wheeled
vehicle which is drawn by two horses), stowed myself upon its back seat,
and set out upon the picturesque road leading to Kachmyr, an excellent
highway, upon which we travelled rapidly. We had to use no little skill
in making our way through the ranks of a military caravan--its baggage
carried upon camels--which was part of a detachment returning from a
country camp to the city. Soon we arrived at the end of the valley of
Pendjab, and climbing up a way with infinite windings, entered the
passes of the Himalayas. The ascent became more and more steep. Behind
us spread, like a beautiful panorama, the region we had just traversed,
which seemed to sink farther and farther away from us. As the sun's last
glances rested upon the tops of the mountains, our tonga came gaily out
from the zigzags which the eye could still trace far down the
forest-clad slope, and halted at the little city of Muré; where the
families of the English functionaries came to seek shade and
refreshment.
Ordinarily, one can go in a tonga from Muré to Srinagar; but at the
approach of the winter season, when all Europeans desert Kachmyr, the
tonga service is suspended. I undertook my journey precisely at the time
when the summer life begins to wane, and the Englishmen whom I met upon
the road, returning to India, were much astonished to see me, and made
vain efforts to divine the purpose of my travel to Kachmyr.
Abandoning the tonga, I hired saddle horses--not without considerable
difficulty--and evening had arrived when we started to descend from
Muré, which is at an altitude of 5,000 feet. This stage of our journey
had nothing playful in it. The road was torn in deep ruts by the late
rains, darkness came upon us and our horses rather guessed than saw
their way. When night had completely set in, a tempestuous rain
surprised us in the open country, and, owing to the thick foliage of the
centenarian oaks which stood on the sides of our road, we were plunged
in profound darkness. That we might not lose each other, we had to
continue exchanging calls from time to time. In this impenetrable
obscurity we divined huge masses of rock almost above our heads, and
were conscious of, on our left, a roaring torrent, the water of which
formed a cascade we could not see. During two hours we waded in the mud
and the icy rain had chilled my very marrow, when we perceived in the
distance a little fire, the sight of which revived our energies. But how
deceitful are lights in the mountains! You believe you see the fire
burning quite near to you and at once it disappears, to reappear again,
to the right, to the left, above, below you, as if it took pleasure in
playing tricks upon the harassed traveller. All the time the road makes
a thousand turns, and winds here and there, and the fire--which is
immovable--seems to be in continual motion, the obscurity preventing you
realizing that you yourself modify your direction every instant.
I had quite given up all hope of approaching this much-wished-for fire,
when it appeared again, and this time so near that our horses stopped
before it.
I have here to express my sincere thanks to the Englishmen for the
foresight of which they gave proof in building by the roadsides the
little bengalows--one-story houses for the shelter of travellers. It is
true, one must not demand comfort in this kind of hotel; but this is a
matter in which the traveller, broken down by fatigue, is not exacting,
and he is at the summit of happiness when he finds at his disposal a
clean and dry room.
The Hindus, no doubt, did not expect to see a traveller arrive at so
late an hour of the night and in this season, for they had taken away
the keys of the bengalow, so we had to force an entrance. I threw myself
upon a bed prepared for me, composed of a pillow and blanket saturated
with water, and almost at once fell asleep. At daybreak, after taking
tea and some conserves, we took up our march again, now bathed in the
burning rays of the sun. From time to time, we passed villages; the
first in a superb narrow pass, then along the road meandering in the
bosom of the mountain. We descended eventually to the river Djeloum
(Jhelum), the waters of which flow gracefully, amid the rocks by which
its course is obstructed, between rocky walls whose tops in many places
seem almost to reach the azure skies of the Himalayas, a heaven which
here shows itself remarkably pure and serene.
Toward noon we arrived at the hamlet called Tongue--situated on the bank
of the river--which presents an unique array of huts that give the
effect of boxes, the openings of which form a façade. Here are sold
comestibles and all kinds of merchandise. The place swarms with Hindus,
who bear on their foreheads the variously colored marks of their
respective castes. Here, too, you see the beautiful people of Kachmyr,
dressed in their long white shirts and snowy turbans. I hired here, at a
good price, a Hindu cabriolet, from a Kachmyrian. This vehicle is so
constructed that in order to keep one's seat in it, one must cross his
legs in the Turkish fashion. The seat is so small that it will hold, at
most, only two persons. The absence of any support for the back makes
this mode of transportation very dangerous; nevertheless, I accepted
this kind of circular table mounted on two wheels and drawn by a horse,
as I was anxious to reach, as soon as possible, the end of my journey.
Hardly, however, had I gone five hundred yards on it, when I seriously
regretted the horse I had forsaken, so much fatigue had I to endure
keeping my legs crossed and maintaining my equilibrium. Unfortunately,
it was already too late.
Evening was falling when I approached the village of Hori. Exhausted by
fatigue; racked by the incessant jolting; my legs feeling as if invaded
by millions of ants, I had been completely incapable of enjoying the
picturesque landscape spread before us as we journeyed along the
Djeloum, the banks of which are bordered on one side by steep rocks and
on the other by the heavily wooded slopes of the mountains. In Hori I
encountered a caravan of pilgrims returning from Mecca.
Thinking I was a physician and learning my haste to reach Ladak, they
invited me to join them, which I promised I would at Srinagar.
I spent an ill night, sitting up in my bed, with a lighted torch in my
hand, without closing my eyes, in constant fear of the stings and bites
of the scorpions and centipedes which swarm in the bengalows. I was
sometimes ashamed of the fear with which those vermin inspired me;
nevertheless, I could not fall asleep among them. Where, truly, in man,
is the line that separates courage from cowardice? I will not boast of
my bravery, but I am not a coward, yet the insurmountable fear with
which those malevolent little creatures thrilled me, drove sleep from my
eyelids, in spite of my extreme fatigue.
Our horses carried us into a flat valley, encircled by high mountains.
Bathed as I was in the rays of the sun, it did not take me long to fall
asleep in the saddle. A sudden sense of freshness penetrated and awoke
me. I saw that we had already begun climbing a mountain path, in the
midst of a dense forest, rifts in which occasionally opened to our
admiring gaze ravishing vistas, impetuous torrents; distant mountains;
cloudless heavens; a landscape, far below, of wondrous beauty. All about
us were the songs of numberless brilliantly plumaged birds. We came out
of the forest toward noon, descended to a little hamlet on the bank of
the river, and after refreshing ourselves with a light, cold collation,
continued our journey. Before starting, I went to a bazaar and tried to
buy there a glass of warm milk from a Hindu, who was sitting crouched
before a large cauldron full of boiling milk. How great was my surprise
when he proposed to me that I should take away the whole cauldron, with
its contents, assuring me that I had polluted the milk it contained! "I
only want a glass of milk and not a kettle of it," I said to him.
"According to our laws," the merchant answered me, "if any one not
belonging to our caste has fixed his eyes for a long time upon one of
our cooking utensils, we have to wash that article thoroughly, and throw
away the food it contains. You have polluted my milk and no one will
drink any more of it, for not only were you not contented with fixing
your eyes upon it, but you have even pointed to it with your finger."
I had indeed a long time examined his merchandise, to make sure that it
was really milk, and had pointed with my finger, to the merchant, from
which side I wished the milk poured out. Full of respect for the laws
and customs of foreign peoples, I paid, without dispute, a rupee, the
price of all the milk, which was poured in the street, though I had
taken only one glass of it. This was a lesson which taught me, from now
on, not to fix my eyes upon the food of the Hindus.
There is no religious belief more muddled by the numbers of ceremonious
laws and commentaries prescribing its observances than the Brahminic.
While each of the other principal religions has but one inspired book,
one Bible, one Gospel, or one Koran--books from which the Hebrew, the
Christian and the Musselman draw their creeds--the Brahminical Hindus
possess such a great number of tomes and commentaries in folio that the
wisest Brahmin has hardly had the time to peruse one-tenth of them.
Leaving aside the four books of the Vedas; the Puranas--which are
written in Sanscrit and composed of eighteen volumes--containing 400,000
strophes treating of law, rights, theogony, medicine, the creation and
destruction of the world, etc.; the vast Shastras, which deal with
mathematics, grammar, etc.; the Upa-Vedas, Upanishads, Upo-Puranas--which
are explanatory of the Puranas;--and a number of other commentaries in
several volumes; there still remain twelve vast books, containing the
laws of Manu, the grandchild of Brahma--books dealing not only with
civil and criminal law, but also the canonical rules--rules which
impose upon the faithful such a considerable number of ceremonies that
one is surprised into admiration of the illimitable patience the
Hindus show in observance of the precepts inculcated by Saint Manu.
Manu was incontestably a great legislator and a great thinker, but
he has written so much that it has happened to him frequently to
contradict himself in the course of a single page. The Brahmins do
not take the trouble to notice that, and the poor Hindus, whose
labor supports the Brahminic caste, obey servilely their clergy,
whose prescriptions enjoin upon them never to touch a man who does not
belong to their caste, and also absolutely prohibit a stranger from
fixing his attention upon anything belonging to a Hindu. Keeping himself
to the strict letter of this law, the Hindu imagines that his food is
polluted when it receives a little protracted notice from the stranger.
And yet, Brahminism has been, even at the beginning of its second birth,
a purely monotheistic religion, recognizing only one infinite and
indivisible God. As it came to pass in all times and in religions, the
clergy took advantage of the privileged situation which places them
above the ignorant multitude, and early manufactured various exterior
forms of cult and certain laws, thinking they could better, in this way,
influence and control the masses. Things changed soon, so far that the
principle of monotheism, of which the Vedas have given such a clear
conception, became confounded with, or, as it were, supplanted by an
absurd and limitless series of gods and goddesses, half-gods, genii and
devils, which were represented by idols, of infinite variety but all
equally horrible looking. The people, once glorious as their religion
was once great and pure, now slip by degrees into complete idiocy.
Hardly does their day suffice for the accomplishment of all the
prescriptions of their canons. It must be said positively that the
Hindus only exist to support their principal caste, the Brahmins, who
have taken into their hands the temporal power which once was possessed
by independent sovereigns of the people. While governing India, the
Englishman does not interfere with this phase of the public life, and so
the Brahmins profit by maintaining the people's hope of a better future.
The sun passed behind the summit of a mountain, and the darkness of
night in one moment overspread the magnificent landscape we were
traversing. Soon the narrow valley of the Djeloum fell asleep. Our road
winding along ledges of steep rocks, was instantly hidden from our
sight; mountains and trees were confounded together in one dark mass,
and the stars glittered in the celestial vault. We had to dismount and
feel our way along the mountain side, for fear of becoming the prey of
the abyss which yawned at our feet. At a late hour of the night we
traversed a bridge and ascended a steep elevation leading to the
bengalow Ouri, which at this height seems to enjoy complete isolation.
The next day we traversed a charming region, always going along the
river--at a turn of which we saw the ruins of a Sikh fortress, that
seemed to remember sadly its glorious past. In a little valley, nestled
amid the mountains, we found a bengalow which seemed to welcome us. In
its proximity were encamped a cavalry regiment of the Maharajah of
Kachmyr.
When the officers learned that I was a Russian, they invited me to share
their repast. There I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of
Col. Brown, who was the first to compile a dictionary of the
Afghan-pouchton language.
As I was anxious to reach, as soon as possible, the city of Srinagar, I,
with little delay, continued my journey through the picturesque region
lying at the foot of the mountains, after having, for a long time,
followed the course of the river. Here, before our eyes, weary of the
monotonous desolation of the preceding landscapes, was unfolded a
charming view of a well-peopled valley, with many two-story houses
surrounded by gardens and cultivated fields. A little farther on begins
the celebrated valley of Kachmyr, situated behind a range of high rocks
which I crossed toward evening. What a superb panorama revealed itself
before my eyes, when I found myself at the last rock which separates the
valley of Kachmyr from the mountainous country I had traversed. A
ravishing tableau truly enchanted my sight. This valley, the limits of
which are lost in the horizon, and is throughout well populated, is
enshrined amid the high Himalayan mountains. At the rising and the
setting of the sun, the zone of eternal snows seems a silver ring, which
like a girdle surrounds this rich and delightful plateau, furrowed by
numerous rivers and traversed by excellent roads, gardens, hills, a
lake, the islands in which are occupied by constructions of pretentious
style, all these cause the traveller to feel as if he had entered
another world. It seems to him as though he had to go but a little
farther on and there must find the Paradise of which his governess had
told him so often in his childhood.
The veil of night slowly covered the valley, merging mountains, gardens
and lake in one dark amplitude, pierced here and there by distant fires,
resembling stars. I descended into the valley, directing myself toward
the Djeloum, which has broken its way through a narrow gorge in the
mountains, to unite itself with the waters of the river Ind. According
to the legend, the valley was once an inland sea; a passage opened
through the rocks environing it, and drained the waters away, leaving
nothing more of its former character than the lake, the Djeloum and
minor water-courses. The banks of the river are now lined with
boat-houses, long and narrow, which the proprietors, with their
families, inhabit the whole year.
From here Srinagar can be reached in one day's travel on horseback; but
with a boat the journey requires a day and a half. I chose the latter
mode of conveyance, and having selected a boat and bargained with its
proprietor for its hire, took my seat in the bow, upon a carpet,
sheltered by a sort of penthouse roof. The boat left the shore at
midnight, bearing us rapidly toward Srinagar. At the stern of the bark,
a Hindu prepared my tea. I went to sleep, happy in knowing my voyage was
to be accomplished. The hot caress of the sun's rays penetrating my
little roof awakened me, and what I experienced delighted me beyond all
expression. Entirely green banks; the distant outlines of mountain tops
covered with snow; pretty villages which from time to time showed
themselves at the mountain's foot; the crystalline sheet of water; pure
and peculiarly agreeable air, which I breathed with exhilaration; the
musical carols of an infinity of birds; a sky of extraordinary purity;
behind me the plash of water stirred by the round-ended paddle which was
wielded with ease by a superb woman (with marvellous eyes and a
complexion browned by the sun), who wore an air of stately indifference:
all these things together seemed to plunge me into an ecstasy, and I
forgot entirely the reason for my presence on the river. In that moment
I had not even a desire to reach the end of my voyage--and yet, how many
privations remained for me to undergo, and dangers to encounter! I felt
myself here so well content!
The boat glided rapidly and the landscape continued to unfold new
beauties before my eyes, losing itself in ever new combinations with the
horizon, which merged into the mountains we were passing, to become one
with them. Then a new panorama would display itself, seeming to expand
and flow out from the sides of the mountains, becoming more and more
grand.... The day was almost spent and I was not yet weary of
contemplating this magnificent nature, the view of which reawakened the
souvenirs of childhood and youth. How beautiful were those days forever
gone!
The more nearly one approaches Srinagar, the more numerous become the
villages embowered in the verdure. At the approach of our boat, some of
their inhabitants came running to see us; the men in their turbans, the
women in their small bonnets, both alike dressed in white gowns reaching
to the ground, the children in a state of nudity which reminded one of
the costumes of our first parents.
When entering the city one sees a range of barks and floating houses in
which entire families reside. The tops of the far-off, snow-covered
mountains were caressed by the last rays of the setting sun, when we
glided between the wooden houses of Srinagar, which closely line both
banks of the river. Life seems to cease here at sunset; the thousands of
many colored open boats (dunga) and palanquin-covered barks (bangla)
were fastened along the beach; men and women gathered near the river, in
the primitive costumes of Adam and Eve, going through their evening
ablutions without feeling any embarrassment or prudery before each
other, since they performed a religious rite, the importance of which is
greater for them than all human prejudices.
On the 20^th of October I awoke in a neat room, from which I had a gay
view upon the river that was now inundated with the rays of the sun of
Kachmyr. As it is not my purpose to describe here my experiences in
detail, I refrain from enumerating the lovely valleys, the paradise of
lakes, the enchanting islands, those historic places, mysterious
pagodas, and coquettish villages which seem lost in vast gardens; on all
sides of which rise the majestic tops of the giants of the Himalaya,
shrouded as far as the eye can see in eternal snow. I shall only note
the preparations I made in view of my journey toward Thibet. I spent six
days at Srinagar, making long excursions into the enchanting
surroundings of the city, examining the numerous ruins which testify to
the ancient prosperity of this region, and studying the strange customs
of the country.
* * * * *
Kachmyr, as well as the other provinces attached to it, Baltistan,
Ladak, etc., are vassals of England. They formerly formed part of the
possessions of Randjid Sing, the Lion of the Pendjab. At his death, the
English troops occupied Lahore, the capital of the Pendjab, separated
Kachmyr from the rest of the empire and ceded it, under color of
hereditary right, and for the sum of 160,000,000 francs, to Goulab-Sing,
one of the familiars of the late sovereign, conferring on him besides
the title of Maharadja. At the epoch of my journey, the actual Maharadja
was Pertab-Sing, the grandchild of Goulab, whose residence is Jamoo, on
the southern slope of the Himalaya.
The celebrated "happy valley" of Kachmyr (eighty-five miles long by
twenty-five miles wide) enjoyed glory and prosperity only under the
Grand Mogul, whose court loved to taste here the sweetness of country
life, in the still existent pavilions on the little island of the lake.
Most of the Maharadjas of Hindustan used formerly to spend here the
summer months, and to take part in the magnificent festivals given by
the Grand Mogul; but times have greatly changed since, and the happy
valley is today no more than a beggar retreat. Aquatic plants and scum
have covered the clear waters of the lake; the wild juniper has
smothered all the vegetation of the islands; the palaces and pavilions
retain only the souvenir of their past grandeur; earth and grass cover
the buildings which are now falling in ruins. The surrounding mountains
and their eternally white tops seem to be absorbed in a sullen sadness,
and to nourish the hope of a better time for the disclosure of their
immortal beauties. The once spiritual, beautiful and cleanly inhabitants
have grown animalistic and stupid; they have become dirty and lazy; and
the whip now governs them, instead of the sword.
The people of Kachmyr have so often been subject to invasions and
pillages and have had so many masters, that they have now become
indifferent to every thing. They pass their time near the banks of the
rivers, gossiping about their neighbors; or are engaged in the
painstaking work of making their celebrated shawls; or in the execution
of filagree gold or silver work. The Kachmyr women are of a melancholy
temperament, and an inconceivable sadness is spread upon their features.
Everywhere reigns misery and uncleanness. The beautiful men and superb
women of Kachmyr are dirty and in rags. The costume of the two sexes
consists, winter and summer alike, of a long shirt, or gown, made of
thick material and with puffed sleeves. They wear this shirt until it is
completely worn out, and never is it washed, so that the white turban of
the men looks like dazzling snow near their dirty shirts, which are
covered all over with spittle and grease stains.
The traveller feels himself permeated with sadness at seeing the
contrast between the rich and opulent nature surrounding them, and this
people dressed in rags.
The capital of the country, Srinagar (City of the Sun), or, to call it
by the name which is given to it here after the country, Kachmyr, is
situated on the shore of the Djeloum, along which it stretches out
toward the south to a distance of five kilometres and is not more than
two kilometres in breadth.
Its two-story houses, inhabited by a population of 100,000 inhabitants,
are built of wood and border both river banks. Everybody lives on the
river, the shores of which are united by ten bridges. Terraces lead from
the houses to the Djeloum, where all day long people perform their
ceremonial ablutions, bathe and wash their culinary utensils, which
consist of a few copper pots. Part of the inhabitants practice the
Musselman religion; two-thirds are Brahminic; and there are but few
Buddhists to be found among them.
It was time to make other preparations for travel before plunging into
the unknown. Having purchased different kinds of conserves, wine and
other things indispensable on a journey through a country so little
peopled as is Thibet, I packed all my baggage in boxes; hired six
carriers and an interpreter, bought a horse for my own use, and fixed my
departure for the 27^th of October. To cheer up my journey, I took from
a good Frenchman, M. Peicheau, the wine cultivator of the Maharadja, a
big dog, Pamir, who had already traversed the road with my friends,
Bonvallot, Capus and Pepin, the well-known explorers. As I wished to
shorten my journey by two days, I ordered my carriers to leave at dawn
from the other side of the lake, which I crossed in a boat, and joined
them and my horse at the foot of the mountain chain which separates the
valley of Srinagar from the Sind gorge.
I shall never forget the tortures which we had to undergo in climbing
almost on all fours to a mountain top, three thousand feet high. The
carriers were out of breath; every moment I feared to see one tumble
down the declivity with his burden, and I felt pained at seeing my poor
dog, Pamir, panting and with his tongue hanging out, make two or three
steps and fall to the ground exhausted. Forgetting my own fatigue, I
caressed and encouraged the poor animal, who, as if understanding me,
got up to make another two or three steps and fall anew to the ground.
The night had come when we reached the crest; we threw ourselves
greedily upon the snow to quench our thirst; and after a short rest,
started to descend through a very thick pine forest, hastening to gain
the village of Haïena, at the foot of the defile, fearing the attacks of
beasts of prey in the darkness.
A level and good road leads from Srinagar to Haïena, going straight
northward over Ganderbal, where I repaired by a more direct route across
a pass three thousand feet high, which shortened for me both time and
distance.
My first step in the unknown was marked by an incident which made all of
us pass an ugly quarter of an hour. The defile of the Sind, sixty miles
long, is especially noteworthy for the inhospitable hosts it contains.
Among others it abounds in panthers, tigers, leopards, black bears,
wolves and jackals. As though by a special misfortune, the snow had
covered with its white carpet the heights of the chain, compelling those
formidable, carnivorous beasts to descend a little lower for shelter in
their dens. We descended in silence, amid the darkness, a narrow path
that wound through the centennary firs and birches, and the calm of the
night was only broken by the crackling sound of our steps. Suddenly,
quite near to us, a terrible howling awoke the echoes of the woods. Our
small troop stopped. "A panther!" exclaimed, in a low and frightened
voice, my servant. The small caravan of a dozen men stood motionless, as
though riveted to the spot. Then it occurred to me that at the moment of
starting on our ascent, when already feeling fatigued, I had entrusted
my revolver to one of the carriers, and my Winchester rifle to another.
Now I felt bitter regret for having parted with my arms, and asked in a
low voice where the man was to whom I had given the rifle. The howls
became more and more violent, and filled the echoes of the woods, when
suddenly a dull sound was heard, like the fall of some body. A minute
later we heard the noise of a struggle and a cry of agony which mingled
with the fierce roars of the starved animal.
"Saaïb, take the gun," I heard some one near by. I seized feverishly the
rifle, but, vain trouble, one could not see two steps before oneself. A
new cry, followed by a smothered howling, indicated to me vaguely the
place of the struggle, toward which I crawled, divided between the
ardent desire to "kill a panther" and a horrible fear of being eaten
alive. No one dared to move; only after five minutes it occurred to one
of the carriers to light a match. I then remembered the fear which
feline animals exhibit at the presence of fire, and ordered my men to
gather two or three handfuls of brush, which I set on fire. We then saw,
about ten steps from us, one of our carriers stretched out on the
ground, with his limbs frightfully lacerated by the claws of a huge
panther. The beast still lay upon him defiantly, holding a piece of
flesh in its mouth. At its side, gaped a box of wine broken open by its
fall when the carrier was torn down. Hardly did I make a movement to
bring the rifle to my shoulder, when the panther raised itself, and
turned toward us while dropping part of its horrible meal. One moment,
it appeared about to spring upon me, then it suddenly wheeled, and
rending the air with a howl, enough to freeze one's blood, jumped into
the midst of the thicket and disappeared.
My coolies, whom an odious fear had all the time kept prostrated on the
ground, recovered little by little from their fright. Keeping in
readiness a few packages of dry grass and matches, we hastened to reach
the village Haïena, leaving behind the remains of the unfortunate Hindu,
whose fate we feared sharing.
An hour later we had left the forest and entered the plain. I ordered my
tent erected under a very leafy plane tree, and had a great fire made
before it, with a pile of wood, which was the only protection we could
employ against the ferocious beasts whose howls continued to reach us
from all directions. In the forest my dog had pressed himself against
me, with his tail between his legs; but once under the tent, he suddenly
recovered his watchfulness, and barked incessantly the whole night,
being very careful, however, not to step outside. I spent a terrible
night, rifle in hand, listening to the concert of those diabolical
howlings, the echoes of which seemed to shake the defile. Some panthers
approached our bivouac to answer the barking of Pamir, but dared not
attack us.
I had left Srinagar at the head of eleven carriers, four of whom had to
carry so many boxes of wine, four others bore my travelling effects; one
my weapons, another various utensils, and finally a last, who went
errands or on reconnaissance. His name was "Chicari," which means "he
who accompanies the hunter and gathers the prey." I discharged him in
the morning on account of his cowardice and his profound ignorance of
the country, and only retained four carriers. It was but slowly that I
advanced toward the village of Gounde.
How beautiful is nature in the Sind pass, and how much is it beloved by
the hunters! Besides the great fallow deer, you meet there the hind, the
stag, the mountain sheep and an immense variety of birds, among which I
want to mention above all the golden pheasant, and others of red or
snow-white plumage, very large partridges and immense eagles.
The villages situated along the Sind do not shine by their dimensions.
They contain, for the greatest part, not more than ten to twenty huts of
an extremely miserable appearance. Their inhabitants are clad in rags.
Their cattle belongs to a very small race.
I crossed the river at Sambal, and stopped near the village Gounde,
where I procured relay horses. In some villages they refused to hire
horses to me; I then threatened them with my whip, which at once
inspired respect and obedience; my money accomplished the same end; it
inspired a servile obedience--not willingness--to obey my least orders.
Stick and gold are the true sovereigns in the Orient; without them the
Very Grand Mogul would not have had any preponderance.
Night began to descend, and I was in a hurry to cross the defile which
separates the villages Gogangan and Sonamarg. The road is in very bad
condition, and the mountains are infested by beasts of prey which in the
night descend into the very villages to seek their prey. The country is
delightful and very fertile; nevertheless, but few colonists venture to
settle here, on account of the neighborhood of the panthers, which come
to the dooryards to seize domestic animals.
At the very exit of the defile, near the village of Tchokodar, or
Thajwas, the half obscurity prevailing only permitted me to distinguish
two dark masses crossing the road. They were two big bears followed by a
young one. I was alone with my servant (the caravan having loitered
behind), so I did not like to attack them with only one rifle; but the
long excursions which I had made on the mountain had strongly developed
in me the sense of the hunter. To jump from my horse, shoot, and,
without even verifying the result, change quickly the cartridge, was the
affair of a second. One bear was about to jump on me, a second shot
made it run away and disappear. Holding in my hand my loaded gun, I
approached with circumspection, the one at which I had aimed, and found
it laying on its flank, dead, with the little cub beside it. Another
shot killed the little one, after which I went to work to take off the
two superb jet-black skins.
This incident made us lose two hours, and night had completely set in
when I erected my tent near Tchokodar, which I left at sunrise to gain
Baltal, by following the course of the Sind river. At this place the
ravishing landscape of the "golden prairie" terminates abruptly with a
village of the same name (Sona, gold, and Marg, prairie). The abrupt
acclivity of Zodgi-La, which we next surmounted, attains an elevation of
11,500 feet, on the other side of which the whole country assumes a
severe and inhospitable character. My hunting adventures closed before
reaching Baltal. From there I met on the road only wild goats. In order
to hunt, I would have had to leave the grand route and to penetrate into
the heart of the mountains full of mysteries. I had neither the
inclination nor the time to do so, and, therefore, continued quietly my
journey toward Ladak.
* * * * *
How violent the contrast I felt when passing from the laughing nature
and beautiful population of Kachmyr to the arid and forbidding rocks and
the beardless and ugly inhabitants of Ladak!
The country into which I penetrated is situated at an altitude of 11,000
to 12,000 feet. Only at Karghil the level descends to 8,000 feet.
The acclivity of Zodgi-La is very rough; one must climb up an almost
perpendicular rocky wall. In certain places the road winds along upon
rock ledges of only a metre in width, below which the sight drops into
unfathomable abysses. May the Lord preserve the traveller from a fall!
At one place, the way is upon long beams introduced into holes made in
the rock, like a bridge, and covered up with earth. Brr!--At the thought
that a little stone might get loose and roll down the slope of the
mountain, or that a too strong oscillation of the beams could
precipitate the whole structure into the abyss, and with it him who had
ventured upon the perilous path, one feels like fainting more than once
during this hazardous passage.
After crossing the glaciers we stopped in a valley and prepared to spend
the night near a hut, a dismal place surrounded by eternal ice and snow.
From Baltal the distances are determined by means of daks, _i.e._,
postal stations for mail service. They are low huts, about seven
kilometres distant from each other. A man is permanently established in
each of these huts. The postal service between Kachmyr and Thibet is yet
carried on in a very primitive form. The letters are enclosed in a
leather bag, which is handed to the care of a carrier. The latter runs
rapidly over the seven kilometres assigned to him, carrying on his back
a basket which holds several of these bags, which he delivers to another
carrier, who, in his turn, accomplishes his task in an identical manner.
Neither rain nor snow can arrest these carriers. In this way the mail
service is carried on between Kachmyr and Thibet, and _vice versa_ once
a week. For each course the letter carrier is paid six annas (twenty
cents); the same wages as is paid to the carriers of merchandise. This
sum I also paid to every one of my servants for carrying a ten times
heavier load.
It makes one's heart ache to see the pale and tired-looking figures of
these carriers; but what is to be done? It is the custom of the country.
The tea is brought from China by a similar system of transportation,
which is rapid and inexpensive.
In the village of Montaiyan, I found again the Yarkandien caravan of
pilgrims, whom I had promised to accompany on their journey. They
recognized me from a distance, and asked me to examine one of their men,
who had fallen sick. I found him writhing in the agonies of an intense
fever. Shaking my hands as a sign of despair, I pointed to the heavens
and gave them to understand that human will and science were now
useless, and that God alone could save him. These people journeyed by
small stages only; I, therefore, left them and arrived in the evening at
Drass, situated at the bottom of a valley near a river of the same name.
Near Drass, a little fort of ancient construction, but freshly painted,
stands aloof, under the guard of three Sikhs of the Maharadja's army.
At Drass, my domicile was the post-house, which is a station--and the
only one--of an unique telegraph line from Srinagar to the interior of
the Himalayas. From that time on, I no more had my tent put up each
evening, but stopped in the caravansarais; places which, though made
repulsive by their dirt, are kept warm by the enormous piles of wood
burned in their fireplaces.
From Drass to Karghil the landscape is unpleasing and monotonous, if one
excepts the marvellous effects of the rising and setting sun and the
beautiful moonlight. Apart from these the road is wearisome and
abounding with dangers. Karghil is the principal place of the district,
where the governor of the country resides. Its site is quite
picturesque. Two water courses, the Souron and the Wakkha, roll their
noisy and turbulent waters among rocks and sunken snags of uprooted
trees, escaping from their respective defiles in the rocks, to join in
forming here the river Souron, upon the banks of which stands Karghil. A
little fort, garrisoned by two or three Sikhs, shows its outlines at the
junction of the streams. Provided with a horse, I continued my journey
at break of day, entering now the province of Ladak, or Little Thibet. I
traversed a ricketty bridge, composed--like all the bridges of
Kachmyr--of two long beams, the ends of which were supported upon the
banks and the floor made of a layer of fagots and sticks, which imparted
to the traveller, at least the illusion of a suspension bridge. Soon
afterward I climbed slowly up on a little plateau, which crosses the way
at a distance of two kilometres, to descend into the narrow valley of
Wakkha. Here there are several villages, among which, on the left shore,
is the very picturesque one called Paskium.
Here my feet trod Buddhist ground. The inhabitants are of a very simple
and mild disposition, seemingly ignorant of "quarreling." Women are very
rare among them. Those of them whom I encountered were distinguished
from the women I had hitherto seen in India or Kachmyr, by the air of
gaiety and prosperity apparent in their countenances. How could it be
otherwise, since each woman in this country has, on an average, three to
five husbands, and possesses them in the most legitimate way in the
world. Polyandry flourishes here. However large a family may be, there
is but one woman in it. If the family does not contain already more than
two husbands, a bachelor may share its advantages, for a consideration.
The days sacred to each one of those husbands are determined in advance,
and all acquit themselves of their respective duties and respect each
others' rights. The men generally seem feeble, with bent backs, and do
not live to old age. During my travels in Ladak, I only encountered one
man so old that his hair was white.
From Karghil to the centre of Ladak, the road had a more cheerful aspect
than that I had traversed before reaching Karghil, its prospect being
brightened by a number of little hamlets, but trees and verdure were,
unfortunately, rare.
Twenty miles from Karghil, at the end of the defile formed by the rapid
current of the Wakkha, is a little village called Chargol, in the
centre of which stand three chapels, decorated with lively colors
(_t'horthenes_, to give them the name they bear in Thibet). Below, near
the river, are masses of rocks, in the form of long and large walls,
upon which are thrown, in apparent disorder, flat stones of different
colors and sizes. Upon these stones are engraved all sorts of prayers,
in Ourd, Sanscrit and Thibetan, and one can even find among them
inscriptions in Arabic characters. Without the knowledge of my carriers,
I succeeded in taking away a few of these stones, which are now in the
palace of the Trocadero.
Along the way, from Chargol, one finds frequently oblong mounds,
artificial constructions. After sunrise, with fresh horses, I resumed my
journey and stopped near the _gonpa_ (monastery) of Moulbek, which seems
glued on the flank of an isolated rock. Below is the hamlet of Wakkha,
and not far from there is to be seen another rock, of very strange form,
which seems to have been placed where it stands by human hands. In one
side of it is cut a Buddha several metres in height. Upon it are several
cylinders, the turning of which serves for prayers. They are a sort of
wooden barrel, draped with yellow or white fabrics, and are attached to
vertically planted stakes. It requires only the least wind to make them
turn. The person who puts up one of these cylinders no longer feels it
obligatory upon him to say his prayers, for all that devout believers
can ask of God is written upon the cylinders. Seen from a distance this
white painted monastery, standing sharply out from the gray background
of the rocks, with all these whirling, petticoated wheels, produce a
strange effect in this dead country. I left my horses in the hamlet of
Wakkha, and, followed by my servant, walked toward the convent, which is
reached by a narrow stairway cut in the rock. At the top, I was received
by a very fat lama, with a scanty, straggling beard under his chin--a
common characteristic of the Thibetan people--who was very ugly, but
very cordial. His costume consisted of a yellow robe and a sort of big
nightcap, with projecting flaps above the ears, of the same color. He
held in his hand a copper prayer-machine which, from time to time, he
shook with his left hand, without at all permitting that exercise to
interfere with his conversation. It was his eternal prayer, which he
thus communicated to the wind, so that by this element it should be
borne to Heaven. We traversed a suite of low chambers, upon the walls of
which were images of Buddha, of all sizes and made of all kinds of
materials, all alike covered by a thick layer of dust. Finally we
reached an open terrace, from which the eyes, taking in the surrounding
region, rested upon an inhospitable country, strewn with grayish rocks
and traversed by only a single road, which on both sides lost itself in
the horizon.
When we were seated, they brought us beer, made with hops, called here
_Tchang_ and brewed in the cloister. It has a tendency to rapidly
produce _embonpoint_ upon the monks, which is regarded as a sign of the
particular favor of Heaven.
They spoke here the Thibetan language. The origin of this language is
full of obscurity. One thing is certain, that a king of Thibet, a
contemporary of Mohammed, undertook the creation of an universal
language for all the disciples of Buddha. To this end he had simplified
the Sanscrit grammar, composed an alphabet containing an infinite number
of signs, and thus laid the foundations of a language the pronunciation
of which is one of the easiest and the writing the most complicated.
Indeed, in order to represent a sound one must employ not less than
eight characters. All the modern literature of Thibet is written in this
language. The pure Thibetan is only spoken in Ladak and Oriental Thibet.
In all other parts of the country are employed dialects formed by the
mixture of this mother language with different idioms taken from the
neighboring peoples of the various regions round about. In the ordinary
life of the Thibetan, there exists always two languages, one of which is
absolutely incomprehensible to the women, while the other is spoken by
the entire nation; but only in the convents can be found the Thibetan
language in all its purity and integrity.
The lamas much prefer the visits of Europeans to those of Musselmen, and
when I asked the one who received me why this was so, he answered me:
"Musselmen have no point of contact at all with our religion. Only
comparatively recently, in their victorious campaign, they have
converted, by force, part of the Buddhists to Islam. It requires of us
great efforts to bring back those Musselmen, descendants of Buddhists,
into the path of the true God. As regards the Europeans, it is quite a
different affair. Not only do they profess the essential principles of
monotheism, but they are, in a sense, adorers of Buddha, with almost the
same rites as the lamas who inhabit Thibet. The only fault of the
Christians is that after having adopted the great doctrines of Buddha,
they have completely separated themselves from him, and have created for
themselves a different Dalai-Lama. Our Dalai-Lama is the only one who
has received the divine gift of seeing, face to face, the majesty of
Buddha, and is empowered to serve as an intermediary between earth and
heaven."
"Which Dalai-Lama of the Christians do you refer to?" I asked him; "we
have one, the Son of God, to whom we address directly our fervent
prayers, and to him alone we recur to intercede with our One and
Indivisible God."
"It is not him of whom it is a question, Sahib," he replied. "We, too,
respect him, whom we reverence as son of the One and Indivisible God,
but we do not see in him the Only Son, but the excellent being who was
chosen among all. Buddha, indeed, has incarnated himself, with his
divine nature, in the person of the sacred Issa, who, without employing
fire or iron, has gone forth to propagate our true and great religion
among all the world. Him whom I meant was your terrestrial Dalai-Lama;
he to whom you have given the title of 'Father of the Church.' That is a
great sin. May he be brought back, with the flock, who are now in a bad
road," piously added the lama, giving another twirl to his
prayer-machine.
I understood now that he alluded to the Pope. "You have told me that a
son of Buddha, Issa, the elect among all, had spread your religion on
the Earth. Who is he?" I asked.
At this question the lama's eyes opened wide; he looked at me with
astonishment and pronounced some words I could not catch, murmuring in
an unintelligible way. "Issa," he finally replied, "is a great prophet,
one of the first after the twenty-two Buddhas. He is greater than any
one of all the Dalai-Lamas, for he constitutes part of the spirituality
of our Lord. It is he who has instructed you; he who brought back into
the bosom of God the frivolous and wicked souls; he who made you worthy
of the beneficence of the Creator, who has ordained that each being
should know good and evil. His name and his acts have been chronicled in
our sacred writings, and when reading how his great life passed away in
the midst of an erring people, we weep for the horrible sin of the
heathen who murdered him, after subjecting him to torture."
I was struck by this recital of the lama. The prophet Issa--his tortures
and death--our Christian Dalai-Lama--the Buddhist recognizing
Christianity--all these made me think more and more of Jesus Christ. I
asked my interpreter not to lose a single word of what the lama told me.
"Where can those writings be found, and who compiled them?" I asked the
monk.
"The principal scrolls--which were written in India and Nepaul, at
different epochs, as the events happened--are in Lhassa; several
thousands in number. In some great convents are to be found copies,
which the lamas, during their sojourn in Lhassa, have made, at various
times, and have then given to their cloisters as souvenirs of the period
they spent with the Dalai-Lama."
"But you, yourselves; do you not possess copies of the scrolls bearing
upon the prophet Issa?"
"We have not. Our convent is insignificant, and since its foundation our
successive lamas have had only a few hundred manuscripts in their
library. The great cloisters have several thousands of them; but they
are sacred things which will not, anywhere, be shown to you."
We spoke together a few minutes longer, after which I went home, all the
while thinking of the lama's statements. Issa, a prophet of the
Buddhists! But, how could this be? Of Jewish origin, he lived in
Palestine and in Egypt; and the Gospels do not contain one word, not
even the least allusion, to the part which Buddhism should have played
in the education of Jesus.
I made up my mind to visit all the convents of Thibet, in the hope of
gathering fuller information upon the prophet Issa, and perhaps copies
of the chronicles bearing upon this subject.
* * * * *
We traversed the Namykala Pass, at 30,000 feet of altitude, whence we
descended into the valley of the River Salinoumah. Turning southward, we
gained Karbou, leaving behind us, on the opposite bank, numerous
villages, among other, Chagdoom, which is at the top of a rock, an
extremely imposing sight. Its houses are white and have a sort of
festive look, with their two and three stories. This, by the way, is a
common peculiarity of all the villages of Ladak. The eye of the
European, travelling in Kachmyr, would soon lose sight of all
architecture to which he had been accustomed. In Ladak, on the contrary,
he would be agreeably surprised at seeing the little two and three-story
houses, reminders to him of those in European provinces. Near the city
of Karbou, upon two perpendicular rocks, one sees the ruins of a little
town or village. A tempest and an earthquake are said to have shaken
down its walls, the solidity of which seems to have been exceptional.
The next day I traversed the Fotu-La Pass, at an altitude of 13,500
feet. At its summit stands a little _t'horthene_ (chapel). Thence,
following the dry bed of a stream, I descended to the hamlet of
Lamayure, the sudden appearance of which is a surprise to the traveller.
A convent, which seems grafted on the side of the rock, or held there in
some miraculous way, dominates the village. Stairs are unknown in this
cloister. In order to pass from one story of it to another, ropes are
used. Communication with the world outside is through a labyrinth of
passages in the rock. Under the windows of the convent--which make one
think of birds' nests on the face of a cliff---is a little inn, the
rooms of which are little inviting. Hardly had I stretched myself on the
carpet in one of them, when the monks, dressed in their yellow robes,
filled the apartment, bothered me with questions as to whence I came,
the purpose of my coming, where I was going, and so on, finally inviting
me to come and see them.
In spite of my fatigue I accepted their invitation and set out with
them, to climb up the excavated passages in the rock, which were
encumbered with an infinity of prayer cylinders and wheels, which I
could not but touch and set turning as I brushed past them. They are
placed there that they may be so turned, saving to the passers-by the
time they might otherwise lose in saying their prayers--as if their
affairs were so absorbing, and their time so precious, that they could
not find leisure to pray. Many pious Buddhists use for this purpose an
apparatus arranged to be turned by the current of a stream. I have seen
a long row of cylinders, provided with their prayer formulas, placed
along a river bank, in such a way that the water kept them constantly in
motion, this ingenious device freeing the proprietors from any further
obligation to say prayers themselves.
I sat down on a bench in the hall, where semi-obscurity reigned. The
walls were garnished with little statues of Buddha, books and
prayer-wheels. The loquacious lamas began explaining to me the
significance of each object.
"And those books?" I asked them; "they, no doubt, have reference to
religion."
"Yes, sir. These are a few religious volumes which deal with the primary
and principal rites of the life common to all. We possess several parts
of the words of Buddha consecrated to the Great and Indivisible Divine
Being, and to all that issue from his hands."
"Is there not, among those books, some account of the prophet Issa?"
"No, sir," answered the monk. "We only possess a few principal treatises
relating to the observance of the religious rites. As for the
biographies of our saints, they are collected in Lhassa. There are even
great cloisters which have not had the time to procure them. Before
coming to this gonpa, I was for several years in a great convent on the
other side of Ladak, and have seen there thousands of books, and scrolls
copied out of various books by the lamas of the monastery."
By some further interrogation I learned that the convent in question was
near Leh, but my persistent inquiries had the effect of exciting the
suspicions of the lamas. They showed me the way out with evident
pleasure, and regaining my room, I fell asleep--after a light
lunch--leaving orders with my Hindu to inform himself in a skillful way,
from some of the younger lamas of the convent, about the monastery in
which their chief had lived before coming to Lamayure.
In the morning, when we set forth on our journey, the Hindu told me that
he could get nothing from the lamas, who were very reticent. I will not
stop to describe the life of the monks in those convents, for it is the
same in all the cloisters of Ladak. I have seen the celebrated monastery
of Leh--of which I shall have to speak later on--and learned there the
strange existences the monks and religious people lead, which is
everywhere the same. In Lamayure commences a declivity which, through a
steep, narrow and sombre gorge, extends toward India.
Without having the least idea of the dangers which the descent
presented, I sent my carriers in advance and started on a route, rather
pleasant at the outset, which passes between the brown clay hills, but
soon it produced upon me the most depressing effect, as though I was
traversing a gloomy subterranean passage. Then the road came out on the
flank of the mountain, above a terrible abyss. If a rider had met me, we
could not possibly have passed each other, the way was so narrow. All
description would fail to convey a sense of the grandeur and wild beauty
of this cañon, the summit of the walls of which seemed to reach the sky.
At some points it became so narrow that from my saddle I could, with my
cane, touch the opposite rock. At other places, death might be fancied
looking up expectantly, from the abyss, at the traveller. It was too
late to dismount. In entering alone this gorge, I had not the faintest
idea that I would have occasion to regret my foolish imprudence. I had
not realized its character. It was simply an enormous crevasse, rent by
some Titanic throe of nature, some tremendous earthquake, which had
split the granite mountain. In its bottom I could just distinguish a
hardly perceptible white thread, an impetuous torrent, the dull roar of
which filled the defile with mysterious and impressive sounds.
Far overhead extended, narrow and sinuously, a blue ribbon, the only
glimpse of the celestial world that the frowning granite walls permitted
to be seen. It was a thrilling pleasure, this majestic view of nature.
At the same time, its rugged severity, the vastness of its proportions,
the deathly silence only invaded by the ominous murmur from the depths
beneath, all together filled me with an unconquerable depression. I had
about eight miles in which to experience these sensations, at once sweet
and painful. Then, turning to the right, our little caravan reached a
small valley, almost surrounded by precipitous granite rocks, which
mirrored themselves in the Indus. On the bank of the river stands the
little fortress Khalsi, a celebrated fortification dating from the epoch
of the Musselman invasion, by which runs the wild road from Kachmyr to
Thibet.
We crossed the Indus on an almost suspended bridge which led directly to
the door of the fortress, thus impossible of evasion. Rapidly we
traversed the valley, then the village of Khalsi, for I was anxious to
spend the night in the hamlet of Snowely, which is placed upon terraces
descending to the Indus. The two following days I travelled tranquilly
and without any difficulties to overcome, along the shore of the Indus,
in a picturesque country--which brought me to Leh, the capital of Ladak.
While traversing the little valley of Saspoula, at a distance of several
kilometres from the village of the same name, I found "_t'horthenes_"
and two cloisters, above one of which floated the French flag. Later on,
I learned that a French engineer had presented the flag to the monks,
who displayed it simply as a decoration of their building.
I passed the night at Saspoula and certainly did not forget to visit the
cloisters, seeing there for the tenth time the omnipresent dust-covered
images of Buddha; the flags and banners heaped in a corner; ugly masks
on the floor; books and papyrus rolls heaped together without order or
care, and the inevitable abundance of prayer-wheels. The lamas
demonstrated a particular pleasure in exhibiting these things, doing it
with the air of shopmen displaying their goods, with very little care
for the degree of interest the traveller may take in them. "We must show
everything, in the hope that the sight alone of these sacred objects
will force the traveller to believe in the divine grandeur of the human
soul."
Respecting the prophet Issa, they gave me the same account I already
had, and I learned, what I had known before, that the books which could
instruct me about him were at Lhassa, and that only the great
monasteries possessed some copies. I did not think any more of passing
Kara-koroum, but only of finding the history of the prophet Issa, which
would, perhaps, bring to light the entire life of the best of men, and
complete the rather vague information which the Gospels afford us about
him.
Not far from Leh, and at the entrance of the valley of the same name,
our road passed near an isolated rock, on the top of which were
constructed a fort--with two towers and without garrison--and a little
convent named Pitak. A mountain, 10,500 feet high, protects the entrance
to Thibet. There the road makes a sudden turn toward the north, in the
direction of Leh, six miles from Pitak and a thousand feet higher.
Immense granite mountains tower above Leh, to a height of 18,000 or
19,000 feet, their crests covered with eternal snow. The city itself,
surrounded by a girdle of stunted aspen trees, rises upon successive
terraces, which are dominated by an old fort and the palaces of the
ancient sovereigns of Ladak. Toward evening I made my entrance into Leh,
and stopped at a bengalow constructed especially for Europeans, whom the
road from India brings here in the hunting season.
Ladak
Ladak formerly was part of Great Thibet. The powerful invading forces
from the north which traversed the country to conquer Kachmyr, and the
wars of which Ladak was the theatre, not only reduced it to misery, but
eventually subtracted it from the political domination of Lhassa, and
made it the prey of one conqueror after another. The Musselmen, who
seized Kachmyr and Ladak at a remote epoch, converted by force the poor
inhabitants of old Thibet to the faith of Islam. The political existence
of Ladak ended with the annexation of this country to Kachmyr by the
sëiks, which, however, permitted the Ladakians to return to their
ancient beliefs. Two-thirds of the inhabitants took advantage of this
opportunity to rebuild their gonpas and take up their past life anew.
Only the Baltistans remained Musselman schüttes--a sect to which the
conquerors of the country had belonged. They, however, have only
conserved a vague shadow of Islamism, the character of which manifests
itself in their ceremonials and in the polygamy which they practice.
Some lamas affirmed to me that they did not despair of one day bringing
them back to the faith of their ancestors.
From the religious point of view Ladak is a dependency of Lhassa, the
capital of Thibet and the place of residence of the Dalai-Lama. In
Lhassa are located the principal Khoutoukhtes, or Supreme Lamas, and the
Chogzots, or administrators. Politically, it is under the authority of
the Maharadja of Kachmyr, who is represented there by a governor.
The inhabitants of Ladak belong to the Chinese-Touranian race, and are
divided into Ladakians and Tchampas. The former lead a sedentary
existence, building villages of two-story houses along the narrow
valleys, are cleanly in their habits, and cultivators of the soil. They
are excessively ugly; thin, with stooping figures and small heads set
deep between their shoulders; their cheek bones salient, foreheads
narrow, eyes black and brilliant, as are those of all the Mongol race;
noses flat, mouths large and thin-lipped; and from their small chins,
very thinly garnished by a few hairs, deep wrinkles extend upward
furrowing their hollow cheeks. To all this, add a close-shaven head with
only a little bristling fringe of hair, and you will have the general
type, not alone of Ladak, but of entire Thibet.
The women are also of small stature, and have exceedingly prominent
cheek bones, but seem to be of much more robust constitution. A healthy
red tinges their cheeks and sympathetic smiles linger upon their lips.
They have good dispositions, joyous inclinations, and are fond of
laughing.
The severity of the climate and rudeness of the country, do not permit
to the Ladakians much latitude in quality and colors of costume. They
wear gowns of simple gray linen and coarse dull-hued clothing of their
own manufacture. The pantaloons of the men only descend to their knees.
People in good circumstances wear, in addition to the ordinary dress,
the "choga," a sort of overcoat which is draped on the back when not
wrapped around the figure. In winter they wear fur caps, with big ear
flaps, and in summer cover their heads with a sort of cloth hood, the
top of which dangles on one side, like a Phrygian cap. Their shoes are
made of felt and covered with leather. A whole arsenal of little things
hangs down from their belts, among which you will find a needle case, a
knife, a pen and inkstand, a tobacco pouch, a pipe, and a diminutive
specimen of the omnipresent prayer-cylinder.
The Thibetan men are generally so lazy, that if a braid of hair happens
to become loose, it is not tressed up again for three months, and when
once a shirt is put on the body, it is not again taken off until it
falls to pieces. Their overcoats are always unclean, and, on the back,
one may contemplate a long oily stripe imprinted by the braid of hair,
which is carefully greased every day. They wash themselves once a year,
but even then do not do so voluntarily, but because compelled by law.
They emit such a terrible stench that one avoids, as much as possible,
being near them.
The Thibetan women, on the contrary, are very fond of cleanliness and
order. They wash themselves daily and as often as may be needful. Short
and clean chemises hide their dazzling white necks. The Thibetan woman
throws on her round shoulders a red jacket, the flaps of which are
covered by tight pantaloons of green or red cloth, made in such a manner
as to puff up and so protect the legs against the cold. She wears
embroidered red half boots, trimmed and lined with fur. A large cloth
petticoat with numerous folds completes her home toilet. Her hair is
arranged in thin braids, to which, by means of pins, a large piece of
floating cloth is attached,--which reminds one of the headdress so
common in Italy. Underneath this sort of veil are suspended a variety of
various colored pebbles, coins and pieces of metal. The ears are covered
by flaps made of cloth or fur. A furred sheepskin covers the back, poor
women contenting themselves with a simple plain skin of the animal,
while wealthy ladies wear veritable cloaks, lined with red cloth and
adorned with gold fringes.
The Ladak woman, whether walking in the streets or visiting her
neighbors, always carries upon her back a conical basket, the smaller
end of which is toward the ground. They fill it with the dung of horses
or cows, which constitute the combustible of the country. Every woman
has money of her own, and spends it for jewelry. Generally she
purchases, at a small expense, large pieces of turquoise, which are
added to the _bizarre_ ornaments of her headdress. I have seen pieces so
worn which weighed nearly five pounds. The Ladak woman occupies a social
position for which she is envied by all women of the Orient. She is free
and respected. With the exception of some rural work, she passes the
greatest part of her time in visiting. It must, however, be added that
women's gossip is here a perfectly unknown thing.
The settled population of Ladak is engaged in agriculture, but they own
so little land (the share of each may amount to about eight acres) that
the revenue drawn from it is insufficient to provide them with the
barest necessities and does not permit them to pay taxes. Manual
occupations are generally despised. Artisans and musicians form the
lowest class of society. The name by which they are designated is Bem,
and people are very careful not to contract any alliance with them. The
hours of leisure left by rural work are spent in hunting the wild sheep
of Thibet, the skins of which are highly valued in India. The poorest,
_i.e._, those who have not the means to purchase arms for hunting, hire
themselves as coolies. This is also an occupation of women, who are
very capable of enduring arduous toil. They are healthier than their
husbands, whose laziness goes so far that, careless of cold or heat,
they are capable of spending a whole night in the open air on a bed of
stones rather than take the trouble to go to bed.
Polyandry (which I shall treat later more fully) causes the formation of
very large families, who, in common, cultivate their jointly possessed
lands, with the assistance of yaks, zos and zomos (oxen and cows). A
member of a family cannot detach himself from it, and when he dies, his
share reverts to the survivors in common.
They sow but little wheat and the grain is very small, owing to the
severity of the climate. They also harvest barley, which they pulverize
before selling. When work in the field is ended, all male inhabitants go
to gather on the mountain a wild herb called "enoriota," and large thorn
bushes or "dama," which are used as fuel, since combustibles are scarce
in Ladak. You see there neither trees nor gardens, and only
exceptionally thin clumps of willows and poplars grow on the shores of
the rivers. Near the villages are also found some aspen trees; but, on
account of the unfertility of the ground, arboriculture is unknown and
gardening is little successful.
The absence of wood is especially noticeable in the buildings, which are
made of sun-dried bricks, or, more frequently, of stones of medium size
which are agglomerated with a kind of mortar composed of clay and
chopped straw. The houses of the settled inhabitants are two stories
high, their fronts whitewashed, and their window-sashes painted with
lively colors. The flat roof forms a terrace which is decorated with
wild flowers, and here, during good weather, the inhabitants spend much
of their time contemplating nature, or turning their prayer-wheels.
Every dwelling-house is composed of many rooms; among them always one
of superior size, the walls of which are decorated with superb
fur-skins, and which is reserved for visitors. In the other rooms are
beds and other furniture. Rich people possess, moreover, a special room
filled with all kinds of idols, and set apart as a place of worship.
Life here is very regular. They eat anything attainable, without much
choice; the principal nourishment of the Ladak people, however, being
exceedingly simple. Their breakfast consists of a piece of rye bread. At
dinner, they serve on the table a bowl with meal into which lukewarm
water is stirred with little rods until the mixture assumes the
consistency of thick paste. From this, small portions are scooped out
and eaten with milk. In the evening, bread and tea are served. Meat is a
superfluous luxury. Only the hunters introduce some variety in their
alimentation, by eating the meat of wild sheep, eagles or pheasants,
which are very common in this country.
During the day, on every excuse and opportunity, they drink "tchang," a
kind of pale, unfermented beer.
If it happens that a Ladakian, mounted on a pony (such privileged people
are very rare), goes to seek work in the surrounding country, he
provides himself with a small stock of meal; when dinner time comes, he
descends to a river or spring, mixes with water, in a wooden cup that he
always has with him, some of the meal, swallows the simple refreshment
and washes it down with water.
The Tchampas, or nomads, who constitute the other part of Ladak's
population, are rougher, and much poorer than the settled population.
They are, for the most part, hunters, who completely neglect
agriculture. Although they profess the Buddhistic religion, they never
frequent the cloisters unless in want of meal, which they obtain in
exchange for their venison. They mostly camp in tents on the summits of
the mountains, where the cold is very great. While the properly called
Ladakians are peaceable, very desirous of learning, of an incarnated
laziness, and are never known to tell untruth; the Tchampas, on the
contrary, are very irascible, extremely lively, great liars and profess
a great disdain for the convents.
Among them lives the small population of Khombas, wanderers from the
vicinity of Lhassa, who lead the miserable existence of a troupe of
begging gipsies on the highways. Incapable of any work whatever,
speaking a language not spoken in the country where they beg for their
subsistence, they are the objects of general contempt, and are only
tolerated out of pity for their deplorable condition, when hunger drives
their mendicant bands to seek alms in the villages.
* * * * *
Polyandry, which is universally prevalent here, of course interested my
curiosity. This institution is, by the way, not the outcome of Buddha's
doctrines. Polyandry existed long before the advent of Buddha. It
assumed considerable proportions in India, where it constituted one of
the most effective means for checking the growth of a population which
tends to constant increase, an economic danger which is even yet
combatted by the abominable custom of killing newborn female children,
which causes terrible ravages in the child-life of India. The efforts
made by the English in their enactments against the suppression of the
future mothers have proved futile and fruitless. Manu himself
established polyandry as a law, and Buddhist preachers, who had
renounced Brahminism and preached the use of opium, imported this custom
into Ceylon, Thibet, Corea, and the country of the Moguls. For a long
time suppressed in China, polyandry, which flourishes in Thibet and
Ceylon, is also met with among the Kalmonks, between Todas in Southern
India, and Nairs on the coast of Malabar. Traces of this strange
constitution of the family are also to be found with the Tasmanians and
the Irquois Indians in North America.
Polyandry, by the way, has even flourished in Europe, if we may believe
Cæsar, who, in his _De Bello Gallico_, book V., page 17, writes:
"_Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxime fratres cum
fratribus et parentes cum liberis._"
In view of all this it is impossible to hold any religion responsible
for the existence of the institution of polyandry. In Thibet it can be
explained by motives of an economical nature; the small quantity of
arable land falling to the share of each inhabitant. In order to support
the 1,500,000 inhabitants distributed in Thibet, upon a surface of
1,200,000 square kilometres, the Buddhists were forced to adopt
polyandry. Moreover, each family is bound to enter one of its members in
a religious order. The firstborn is consecrated to a gonpa, which is
inevitably found upon an elevation, at the entrance of every village.
As soon as the child attains the age of eighteen years, he is entrusted
to the caravans which pass Lhassa, where he remains from eight to
fifteen years as a novice, in one of the gonpas which are near the city.
There he learns to read and write, is taught the religious rites and
studies the sacred parchments written in the Pali language--which
formerly used to be the language of the country of Maguada, where,
according to tradition, Buddha was born.
The oldest brother remaining in a family chooses a wife, who becomes
common to his brothers. The choice of the bride and the nuptial
ceremonies are most rudimentary. When a wife and her husband have
decided upon the marriage of a son, the brother who possesses the right
of choice, pays a visit to a neighboring family in which there is a
marriageable daughter.
The first and second visits are spent in more or less indifferent
conversations, blended with frequent libations of tchang, and on the
third visit only does the young man declare his intention to take a
wife. Upon this the girl is formally introduced to him. She is generally
not unknown to the wooer, as, in Ladak, women never veil their faces.
A girl cannot be married without her consent. When the young man is
accepted, he takes his bride to his house, and she becomes his wife and
also the wife of all his brothers. A family which has an only son sends
him to a woman who has no more than two or three husbands, and he offers
himself to her as a fourth husband. Such an offer is seldom declined,
and the young man settles in the new family.
The newly married remain with the parents of the husbands, until the
young wife bears her first child. The day after that event, the
grandparents of the infant make over the bulk of their fortune to the
new family, and, abandoning the old home to them, seek other shelter.
Sometimes marriages are contracted between youth who have not reached a
marriageable age, but in such event, the married couple are made to live
apart, until they have attained and even passed the age required. An
unmarried girl who becomes _enceinte_, far from being exposed to the
scorn of every one, is shown the highest respect; for she is
demonstrated fruitful, and men eagerly seek her in marriage. A wife has
the unquestioned right of having an unlimited number of husbands and
lovers. If she likes a young man, she takes him home, announces that he
has been chosen by her as a "jingtuh" (a lover), and endows him with all
the personal rights of a husband, which situation is accepted by her
temporarily supplanted husbands with a certain philosophic pleasure,
which is the more pronounced if their wife has proved sterile during the
three first years of her marriage.
They certainly have here not even a vague idea of jealousy. The
Thibetan's blood is too cold to know love, which, for him, would be
almost an anachronism; if indeed he were not conscious that the
sentiment of the entire community would be against him, as a flagrant
violator of popular usage and established rights, in restraining the
freedom of the women. The selfish enjoyment of love would be, in their
eyes, an unjustifiable luxury.
In case of a husband's absence, his place may be offered to a bachelor
or a widower. The latter are here in the minority, since the wife
generally survives her feeble husbands. Sometimes a Buddhist traveller,
whom his affairs bring to the village, is chosen for this office. A
husband who travels, or seeks for work in the neighboring country, at
every stop takes advantage of his co-religionists' hospitality, who
offer him their own wives. The husbands of a sterile woman exert
themselves to find opportunities for hospitality, which may happily
eventuate in a change in her condition, that they may be made happy
fathers.
The wife enjoys the general esteem, is ever of a cheerful disposition,
takes part in everything that is going on, goes and comes without any
restriction, anywhere and everywhere she pleases, with the exception of
the principal prayer-room of the monastery, entrance into which is
formally prohibited to her.
Children know only their mother, and do not feel the least affection for
their fathers, for the simple reason that they have so many. Without
approving polyandry, I could not well blame Thibet for this institution,
since without it, the population would prodigiously increase. Famine and
misery would fall upon the whole nation, with all the sinister
_sequellæ_ of murder and theft, crimes so far absolutely unknown in the
whole country.
_A Festival in a Gonpa_
Leh, the capital of Ladak, is a little town of 5,000 inhabitants, who
live in white, two-story houses, upon two or three streets, principally.
In its centre is the square of the bazaar, where the merchants of India,
China, Turkestan, Kachmyr and Thibet, come to exchange their products
for the Thibetan gold. Here the natives provide themselves with cloths
for themselves and their monks, and various objects of real necessity.
An old uninhabited palace rises upon a hill which dominates the town.
Fronting the central square is a vast building, two stories in height,
the residence of the governor of Ladak, the Vizier Souradjbal--a very
amiable and universally popular Pendjaban, who has received in London
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
To entertain me, during my sojourn in Leh, the governor arranged, on the
bazaar square, a game of polo--the national sport of the Thibetans,
which the English have adopted and introduced into Europe. In the
evening, after the game, the people executed dances and played games
before the governor's residence. Large bonfires illuminated the scene,
lighting up the throng of inhabitants, who formed a great circle about
the performers. The latter, in considerable numbers, disguised as
animals, devils and sorcerers, jumped and contorted themselves in
rhythmic dances timed to the measure of the monotonous and unpleasing
music made by two long trumpets and a drum.
The infernal racket and shouting of the crowd wearied me. The
performance ended with some graceful dances by Thibetan women, who spun
upon their heels, swaying to and fro, and, in passing before the
spectators in the windows of the residence, greeted us by the clashing
together of the copper and ivory bracelets on their crossed wrists.
The next day, at an early hour, I repaired to the great Himis convent,
which, a little distance from Leh, is elevated upon the top of a great
rock, on a picturesque site, commanding the valley of the Indies. It is
one of the principal monasteries of the country, and is maintained by
the gifts of the people and the subsidies it receives from Lhassa. On
the road leading to it, beyond the bridge crossing the Indus, and in the
vicinity of the villages lining the way, one finds heaps of stones
bearing engraved inscriptions, such as have already been described, and
_t'horthenes_. At these places, our guides were very careful to turn to
the right. I wished to turn my horse to the left, but the Ladakians made
him go back and led him by his halter to the right, explaining to me
that such was their established usage. I found it impossible to learn
the origin or reason of this custom.
Above the gonpa rises a battlemented tower, visible from a great
distance. We climbed, on foot, to the level on which the edifice stands
and found ourselves confronted by a large door, painted in brilliant
colors, the portal of a vast two-story building enclosing a court paved
with little pebbles. To the right, in one of the angles of the court, is
another huge painted door, adorned with big copper rings. It is the
entrance to the principal temple, which is decorated with paintings of
the principal gods, and contains a great statue of Buddha and a
multitude of sacred statuettes. To the left, upon a verandah, was placed
an immense prayer-cylinder. All the lamas of the convent, with their
chief, stood about it, when we entered the court. Below the verandah
were musicians, holding long trumpets and drums.
At the right of the court were a number of doors, leading to the rooms
of the lamas; all decorated with sacred paintings and provided with
little prayer-barrels fancifully surmounted by black and white tridents,
from the points of which floated ribbons bearing inscriptions--doubtless
prayers. In the centre of the court were raised two tall masts, from the
tops of which dangled tails of yaks, and long paper streamers floated,
covered with religious inscriptions. All along the walls were numerous
prayer-barrels, adorned with ribbons.
A profound silence reigned among the many spectators present. All
awaited anxiously the commencement of a religious "mystery," which was
about to be presented. We took up a position near the verandah. Almost
immediately, the musicians drew from their long trumpets soft and
monotonous tones, marking the time by measured beats upon an odd-looking
drum, broad and shallow, upreared upon a stick planted in the ground. At
the first sounds of the strange music, in which joined the voices of the
lamas in a melancholy chant, the doors along the wall opened
simultaneously, giving entrance to about twenty masked persons,
disguised as animals, birds, devils and imaginary monsters. On their
breasts they bore representations of fantastic dragons, demons and
skulls, embroidered with Chinese silk of various colors. From the
conical hats they wore, depended to their breasts long multicolored
ribbons, covered with inscriptions. Their masks were white
death's-heads. Slowly they marched about the masts, stretching out their
arms from time to time and flourishing with their left hands
spoon-shaped objects, the bowl portions of which were said to be
fragments of human crania, with ribbons attached, having affixed to
their ends human hair, which, I was assured, had been taken from scalped
enemies. Their promenade, in gradually narrowing circles about the
masts, soon became merely a confused jostling of each other; when the
rolling of the drum grew more accentuated, the performers for an instant
stopped, then started again, swinging above their heads yellow sticks,
ribbon-decked, which with their right hands they brandished in menacing
attitudes.
After making a salute to the chief lama, they approached the door
leading to the temple, which at this instant opened, and from it another
band came forth, whose heads were covered by copper masks. Their dresses
were of rich materials, embroidered in various bright colors. In one
hand each of them carried a small tambourine and with the other he
agitated a little bell. From the rim of each tambourine depended a
metallic ball, so placed that the least movement of the hand brought it
in contact with the resonant tympanum, which caused a strange,
continuous undercurrent of pulsating sound. There new performers circled
several times about the court, marking the time of their dancing steps
by measured thumpings of the tambourines. At the completion of each
turn, they made a deafening noise with their instruments. Finally, they
ran to the temple door and ranged themselves upon the steps before it.
For a moment, there was silence. Then we saw emerge from the temple a
third band of performers. Their enormous masks represented different
deities, and each bore upon its forehead "the third eye." At their head
marched Thlogan-Poudma-Jungnas (literally "he who was born in the lotus
flower"). Another richly dressed mask marched beside him, carrying a
yellow parasol covered with symbolic designs. His suite was composed of
gods, in magnificent costumes; Dorje-Trolong and Sangspa-Kourpo (_i.e._,
Brahma himself), and others. These masks, as a lama sitting near me
explained to us, represented six classes of beings subject to the
metamorphoses; the gods, the demigods, men, animals, spirits and demons.
On each side of these personages, who advanced gravely, marched other
masks, costumed in silks of brilliant hues and wearing on their heads
golden crowns, fashioned with six lotus-like flowers on each, surmounted
by a tall dart in the centre. Each of these masks carried a drum.
These disguises made three turns about the masts, to the sound of a
noisy and incoherent music, and then seated themselves on the ground,
around Thlogan-Pondma-Jungnas, a god with three eyes, who gravely
introduced two fingers into his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle. At
this signal, young men dressed in warrior costumes--with ribbon-decked
bells dangling about their legs--came with measured steps from the
temple. Their heads were covered by enormous green masks, from which
floated triangular red flags, and they, too, carried tambourines. Making
a diabolical din, they whirled and danced about the gods seated on the
ground. Two big fellows accompanying them, who were dressed in tight
clown costumes, executed all kinds of grotesque contortions and
acrobatic feats, by which they won plaudits and shouts of laughter from
the spectators.
Another group of disguises--of which the principal features were red
mitres and yellow pantaloons--came out of the temple, with bells and
tambourines in their hands, and seated themselves opposite the gods, as
representatives of the highest powers next to divinity. Lastly there
entered upon the scene a lot of red and brown masks, with a "third eye"
painted on their breasts. With those who had preceded them, they formed
two long lines of dancers, who to the thrumming of their many
tambourines, the measured music of the trumpets and drums, and the
jingling of a myriad of bells, performed a dance, approaching and
receding from each other, whirling in circles, forming by twos in a
column and breaking from that formation to make new combinations,
pausing occasionally to make reverent obeisance before the gods.
After a time this spectacular excitement--the noisy monotony of which
began to weary me--calmed down a little; gods, demigods, kings, men and
spirits got up, and followed by all the other maskers, directed
themselves toward the temple door, whence issued at once, meeting them,
a lot of men admirably disguised as skeletons. All those sorties were
calculated and prearranged, and every one of them had its particular
significance. The _cortège_ of dancers gave way to the skeletons, who
advanced with measured steps, in silence, to the masts, where they
stopped and made a concerted clicking with pieces of wood hanging at
their sides, simulating perfectly the rattling of dry bones and gnashing
of teeth. Twice they went in a circle around the masts, marching in time
to low taps on the drums, and then joined in a lugubrious religious
chant. Having once more made the concerted rattling of their artificial
bones and jaws, they executed some contortions painful to witness and
together stopped.
Then they seized upon an image of the Enemy of Man--made of some sort of
brittle paste--which had been placed at the foot of one of the masts.
This they broke in pieces and scattered, and the oldest men among the
spectators, rising from their places, picked up the fragments which
they handed to the skeletons--an action supposed to signify that they
would soon be ready to join the bony crew in the cemetery.
* * * * *
The chief lama, approaching me, tendered an invitation to accompany him
to the principal terrace and partake of the festal "tchang"; which I
accepted with pleasure, for my head was dizzy from the long spectacle.
We crossed the court and climbed a staircase--obstructed with
prayer-wheels, as usual--passed two rooms where there were many images
of gods, and came out upon the terrace, where I seated myself upon a
bench opposite the venerable lama, whose eyes sparkled with spirit.
Three lamas brought pitchers of tchang, which they poured into small
copper cups, that were offered first to the chief lama, then to me and
my servants.
"Did you enjoy our little festival?" the lama asked me.
"I found it very enjoyable and am still impressed by the spectacle I
have witnessed. But, to tell the truth, I never suspected for a moment
that Buddhism, in these religious ceremonies, could display such a
visible, not to say noisy, exterior form."
"There is no religion, the ceremonies of which are not surrounded with
more theatrical forms," the lama answered. "This is a ritualistic phase
which does not by any means violate the fundamental principles of
Buddhism. It is a practical means for maintaining in the ignorant mass
obedience to and love for the one Creator, just as a child is beguiled
by toys to do the will of its parents. The ignorant mass is the child of
The Father."
"But what is the meaning," I said to him, "of all those masks, costumes,
bells, dances, and, generally, of this entire performance, which seems
to be executed after a prescribed programme?"
"We have many similar festivals in the year," answered the lama, "and we
arrange particular ones to represent 'mysteries,' susceptible of
pantomimic presentation, in which each actor is allowed considerable
latitude of action, in the movements and jests he likes, conforming,
nevertheless, to the circumstances and to the leading idea. Our
mysteries are simply pantomimes calculated to show the veneration
offered to the gods, which veneration sustains and cheers the soul of
man, who is prone to anxious contemplation of inevitable death and the
life to come. The actors receive the dresses from the cloister and they
play according to general indications, which leave them much liberty of
individual action. The general effect produced is, no doubt, very
beautiful, but it is a matter for the spectators themselves to divine
the signification of one or another action. You, too, have recourse
sometimes to similar devices, which, however, do not in the least
violate the principle of monotheism."
"Pardon me," I remarked, "but this multitude of idols with which your
gonpas abound, is a flagrant violation of that principle."
"As I have told you," replied the lama to my interruption, "man will
always be in childhood. He sees and feels the grandeur of nature and
understands everything presented to his senses, but he neither sees nor
divines the Great Soul which created and animates all things. Man has
always sought for tangible things. It was not possible for him to
believe long in that which escaped his material senses. He has racked
his brain for any means for contemplating the Creator; has endeavored to
enter into direct relations with him who has done him so much good, and
also, as he erroneously believes, so much evil. For this reason he began
to adore every phase of nature from which he received benefits. We see a
striking example of this in the ancient Egyptians, who adored animals,
trees, stones, the winds and the rain. Other peoples, who were more
sunk in ignorance, seeing that the results of the wind were not always
beneficent, and that the rain did not inevitably bring good harvests,
and that the animals were not willingly subservient to man, began to
seek for direct intermediaries between themselves and the great
mysterious and unfathomable power of the Creator. Therefore they made
for themselves idols, which they regarded as indifferent to things
concerning them, but to whose interposition in their behalf, they might
always recur. From remotest antiquity to our own days, man was ever
inclined only to tangible realities.
"While seeking a route to lead their feet to the Creator, the Assyrians
turned their eyes toward the stars, which they contemplated without the
power of attaining them. The Guebers have conserved the same belief to
our days. In their nullity and spiritual blindness, men are incapable of
conceiving the invisible spiritual bond which unites them to the great
Divinity, and this explains why they have always sought for palpable
things, which were in the domain of the senses, and by doing which they
minimized the divine principle. Nevertheless, they have dared to
attribute to their visible and man-made images a divine and eternal
existence. We can see the same fact in Brahminism, where man, given to
his inclination for exterior forms, has created, little by little, and
not all at once, an army of gods and demigods. The Israelites may be
said to have demonstrated, in the most flagrant way, the love of man for
everything which is concrete. In spite of a series of striking miracles
accomplished by the great Creator, who is the same for all the peoples,
the Jewish people could not help making a god of metal in the very
minute when their prophet Mossa spoke to them of the Creator! Buddhism
has passed through the same modifications. Our great reformer,
Sakya-Muni, inspired by the Supreme Judge, understood truly the one and
indivisible Brahma, and forbade his disciples attempting to manufacture
images in imaginary semblance of him. He had openly broken from the
polytheistic Brahmins, and appreciated the purity, oneness and
immortality of Brahma. The success he achieved by his teachings in
making disciples among the people, brought upon him persecution by the
Brahmins, who, in the creation of new gods, had found a source of
personal revenue, and who, contrary to the law of God, treated the
people in a despotic manner. Our first sacred teachers, to whom we give
the name of buddhas--which means, learned men or saints--because the
great Creator has incarnated in them, settled in different countries of
the globe. As their teachings attacked especially the tyranny of the
Brahmins and the misuse they made of the idea of God--of which they
indeed made a veritable business--almost all the Buddhistic converts,
they who followed the doctrines of those great teachers, were among the
common people of China and India. Among those teachers, particular
reverence is felt for the Buddha, Sakya-Muni, known in China also under
the name of Fô, who lived three thousand years ago, and whose teachings
brought all China back into the path of the true God; and the Buddha,
Gautama, who lived two thousand five hundred years ago, and converted
almost half the Hindus to the knowledge of the impersonal, indivisible
and only God, besides whom there is none.
"Buddhism is divided into many sects which, by the way, differ only in
certain religious ceremonies, the basis of the doctrine being everywhere
the same. The Thibetan Buddhists, who are called 'lamaists,' separated
themselves from the Fô-ists fifteen hundred years ago. Until that time
we had formed part of the worshippers of the Buddha, Fô-Sakya-Muni, who
was the first to collect all the laws compiled by the various buddhas
preceding him, when the great schism took place in the bosom of
Brahmanism. Later on, a Khoutoukhte-Mongol translated into Chinese the
books of the great Buddha, for which the Emperor of China rewarded him
by bestowing upon him the title of 'Go-Chi--'Preceptor of the King!'
After his death, this title was given to the Dalai-Lama of Thibet. Since
that epoch, all the titularies of this position have borne the title of
Go-Chi. Our religion is called the Lamaic one--from the word 'lama,'
superior. It admits of two classes of monks, the red and the yellow. The
former may marry, and they recognize the authority of the Bantsine, who
resides in Techow Loumba, and is chief of the civil administration in
Thibet. We, the yellow lamas, have taken the vow of celibacy, and our
direct chief is the Dalai-Lama. This is the difference which separates
the two religious orders, the respective rituals of which are
identical."
"Do all perform mysteries similar to that which I have just witnessed?"
"Yes; with a few exceptions. Formerly these festivals were celebrated
with very solemn pomp, but since the conquest of Ladak our convents have
been, more than once, pillaged and our wealth taken away. Now we content
ourselves with simple garments and bronze utensils, while in Thibet you
see but golden robes and gold utensils."
"In a visit which I recently made to a gonpa, one of the lamas told me
of a prophet, or, as you call him, a buddha, by the name of Issa. Could
you not tell me anything about him?" I asked my interlocutor, seizing
this favorable moment to start the subject which interested me so
greatly.
"The name Issa is very much respected among the Buddhists," he replied,
"but he is only known by the chief lamas, who have read the scrolls
relating to his life. There have existed an infinite number of buddhas
like Issa, and the 84,000 scrolls existing are filled brim full of
details concerning each one of them. But very few persons have read the
one-hundredth part of those memoirs. In conformity with established
custom, every disciple or lama who visits Lhassa makes a gift of one or
several copies, from the scrolls there, to the convent to which he
belongs. Our gonpa, among others, possesses already a great number,
which I read in my leisure hours. Among them are the memoirs of the life
and acts of the Buddha Issa, who preached the same doctrine in India and
among the sons of Israel, and who was put to death by the Pagans, whose
descendants, later on, adopted the beliefs he spread,--and those beliefs
are yours.
"The great Buddha, the soul of the Universe, is the incarnation of
Brahma. He, almost always, remains immobile, containing in himself all
things, being in himself the origin of all and his breath vivifying the
world. He has left man to the control of his own forces, but, at certain
epochs, lays aside his inaction and puts on a human form that he may, as
their teacher and guide, rescue his creatures from impending
destruction. In the course of his terrestrial existence in the
similitude of man, Buddha creates a new world in the hearts of erring
men; then he leaves the earth, to become once more an invisible being
and resume his condition of perfect bliss. Three thousand years ago,
Buddha incarnated in the celebrated Prince Sakya-Muni, reaffirming and
propagating the doctrines taught by him in his twenty preceding
incarnations. Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Great Soul of the World
incarnated anew in Gautama, laying the foundation of a new world in
Burmah, Siam and different islands. Soon afterward, Buddhism began to
penetrate China, through the persevering efforts of the sages, who
devoted themselves to the propagation of the sacred doctrine, and under
Ming-Ti, of the Honi dynasty, nearly 2,050 years ago, the teachings of
Sakya-Muni were adopted by the people of that country. Simultaneously
with the appearance of Buddhism in China, the same doctrines began to
spread among the Israelites. It is about 2,000 years ago that the
perfect Being, awaking once more for a short time from his inaction,
incarnated in the newborn child of a poor family. It was his will that
this little child should enlighten the unhappy upon the life of the
world to come and bring erring men back into the path of truth; showing
to them, by his own example, the way they could best return to the
primitive morality and purity of our race. When this sacred child
attained a certain age, he was brought to India, where, until he
attained to manhood, he studied the laws of the great Buddha, who dwells
eternally in heaven."
"In what language are written the principal scrolls bearing upon the
life of Issa?" I asked, rising from my seat, for I saw that my
interesting interlocutor evidenced fatigue, and had just given a twirl
to his prayer-wheel, as if to hint the closing of the conversation.
"The original scrolls brought from India to Nepaul, and from Nepaul to
Thibet, relating to the life of Issa, are written in the Pali language
and are actually in Lhassa; but a copy in our language--I mean the
Thibetan--is in this convent."
"How is Issa looked upon in Thibet? Has he the repute of a saint?"
"The people are not even aware that he ever existed. Only the principal
lamas, who know of him through having studied the scrolls in which his
life is related, are familiar with his name; but, as his doctrine does
not constitute a canonical part of Buddhism, and the worshippers of Issa
do not recognize the authority of the Dalai-Lama, the prophet Issa--with
many others like him--is not recognized in Thibet as one of the
principal saints."
"Would you commit a sin in reciting your copy of the life of Issa to a
stranger?" I asked him.
"That which belongs to God," he answered me, "belongs also to man. Our
duty requires us to cheerfully devote ourselves to the propagation of
His doctrine. Only, I do not, at present, know where that manuscript is.
If you ever visit our gonpa again, I shall take pleasure in showing it
to you."
At this moment two monks entered, and uttered to the chief lama a few
words unintelligible to me.
"I am called to the sacrifices. Will you kindly excuse me?" said he to
me, and with a salute, turned to the door and disappeared.
I could do no better than withdraw and lie down in the chamber which was
assigned to me and where I spent the night.
* * * * *
In the evening of the next day I was again in Leh--thinking of how to
get back to the convent. Two days later I sent, by a messenger, to the
chief lama, as presents, a watch, an alarm clock, and a thermometer. At
the same time I sent the message that before leaving Ladak I would
probably return to the convent, in the hope that he would permit me to
see the manuscript which had been the subject of our conversation. It
was now my purpose to gain Kachmyr and return from there, some time
later, to Himis. But fate made a different decision for me.
In passing a mountain, on a height of which is perched the gonpa of
Piatak, my horse made a false step, throwing me to the ground so
violently that my right leg was broken below the knee.
It was impossible to continue my journey, I was not inclined to return
to Leh; and seeking the hospitality of the gonpa of Piatak was not, from
the appearance of the cloister, an enticing prospect. My best recourse
would be to return to Himis, then only about half a day's journey
distant, and I ordered my servants to transport me there. They bandaged
my broken leg--an operation which caused me great pain--and lifted me
into the saddle. One carrier walked by my side, supporting the weight of
the injured member, while another led my horse. At a late hour of the
evening we reached the door of the convent of Himis.
When informed of my accident, the kind monks came out to receive me and,
with a wealth of extraordinary precautions of tenderness, I was carried
inside, and, in one of their best rooms, installed upon an improvised
bed, consisting of a mountain of soft fabrics, with the
naturally-to-be-expected prayer-cylinder beside me. All this was done
for me under the personal supervision of their chief lama, who, with
affectionate sympathy, pressed the hand I gave him in expression of my
thanks for his kindness.
In the morning, I myself bound around the injured limb little oblong
pieces of wood, held by cords, to serve as splints. Then I remained
perfectly quiescent and nature was not slow in her reparative work.
Within two days my condition was so far improved that I could, had it
been necessary, have left the gonpa and directed myself slowly toward
India in search of a surgeon to complete my cure.
While a boy kept in motion the prayer-barrel near my bed, the venerable
lama who ruled the convent entertained me with many interesting stories.
Frequently he took from their box the alarm clock and the watch, that I
might illustrate to him the process of winding them and explain to him
their uses. At length, yielding to my ardent insistence, he brought me
two big books, the large leaves of which were of paper yellow with age,
and from them read to me the biography of Issa, which I carefully
transcribed in my travelling notebook according to the translation made
by the interpreter. This curious document is compiled under the form of
isolated verses, which, as placed, very often had no apparent connection
with, or relation to each other.
On the third day, my condition was so far improved as to permit the
prosecution of my journey. Having bound up my leg as well as possible, I
returned, across Kachmyr, to India; a slow journey, of twenty days,
filled with intolerable pain. Thanks, however, to a litter, which a
French gentleman, M. Peicheau, had kindly sent to me (my gratitude for
which I take this occasion to express), and to an ukase of the Grand
Vizier of the Maharajah of Kachmyr, ordering the local authorities to
provide me with carriers, I reached Srinagar, and left almost
immediately, being anxious to gain India before the first snows fell.
In Muré I encountered another Frenchman, Count André de Saint Phall, who
was making a journey of recreation across Hindostan. During the whole
course, which we made together, to Bombay, the young count demonstrated
a touching solicitude for me, and sympathy for the excruciating pain I
suffered from my broken leg and the fever induced by its torture. I
cherish for him sincere gratitude, and shall never forget the friendly
care which I received upon my arrival in Bombay from the Marquis de
Morés, the Vicomte de Breteul, M. Monod, of the Comptoir d'Escompte, M.
Moët, acting consul, and all the members of the very sympathetic French
colony there.
During a long time I revolved in my mind the purpose of publishing the
memoirs of the life of Jesus Christ found by me in Himis, of which I
have spoken, but other interests absorbed my attention and delayed it.
Only now, after having passed long nights of wakefulness in the
coordination of my notes and grouping the verses conformably to the
march of the recital, imparting to the work, as a whole, a character of
unity, I resolve to let this curious chronicle see the light.
_The Life of Saint Issa_
"Best of the Sons of Men."
I.
1. The earth trembled and the heavens wept, because of the great crime
committed in the land of Israel.
2. For there was tortured and murdered the great and just Issa, in whom
was manifest the soul of the Universe;
3. Which had incarnated in a simple mortal, to benefit men and destroy
the evil spirit in them;
4. To lead back to peace, love and happiness, man, degraded by his sins,
and recall him to the one and indivisible Creator whose mercy is
infinite.
5. The merchants coming from Israel have given the following account of
what has occurred:
II.
1. The people of Israel--who inhabit a fertile country producing two
harvests a year and affording pasture for large herds of cattle--by
their sins brought down upon themselves the anger of the Lord;
2. Who inflicted upon them terrible chastisements, taking from them
their land, their cattle and their wealth. They were carried away into
slavery by the rich and mighty Pharaohs who then ruled the land of
Egypt.
3. The Israelites were, by the Pharaohs, treated worse than beasts,
condemned to hard labor and put in irons; their bodies were covered with
wounds and sores; they were not permitted to live under a roof, and were
starved to death;
4. That they might be maintained in a state of continual terror and
deprived of all human resemblance;
5. And in this great calamity, the Israelites, remembering their
Celestial Protector, implored his forgiveness and mercy.
6. At that period reigned in Egypt an illustrious Pharaoh, who was
renowned for his many victories, immense riches, and the gigantic
palaces he had erected by the labor of his slaves.
7. This Pharaoh had two sons, the younger of whom, named Mossa, had
acquired much knowledge from the sages of Israel.
8. And Mossa was beloved by all in Egypt for his kindness of heart and
the pity he showed to all sufferers.
9. When Mossa saw that the Israelites, in spite of their many
sufferings, had not forsaken their God, and refused to worship the gods
of Egypt, created by the hands of man.
10. He also put his faith in their invisible God, who did not suffer
them to betray Him, despite their ever growing weakness.
11. And the teachers among Israel animated Mossa in his zeal, and prayed
of him that he would intercede with his father, Pharaoh, in favor of
their co-religionists.
12. Prince Mossa went before his father, begging him to lighten the
burden of the unhappy people; Pharaoh, however, became incensed with
rage, and ordered that they should be tormented more than before.
13. And it came to pass that Egypt was visited by a great calamity. The
plague decimated young and old, the healthy and the sick; and Pharaoh
beheld in this the resentment of his own gods against him.
14. But Prince Mossa said to his father that it was the God of his
slaves who thus interposed on behalf of his wretched people, and avenged
them upon the Egyptians.
15. Thereupon, Pharaoh commanded Mossa, his son, to gather all the
Israelite slaves, and lead them away, and found, at a great distance
from the capital, another city where he should rule over them.
16. Then Mossa made known to the Hebrew slaves that he had obtained
their freedom in the name of his and their God, the God of Israel; and
with them he left the city and departed from the land of Egypt.
17. He led them back to the land which, because of their many sins, had
been taken from them. There he gave them laws and admonished them to
pray always to God, the indivisible Creator, whose kindness is infinite.
18. After Prince Mossa's death, the Israelites observed rigorously his
laws; and God rewarded them for the ills to which they had been
subjected in Egypt.
19. Their kingdom became one of the most powerful on earth; their kings
made themselves renowned for their treasures, and peace reigned in
Israel.
III.
1. The glory of Israel's wealth spread over the whole earth, and the
surrounding nations became envious.
2. But the Most High himself led the victorious arms of the Hebrews, and
the Pagans did not dare to attack them.
3. Unfortunately, man is prone to err, and the fidelity of the
Israelites to their God was not of long duration.
4. Little by little they forgot the favors he had bestowed upon them;
rarely invoked his name, and sought rather protection by the magicians
and sorcerers.
5. The kings and the chiefs among the people substituted their own laws
for those given by Mossa; the temple of God and the observances of their
ancient faith were neglected; the people addicted themselves to sensual
gratifications and lost their original purity.
6. Many centuries had elapsed since their exodus from Egypt, when God
bethought himself of again inflicting chastisement upon them.
7. Strangers invaded Israel, devastated the land, destroyed the
villages, and carried their inhabitants away into captivity.
8. At last came the Pagans from over the sea, from the land of Romeles.
These made themselves masters of the Hebrews, and placed over them their
army chiefs, who governed in the name of Cæsar.
9. They defiled the temples, forced the inhabitants to cease the worship
of the indivisible God, and compelled them to sacrifice to the heathen
gods.
10. They made common soldiers of those who had been men of rank; the
women became their prey, and the common people, reduced to slavery, were
carried away by thousands over the sea.
11. The children were slain, and soon, in the whole land, there was
naught heard but weeping and lamentation.
12. In this extreme distress, the Israelites once more remembered their
great God, implored his mercy and prayed for his forgiveness. Our
Father, in his inexhaustible clemency, heard their prayer.
IV.
1. At that time the moment had come for the compassionate Judge to
reincarnate in a human form;
2. And the eternal Spirit, resting in a state of complete inaction and
supreme bliss, awakened and separated from the eternal Being, for an
undetermined period,
3. So that, in human form, He might teach man to identify himself with
the Divinity and attain to eternal felicity;
4. And to show, by His example, how man can attain moral purity and free
his soul from the domination of the physical senses, so that it may
achieve the perfection necessary for it to enter the Kingdom of Heaven,
which is immutable and where bliss eternal reigns.
5. Soon after, a marvellous child was born in the land of Israel. God
himself spoke, through the mouth of this child, of the miseries of the
body and the grandeur of the soul.
6. The parents of the infant were poor people, who belonged to a family
noted for great piety; who forgot the greatness of their ancestors in
celebrating the name of the Creator and giving thanks to Him for the
trials which He had sent upon them.
7. To reward them for adhering to the path of truth, God blessed the
firstborn of this family; chose him for His elect, and sent him to
sustain the fallen and comfort the afflicted.
8. The divine child, to whom the name Issa was given, commenced in his
tender years to talk of the only and indivisible God, exhorting the
strayed souls to repent and purify themselves from the sins of which
they had become guilty.
9. People came from all parts to hear him, and marvelled at the
discourses which came from his infantile mouth; and all Israel agreed
that the Spirit of the Eternal dwelt in this child.
10. When Issa was thirteen years old, the age at which an Israelite is
expected to marry,
11. The modest house of his industrious parents became a meeting place
of the rich and illustrious, who were anxious to have as a son-in-law
the young Issa, who was already celebrated for the edifying discourses
he made in the name of the All-Powerful.
12. Then Issa secretly absented himself from his father's house; left
Jerusalem, and, in a train of merchants, journeyed toward the Sindh,
13. With the object of perfecting himself in the knowledge of the word
of God and the study of the laws of the great Buddhas.
V.
1. In his fourteenth year, young Issa, the Blessed One, came this side
of the Sindh and settled among the Aryas, in the country beloved by God.
2. Fame spread the name of the marvellous youth along the northern
Sindh, and when he came through the country of the five streams and
Radjipoutan, the devotees of the god Djaïne asked him to stay among
them.
3. But he left the deluded worshippers of Djaïne and went to
Djagguernat, in the country of Orsis, where repose the mortal remains
of Vyassa-Krishna, and where the white priests of Brahma welcomed him
joyfully.
4. They taught him to read and to understand the Vedas, to cure physical
ills by means of prayers, to teach and to expound the sacred Scriptures,
to drive out evil desires from man and make him again in the likeness of
God.
5. He spent six years in Djagguernat, in Radjagriha, in Benares, and in
other holy cities. The common people loved Issa, for he lived in peace
with the Vaisyas and the Sudras, to whom he taught the Holy Scriptures.
6. But the Brahmins and the Kshatnyas told him that they were forbidden
by the great Para-Brahma to come near to those who were created from his
belly and his feet;[1]
7. That the Vaisyas might only hear the recital of the Vedas, and this
only on the festal days, and
8. That the Sudras were not only forbidden to attend the reading of the
Vedas, but even to look on them; for they were condemned to perpetual
servitude, as slaves of the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas and even the
Vaisyas.
9. "Death alone can enfranchise them from their servitude," has said
Para-Brahma. "Leave them, therefore, and come to adore with us the gods,
whom you will make angry if you disobey them."
10. But Issa, disregarding their words, remained with the Sudras,
preaching against the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas.
11. He declaimed strongly against man's arrogating to himself the
authority to deprive his fellow-beings of their human and spiritual
rights. "Verily," he said, "God has made no difference between his
children, who are all alike dear to Him."
12. Issa denied the divine inspiration of the Vedas and the Puranas,
for, as he taught his followers,--"One law has been given to man to
guide him in his actions:
13. "Fear the Lord, thy God; bend thy knees only before Him and bring to
Him only the offerings which come from thy earnings."
14. Issa denied the Trimurti and the incarnation of Para-Brahma in
Vishnu, Siva, and other gods; "for," said he:
15. "The eternal Judge, the eternal Spirit, constitutes the only and
indivisible soul of the universe, and it is this soul alone which
creates, contains and vivifies all.
16. "He alone has willed and created. He alone has existed from
eternity, and His existence will be without end; there is no one like
unto Him either in the heavens or on the earth.
17. "The great Creator has divided His power with no other being; far
less with inanimate objects, as you have been taught to believe, for He
alone is omnipotent and all-sufficient.
18. "He willed, and the world was. By one divine thought, He reunited
the waters and separated them from the dry land of the globe. He is the
cause of the mysterious life of man, into whom He has breathed part of
His divine Being.
19. "And He has put under subjection to man, the lands, the waters, the
beasts and everything which He created, and which He himself preserves
in immutable order, allotting to each its proper duration.
20. "The anger of God will soon break forth upon man; for he has
forgotten his Creator; he has filled His temples with abominations; and
he adores a multitude of creatures which God has subordinated to him;
21. "And to gain favor with images of stone and metal, he sacrifices
human beings in whom dwells part of the Spirit of the Most High;
22. "And he humiliates those who work in the sweat of their brows, to
gain favor in the eyes of the idler who sitteth at a sumptuous table.
23. "Those who deprive their brothers of divine happiness will
themselves be deprived of it; and the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas shall
become the Sudras of the Sudras, with whom the Eternal will stay
forever.
24. "In the day of judgment the Sudras and the Vaisyas will be forgiven
for that they knew not the light, while God will let loose his wrath
upon those who arrogated his authority."
25. The Vaisyas and the Sudras were filled with great admiration, and
asked Issa how they should pray, in order not to lose their hold upon
eternal life.
26. "Pray not to idols, for they cannot hear you; hearken not to the
Vedas where the truth is altered; be humble and humiliate not your
fellow man.
27. "Help the poor, support the weak, do evil to none; covet not that
which ye have not and which belongs to others."
VI.
1. The white priests and the warriors,[2] who had learned of Issa's
discourse to the Sudras, resolved upon his death, and sent their
servants to find the young teacher and slay him.
2. But Issa, warned by the Sudras of his danger, left by night
Djagguernat, gained the mountain, and settled in the country of the
Gautamides, where the great Buddha Sakya-Muni came to the world, among a
people who worshipped the only and sublime Brahma.
3. When the just Issa had acquired the Pali language, he applied himself
to the study of the sacred scrolls of the Sutras.
4. After six years of study, Issa, whom the Buddha had elected to spread
his holy word, could perfectly expound the sacred scrolls.
5. He then left Nepaul and the Himalaya mountains, descended into the
valley of Radjipoutan and directed his steps toward the West,
everywhere preaching to the people the supreme perfection attainable by
man;
6. And the good he must do to his fellow men, which is the sure means of
speedy union with the eternal Spirit. "He who has recovered his
primitive purity," said Issa, "shall die with his transgressions
forgiven and have the right to contemplate the majesty of God."
7. When the divine Issa traversed the territories of the Pagans, he
taught that the adoration of visible gods was contrary to natural law.
8. "For to man," said he, "it has not been given to see the image of
God, and it behooves him not to make for himself a multitude of
divinities in the imagined likeness of the Eternal.
9. "Moreover, it is against human conscience to have less regard for the
greatness of divine purity, than for animals or works of stone or metal
made by the hands of man.
10. "The eternal Lawgiver is One; there are no other Gods than He; He
has parted the world with none, nor had He any counsellor.
11. "Even as a father shows kindness toward his children, so will God
judge men after death, in conformity with His merciful laws. He will
never humiliate his child by casting his soul for chastisement into the
body of a beast.
12. "The heavenly laws," said the Creator, through the mouth of Issa,
"are opposed to the immolation of human sacrifices to a statue or an
animal; for I, the God, have sacrificed to man all the animals and all
that the world contains.
13. "Everything has been sacrificed to man, who is directly and
intimately united to me, his Father; therefore, shall the man be
severely judged and punished, by my law, who causes the sacrifice of my
children.
14. "Man is naught before the eternal Judge; as the animal is before
man.
15. "Therefore, I say unto you, leave your idols and perform not
ceremonies which separate you from your Father and bind you to the
priests, from whom heaven has turned away.
16. "For it is they who have led you away from the true God, and by
superstitions and cruelty perverted the spirit and made you blind to the
knowledge of the truth."
VII.
1. The words of Issa spread among the Pagans, through whose country he
passed, and the inhabitants abandoned their idols.
2. Seeing which, the priests demanded of him who thus glorified the name
of the true God, that he should, in the presence of the people, prove
the charges he made against them, and demonstrate the vanity of their
idols.
3. And Issa answered them: "If your idols, or the animals you worship,
really possess the supernatural powers you claim, let them strike me
with a thunderbolt before you!"
4. "Why dost not thou perform a miracle," replied the priests, "and let
thy God confound ours, if He is greater than they?"
5. But Issa said: "The miracles of our God have been wrought from the
first day when the universe was created; and are performed every day and
every moment; whoso sees them not is deprived of one of the most
beautiful gifts of life.
6. "And it is not on inanimate objects of stone, metal or wood that He
will let His anger fall, but on the men who worship them, and who,
therefore, for their salvation, must destroy the idols they have made.
7. "Even as a stone and a grain of sand, which are naught before man,
await patiently their use by Him.
8. "In like manner, man, who is naught before God, must await in
resignation His pleasure for a manifestation of His favor.
9. "But woe to you! ye adversaries of men, if it is not the favor you
await, but rather the wrath of the Most High; woe to you, if you demand
that He attest His power by a miracle!
10. "For it is not the idols which He will destroy in His wrath, but
those by whom they were created; their hearts will be the prey of an
eternal fire and their flesh shall be given to the beasts of prey.
11. "God will drive away the contaminated animals from His flocks; but
will take to Himself those who strayed because they knew not the
heavenly part within them."
12. When the Pagans saw that the power of their priests was naught, they
put faith in the words of Issa. Fearing the anger of the true God, they
broke their idols to pieces and caused their priests to flee from among
them.
13. Issa furthermore taught the Pagans that they should not endeavor to
see the eternal Spirit with their eyes; but to perceive Him with their
hearts, and make themselves worthy of His favors by the purity of their
souls.
14. "Not only," he said to them, "must ye refrain from offering human
sacrifices, but ye may not lay on the altar any creature to which life
has been given, for all things created are for man.
15. "Withhold not from your neighbor his just due, for this would be
like stealing from him what he had earned in the sweat of his brow.
16. "Deceive none, that ye may not yourselves be deceived; seek to
justify yourselves before the last judgment, for then it will be too
late.
17. "Be not given to debauchery, for it is a violation of the law of
God.
18. "That you may attain to supreme bliss ye must not only purify
yourselves, but must also guide others into the path that will enable
them to regain their primitive innocence."
VIII.
1. The countries round about were filled with the renown of Issa's
preachings, and when he came unto Persia, the priests grew afraid and
forbade the people hearing him;
2. Nevertheless, the villages received him with joy, and the people
hearkened intently to his words, which, being seen by the priests,
caused them to order that he should be arrested and brought before their
High Priest, who asked him:
3. "Of what new God dost thou speak? Knowest thou not, unfortunate man
that thou art! that Saint Zoroaster is the only Just One, to whom alone
was vouchsafed the honor of receiving revelations from the Most High;
4. "By whose command the angels compiled His Word in laws for the
governance of His people, which were given to Zoroaster in Paradise?
5. "Who, then, art thou, who darest to utter blasphemies against our God
and sow doubt in the hearts of believers?"
6. And Issa said to them: "I preach no new God, but our celestial
Father, who has existed before the beginning and will exist until after
the end.
7. "Of Him I have spoken to the people, who--even as innocent
children--are incapable of comprehending God by their own intelligence,
or fathoming the sublimity of the divine Spirit;
8. "But, as the newborn child in the night recognizes the mother's
breast, so your people, held in the darkness of error by your pernicious
doctrines and religious ceremonies, have recognized instinctively their
Father, in the Father whose prophet I am.
9. "The eternal Being says to your people, by my mouth, 'Ye shall not
adore the sun, for it is but a part of the universe which I have created
for man;
10. "It rises to warm you during your work; it sets to accord to you the
rest that I have ordained.
11. "To me only ye owe all that ye possess, all that surrounds you and
that is above and below you.'"
12. "But," said the priests, "how could the people live according to
your rules if they had no teachers?"
13. Whereupon Issa answered: "So long as they had no priests, they were
governed by the natural law and conserved the simplicity of their souls;
14. "Their souls were in God and to commune with the Father they had not
to have recourse to the intermediation of idols, or animals, or fire, as
taught by you.
15. "Ye pretend that man must adore the sun, and the Genii of Good and
Evil. But I say unto you that your doctrine is pernicious. The sun does
not act spontaneously, but by the will of the invisible Creator, who has
given to it being."
16. "Who, then, has caused that this star lights the day, warms man at
his work and vivifies the seeds sown in the ground?"
17. "The eternal Spirit is the soul of everything animate, and you
commit a great sin in dividing Him into the Spirit of Evil and the
Spirit of Good, for there is no God other than the God of Good.
18. "And He, like to the father of a family, does only good to His
children, to whom He forgives their transgressions if they repent of
them.
19. "And the Spirit of Evil dwells upon earth, in the hearts of those
who turn the children of God away from the right path.
20. "Therefore, I say unto you; Fear the day of judgment, for God will
inflict a terrible chastisement upon all those who have led His
children astray and beguiled them with superstitions and errors;
21. "Upon those who have blinded them who saw; who have brought
contagion to the well; who have taught the worship of those things which
God made to be subject to man, or to aid him in his works.
22. "Your doctrine is the fruit of your error in seeking to bring near
to you the God of Truth, by creating for yourselves false gods."
23. When the Magi heard these words, they feared to themselves do him
harm, but at night, when the whole city slept, they brought him outside
the walls and left him on the highway, in the hope that he would not
fail to become the prey of wild beasts.
24. But, protected by the Lord our God, Saint Issa continued on his way,
without accident.
IX.
1. Issa--whom the Creator had selected to recall to the worship of the
true God, men sunk in sin--was twenty-nine years old when he arrived in
the land of Israel.
2. Since the departure therefrom of Issa, the Pagans had caused the
Israelites to endure more atrocious sufferings than before, and they
were filled with despair.
3. Many among them had begun to neglect the laws of their God and those
of Mossa, in the hope of winning the favor of their brutal conquerors.
4. But Issa, notwithstanding their unhappy condition, exhorted his
countrymen not to despair, because the day of their redemption from the
yoke of sin was near, and he himself, by his example, confirmed their
faith in the God of their fathers.
5. "Children, yield not yourselves to despair," said the celestial
Father to them, through the mouth of Issa, "for I have heard your
lamentations, and your cries have reached my ears.
6. "Weep not, oh, my beloved sons! for your griefs have touched the
heart of your Father and He has forgiven you, as He forgave your
ancestors.
7. "Forsake not your families to plunge into debauchery; stain not the
nobility of your souls; adore not idols which cannot but remain deaf to
your supplications.
8. "Fill my temple with your hope and your patience, and do not adjure
the religion of your forefathers, for I have guided them and bestowed
upon them of my beneficence.
9. "Lift up those who are fallen; feed the hungry and help the sick,
that ye may be altogether pure and just in the day of the last judgment
which I prepare for you."
10. The Israelites came in multitudes to listen to Issa's words; and
they asked him where they should thank their Heavenly Father, since
their enemies had demolished their temples and robbed them of their
sacred vessels.
11. Issa told them that God cared not for temples erected by human
hands, but that human hearts were the true temples of God.
12. "Enter into your temple, into your heart; illuminate it with good
thoughts, with patience and the unshakeable faith which you owe to your
Father.
13. "And your sacred vessels! they are your hands and your eyes. Look to
do that which is agreeable to God, for in doing good to your fellow men,
you perform a ceremony that embellishes the temple wherein abideth Him
who has created you.
14. "For God has created you in His own image, innocent, with pure
souls, and hearts filled with kindness and not made for the planning of
evil, but to be the sanctuaries of love and justice.
15. "Therefore, I say unto you, soil not your hearts with evil, for in
them the eternal Being abides.
16. "When ye do works of devotion and love, let them be with full
hearts, and see that the motives of your actions be not hopes of gain or
self-interest;
17. "For actions, so impelled, will not bring you nearer to salvation,
but lead to a state of moral degradation wherein theft, lying and murder
pass for generous deeds."
X.
1. Issa went from one city to another, strengthening by the word of God
the courage of the Israelites, who were near to succumbing under their
weight of woe, and thousands of the people followed him to hear his
teachings.
2. But the chiefs of the cities were afraid of him and they informed the
principal governor, residing in Jerusalem, that a man called Issa had
arrived in the country, who by his sermons had arrayed the people
against the authorities, and that multitudes, listening assiduously to
him, neglected their labor; and, they added, he said that in a short
time they would be free of their invader rulers.
3. Then Pilate, the Governor of Jerusalem, gave orders that they should
lay hold of the preacher Issa and bring him before the judges. In order,
however, not to excite the anger of the populace, Pilate directed that
he should be judged by the priests and scribes, the Hebrew elders, in
their temple.
4. Meanwhile, Issa, continuing his preaching, arrived at Jerusalem, and
the people, who already knew his fame, having learned of his coming,
went out to meet him.
5. They greeted him respectfully and opened to him the doors of their
temple, to hear from his mouth what he had said in other cities of
Israel.
6. And Issa said to them: "The human race perishes, because of the lack
of faith; for the darkness and the tempest have caused the flock to go
astray and they have lost their shepherds.
7. "But the tempests do not rage forever and the darkness will not hide
the light eternally; soon the sky will become serene, the celestial
light will again overspread the earth, and the strayed flock will
reunite around their shepherd.
8. "Wander not in the darkness, seeking the way, lest ye fall into the
ditch; but gather together, sustain one another, put your faith in your
God and wait for the first glimmer of light to reappear.
9. "He who sustains his neighbor, sustains himself; and he who protects
his family, protects all his people and his country.
10. "For, be assured that the day is near when you will be delivered
from the darkness; you will be reunited into one family and your enemy
will tremble with fear, he who is ignorant of the favor of the great
God."
11. The priests and the elders who heard him, filled with admiration for
his language, asked him if it was true that he had sought to raise the
people against the authorities of the country, as had been reported to
the governor Pilate.
12. "Can one raise against estrayed men, to whom darkness has hidden
their road and their door?" answered Issa. "I have but forewarned the
unhappy, as I do here in this temple, that they should no longer advance
on the dark road, for an abyss opens before their feet.
13. "The power of this earth is not of long duration and is subject to
numberless changes. It would be of no avail for a man to rise in
revolution against it, for one phase of it always succeeds another, and
it is thus that it will go on until the extinction of human life.
14. "But do you not see that the powerful, and the rich, sow among the
children of Israel a spirit of rebellion against the eternal power of
Heaven?"
15. Then the elders asked him: "Who art thou, and from what country hast
thou come to us? We have not formerly heard thee spoken of and do not
even know thy name!"
16. "I am an Israelite," answered Issa; "and on the day of my birth have
seen the walls of Jerusalem, and have heard the sobs of my brothers
reduced to slavery, and the lamentations of my sisters carried away by
the Pagans;
17. "And my soul was afflicted when I saw that my brethren had forgotten
the true God. When a child I left my father's house to go and settle
among other people.
18. "But, having heard it said that my brethren suffered even greater
miseries now, I have come back to the land of my fathers, to recall my
brethren to the faith of their ancestors, which teaches us patience upon
earth in order to attain the perfect and supreme bliss above."
19. Then the wise old men put to him again this question: "We are told
that thou disownest the laws of Mossa, and that thou teachest the people
to forsake the temple of God?"
20. Whereupon Issa: "One does not demolish that which has been given by
our Heavenly Father, and which has been destroyed by sinners. I have but
enjoined the people to purify the heart of all stains, for it is the
veritable temple of God.
21. "As regards the laws of Mossa, I have endeavored to reestablish them
in the hearts of men; and I say unto you that ye ignore their true
meaning, for it is not vengeance but pardon which they teach. Their
sense has been perverted."
XI.
1. When the priests and the elders heard Issa, they decided among
themselves not to give judgment against him, for he had done no harm to
any one, and, presenting themselves before Pilate--who was made Governor
of Jerusalem by the Pagan king of the country of Romeles--they spake to
him thus:
2. "We have seen the man whom thou chargest with inciting our people to
revolt; we have heard his discourses and know that he is our countryman;
3. "But the chiefs of the cities have made to you false reports, for he
is a just man, who teaches the people the word of God. After
interrogating him, we have allowed him to go in peace."
4. The governor thereupon became very angry, and sent his disguised
spies to keep watch upon Issa and report to the authorities the least
word he addressed to the people.
5. In the meantime, the holy Issa continued to visit the neighboring
cities and preach the true way of the Lord, enjoining the Hebrews'
patience and promising them speedy deliverance.
6. And all the time great numbers of the people followed him wherever he
went, and many did not leave him at all, but attached themselves to him
and served him.
7. And Issa said: "Put not your faith in miracles performed by the hands
of men, for He who rules nature is alone capable of doing supernatural
things, while man is impotent to arrest the wrath of the winds or cause
the rain to fall.
8. "One miracle, however, is within the power of man to accomplish. It
is, when his heart is filled with sincere faith, he resolves to root out
from his mind all evil promptings and desires, and when, in order to
attain this end, he ceases to walk the path of iniquity.
9. "All the things done without God are only gross errors, illusions and
seductions, serving but to show how much the heart of the doer is full
of presumption, falsehood and impurity.
10. "Put not your faith in oracles. God alone knows the future. He who
has recourse to the diviners soils the temple of his heart and shows his
lack of faith in his Creator.
11. "Belief in the diviners and their miracles destroys the innate
simplicity of man and his childlike purity. An infernal power takes hold
of him who so errs, and forces him to commit various sins and give
himself to the worship of idols.
12. "But the Lord our God, to whom none can be equalled, is one
omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent; He alone possesses all wisdom
and all light.
13. "To Him ye must address yourselves, to be comforted in your
afflictions, aided in your works, healed in your sickness and whoso asks
of Him, shall not ask in vain.
14. "The secrets of nature are in the hands of God, for the whole world,
before it was made manifest, existed in the bosom of the divine thought,
and has become material and visible by the will of the Most High.
15. "When ye pray to him, become again like little children, for ye know
neither the past, nor the present, nor the future, and God is the Lord
of Time."
XII.
1. "Just man," said to him the disguised spies of the Governor of
Jerusalem, "tell us if we must continue to do the will of Cæsar, or
expect our near deliverance?"
2. And Issa, who recognized the questioners as the apostate spies sent
to follow him, replied to them: "I have not told you that you would be
delivered from Cæsar; it is the soul sunk in error which will gain its
deliverance.
3. "There cannot be a family without a head, and there cannot be order
in a people without a Cæsar, whom ye should implicitly obey, as he will
be held to answer for his acts before the Supreme Tribunal."
4. "Does Cæsar possess a divine right?" the spies asked him again; "and
is he the best of mortals?"
5. "There is no one 'the best' among human beings; but there are many
bad, who--even as the sick need physicians--require the care of those
chosen for that mission, in which must be used the means given by the
sacred law of our Heavenly Father;
6. "Mercy and justice are the high prerogatives of Cæsar, and his name
will be illustrious if he exercises them.
7. "But he who acts otherwise, who transcends the limits of power he has
over those under his rule, and even goes so far as to put their lives in
danger, offends the great Judge and derogates from his own dignity in
the eyes of men."
8. Upon this, an old woman who had approached the group, to better hear
Issa, was pushed aside by one of the disguised men, who placed himself
before her.
9. Then said Issa: "It is not good for a son to push away his mother,
that he may occupy the place which belongs to her. Whoso doth not
respect his mother--the most sacred being after his God--is unworthy of
the name of son.
10. "Hearken to what I say to you: Respect woman; for in her we see the
mother of the universe, and all the truth of divine creation is to come
through her.
11. "She is the fount of everything good and beautiful, as she is also
the germ of life and death. Upon her man depends in all his existence,
for she is his moral and natural support in his labors.
12. "In pain and suffering she brings you forth; in the sweat of her
brow she watches over your growth, and until her death you cause her
greatest anxieties. Bless her and adore her, for she is your only friend
and support on earth.
13. "Respect her; defend her. In so doing you will gain for yourself her
love; you will find favor before God, and for her sake many sins will be
remitted to you.
14. "Love your wives and respect them, for they will be the mothers of
tomorrow and later the grandmothers of a whole nation.
15. "Be submissive to the wife; her love ennobles man, softens his
hardened heart, tames the wild beast in him and changes it to a lamb.
16. "Wife and mother are the priceless treasures which God has given to
you. They are the most beautiful ornaments of the universe, and from
them will be born all who will inhabit the world.
17. "Even as the Lord of Hosts separated the light from the darkness,
and the dry land from the waters, so does woman possess the divine gift
of calling forth out of man's evil nature all the good that is in him.
18. "Therefore I say unto you, after God, to woman must belong your best
thoughts, for she is the divine temple where you will most easily obtain
perfect happiness.
19. "Draw from this temple your moral force. There you will forget your
sorrows and your failures, and recover the love necessary to aid your
fellow men.
20. "Suffer her not to be humiliated, for by humiliating her you
humiliate yourselves, and lose the sentiment of love, without which
nothing can exist here on earth.
21. "Protect your wife, that she may protect you--you and all your
household. All that you do for your mothers, your wives, for a widow,
or for any other woman in distress, you will do for your God."
XIII.
1. Thus Saint Issa taught the people of Israel for three years, in every
city and every village, on the highways and in the fields, and all he
said came to pass.
2. All this time the disguised spies of the governor Pilate observed him
closely, but heard nothing to sustain the accusations formerly made
against Issa by the chiefs of the cities.
3. But Saint Issa's growing popularity did not allow Pilate to rest. He
feared that Issa would be instrumental in bringing about a revolution
culminating in his elevation to the sovereignty, and, therefore, ordered
the spies to make charges against him.
4. Then soldiers were sent to arrest him, and they cast him into a
subterranean dungeon, where he was subjected to all kinds of tortures,
to compel him to accuse himself, so that he might be put to death.
5. The Saint, thinking only of the perfect bliss of his brethren,
endured all those torments with resignation to the will of the Creator.
6. The servants of Pilate continued to torture him, and he was reduced
to a state of extreme weakness; but God was with him and did not permit
him to die at their hands.
7. When the principal priests and wise elders learned of the sufferings
which their Saint endured, they went to Pilate, begging him to liberate
Issa, so that he might attend the great festival which was near at hand.
8. But this the governor refused. Then they asked him that Issa should
be brought before the elders' council, so that he might be condemned,
or acquitted, before the festival, and to this Pilate agreed.
9. On the following day the governor assembled the principal chiefs,
priests, elders and judges, for the purpose of judging Issa.
10. The Saint was brought from his prison. They made him sit before the
governor, between two robbers, who were to be judged at the same time
with Issa, so as to show the people he was not the only one to be
condemned.
11. And Pilate, addressing himself to Issa, said, "Is it true, Oh! Man;
that thou incitest the populace against the authorities, with the
purpose of thyself becoming King of Israel?"
12. Issa replied, "One does not become king by one's own purpose
thereto. They have told you an untruth when you were informed that I was
inciting the people to revolution. I have only preached of the King of
Heaven, and it was Him whom I told the people to worship.
13. "For the sons of Israel have lost their original innocence and
unless they return to worship the true God they will be sacrificed and
their temple will fall in ruins.
14. "The worldly power upholds order in the land; I told them not to
forget this. I said to them, 'Live in conformity with your situation and
refrain from disturbing public order;' and, at the same time, I exhorted
them to remember that disorder reigned in their own hearts and spirits.
15. "Therefore, the King of Heaven has punished them, and has destroyed
their nationality and taken from them their national kings, 'but,' I
added, 'if you will be resigned to your fate, as a reward the Kingdom of
Heaven will be yours.'"
16. At this moment the witnesses were introduced; one of whom deposed
thus: "Thou hast said to the people that in comparison with the power of
the king who would soon liberate the Israelites from the yoke of the
heathen, the worldly authorities amounted to nothing."
17. "Blessings upon thee!" said Issa. "For thou hast spoken the truth!
The King of Heaven is greater and more powerful than the laws of man and
His kingdom surpasses the kingdoms of this earth.
18. "And the time is not far off, when Israel, obedient to the will of
God, will throw off its yoke of sin; for it has been written that a
forerunner would appear to announce the deliverance of the people, and
that he would reunite them in one family."
19. Thereupon the governor said to the judges: "Have you heard this? The
Israelite Issa acknowledges the crime of which he is accused. Judge him,
then, according to your laws and pass upon him condemnation to death."
20. "We cannot condemn him," replied the priests and the ancients. "As
thou hast heard, he spoke of the King of Heaven, and he has preached
nothing which constitutes insubordination against the law."
21. Thereupon the governor called a witness who had been bribed by his
master, Pilate, to betray Issa, and this man said to Issa: "Is it not
true that thou hast represented thyself as a King of Israel, when thou
didst say that He who reigns in Heaven sent thee to prepare His people?"
22. But Issa blessed the man and answered: "Thou wilt find mercy, for
what thou hast said did not come out from thine own heart." Then,
turning to the governor he said: "Why dost thou lower thy dignity and
teach thy inferiors to tell falsehood, when, without doing so, it is in
thy power to condemn an innocent man?"
23. When Pilate heard his words, he became greatly enraged and ordered
that Issa be condemned to death, and that the two robbers should be
declared guiltless.
24. The judges, after consulting among themselves, said to Pilate: "We
cannot consent to take this great sin upon us,--to condemn an innocent
man and liberate malefactors. It would be against our laws.
25. "Act thyself, then, as thou seest fit." Thereupon the priests and
elders walked out, and washed their hands in a sacred vessel, and said:
"We are innocent of the blood of this righteous man."
XIV.
1. By order of the governor, the soldiers seized Issa and the two
robbers, and led them to the place of execution, where they were nailed
upon the crosses erected for them.
2. All day long the bodies of Issa and the two robbers hung upon the
crosses, bleeding, guarded by the soldiers. The people stood all around
and the relatives of the executed prayed and wept.
3. When the sun went down, Issa's tortures ended. He lost consciousness
and his soul disengaged itself from the body, to reunite with God.
4. Thus ended the terrestrial existence of the reflection of the eternal
Spirit under the form of a man who had saved hardened sinners and
comforted the afflicted.
5. Meanwhile, Pilate was afraid for what he had done, and ordered the
body of the Saint to be given to his relatives, who put it in a tomb
near to the place of execution. Great numbers of persons came to visit
the tomb, and the air was filled with their wailings and lamentations.
6. Three days later, the governor sent his soldiers to remove Issa's
body and bury it in some other place, for he feared a rebellion among
the people.
7. The next day, when the people came to the tomb, they found it open
and empty, the body of Issa being gone. Thereupon, the rumor spread that
the Supreme Judge had sent His angels from Heaven, to remove the mortal
remains of the saint in whom part of the divine Spirit had lived on
earth.
8. When Pilate learned of this rumor, he grew angry and prohibited,
under penalty of death, the naming of Issa, or praying for him to the
Lord.
9. But the people, nevertheless, continued to weep over Issa's death and
to glorify their master; wherefore, many were carried into captivity,
subjected to torture and put to death.
10. And the disciples of Saint Issa departed from the land of Israel and
went in all directions, to the heathen, preaching that they should
abandon their gross errors, think of the salvation of their souls and
earn the perfect bliss which awaits human beings in the immaterial
world, full of glory, where the great Creator abides in all his
immaculate and perfect majesty.
11. The heathen, their kings, and their warriors, listened to the
preachers, abandoned their erroneous beliefs and forsook their priests
and their idols, to celebrate the praises of the most wise Creator of
the Universe, the King of Kings, whose heart is filled with infinite
mercy.
_Resumé_
In reading the account of the life of Issa (Jesus Christ), one is
struck, on the one hand by the resemblance of certain principal passages
to accounts in the Old and New Testaments; and, on the other, by the not
less remarkable contradictions which occasionally occur between the
Buddhistic version and Hebraic and Christian records.
To explain this, it is necessary to remember the epochs when the facts
were consigned to writing.
We have been taught, from our childhood, that the Pentateuch was written
by Moses himself, but the careful researches of modern scholars have
demonstrated conclusively, that at the time of Moses, and even much
later, there existed in the country bathed by the Mediterranean, no
other writing than the hieroglyphics in Egypt and the cuniform
inscriptions, found nowadays in the excavations of Babylon. We know,
however, that the alphabet and parchment were known in China and India
long before Moses.
Let me cite a few proofs of this statement. We learn from the sacred
books of "the religion of the wise" that the alphabet was invented in
China in 2800 by Fou-si, who was the first emperor of China to embrace
this religion, the ritual and exterior forms of which he himself
arranged. Yao, the fourth of the Chinese emperors, who is said to have
belonged to this faith, published moral and civil laws, and, in 2228,
compiled a penal code. The fifth emperor, Soune, proclaimed in the year
of his accession to the throne that "the religion of the wise" should
thenceforth be the recognized religion of the State, and, in 2282,
compiled new penal laws. His laws, modified by the Emperor
Vou-vange,--founder of the dynasty of the Tcheou in 1122,--are those in
existence today, and known under the name of "Changements."
We also know that the doctrine of the Buddha Fô, whose true name was
Sakya-Muni was written upon parchment. Fôism began to spread in China
about 260 years before Jesus Christ. In 206, an emperor of the Tsine
dynasty, who was anxious to learn Buddhism, sent to India for a Buddhist
by the name of Silifan, and the Emperor Ming-Ti, of the Hagne dynasty,
sent, a year before Christ's birth, to India for the sacred books
written by the Buddha Sakya-Muni--the founder of the Buddhistic
doctrine, who lived about 1200 before Christ.
The doctrine of the Buddha Gauthama or Gothama, who lived 600 years
before Jesus Christ, was written in the Pali language upon parchment. At
that epoch there existed already in India about 84,000 Buddhistic
manuscripts, the compilation of which required a considerable number of
years.
At the time when the Chinese and the Hindus possessed already a very
rich written literature, the less fortunate or more ignorant peoples who
had no alphabet, transmitted their histories from mouth to mouth, and
from generation to generation. Owing to the unreliability of human
memory, historical facts, embellished by Oriental imagination, soon
degenerated into fabulous legends, which, in the course of time, were
collected, and by the unknown compilers entitled "The Five Books of
Moses." As these legends ascribe to the Hebrew legislator extraordinary
divine powers which enabled him to perform miracles in the presence of
Pharaoh, the claim that he was an Israelite may as well have been
legendary rather than historical.
The Hindu chroniclers, on the contrary, owing to their knowledge of an
alphabet, were enabled to commit carefully to writing, not mere legends,
but the recitals of recently occurred facts within their own knowledge,
or the accounts brought to them by merchants who came from foreign
countries.
It must be remembered, in this connection, that--in antiquity as in our
own days--the whole public life of the Orient was concentrated in the
bazaars. There the news of foreign events was brought by the
merchant-caravans and sought by the dervishes, who found, in their
recitals in the temples and public places, a means of subsistence. When
the merchants returned home from a journey, they generally related fully
during the first days after their arrival, all they had seen or heard
abroad. Such have been the customs of the Orient, from time immemorial,
and are today.
The commerce of India with Egypt and, later, with Europe, was carried on
by way of Jerusalem, where, as far back as the time of King Solomon, the
Hindu caravans brought precious metals and other materials for the
construction of the temple. From Europe, merchandise was brought to
Jerusalem by sea, and there unloaded in a port, which is now occupied by
the city of Jaffa. The chronicles in question were compiled before,
during and after the time of Jesus Christ.
During his sojourn in India, in the quality of a simple student come to
learn the Brahminical and Buddhistic laws, no special attention whatever
was paid to his life. When, however, a little later, the first accounts
of the events in Israel reached India, the chroniclers, after committing
to writing that which they were told about the prophet, Issa,--_viz._,
that he had for his following a whole people, weary of the yoke of their
masters, and that he was crucified by order of Pilate, remembered that
this same Issa had only recently sojourned in their midst, and that, an
Israelite by birth, he had come to study among them, after which he had
returned to his country. They conceived a lively interest for the man
who had grown so rapidly under their eyes, and began to investigate his
birth, his past and all the details concerning his existence.
The two manuscripts, from which the lama of the convent Himis read to me
all that had a bearing upon Jesus, are compilations from divers copies
written in the Thibetan language, translations of scrolls belonging to
the library of Lhassa and brought, about two hundred years after Christ,
from India, Nepaul and Maghada, to a convent on Mount Marbour, near the
city of Lhassa, now the residence of the Dalai-Lama.
These scrolls were written in Pali, which certain lamas study even now,
so as to be able to translate it into the Thibetan.
The chroniclers were Buddhists belonging to the sect of the Buddha
Gothama.
The details concerning Jesus, given in the chronicles, are disconnected
and mingled with accounts of other contemporaneous events to which they
bear no relation.
The manuscripts relate to us, first of all,--according to the accounts
given by merchants arriving from Judea in the same year when the death
of Jesus occurred--that a just man by the name of Issa, an Israelite,
in spite of his being acquitted twice by the judges as being a man of
God, was nevertheless put to death by the order of the Pagan governor,
Pilate, who feared that he might take advantage of his great popularity
to reestablish the kingdom of Israel and expel from the country its
conquerors.
Then follow rather incoherent communications regarding the preachings of
Jesus among the Guebers and other heathens. They seem to have been
written during the first years following the death of Jesus, in whose
career a lively and growing interest is shown.
One of these accounts, communicated by a merchant, refers to the origin
of Jesus and his family; another tells of the expulsion of his partisans
and the persecutions they had to suffer.
Only at the end of the second volume is found the first categorical
affirmation of the chronicler. He says there that Issa was a man blessed
by God and the best of all; that it was he in whom the great Brahma had
elected to incarnate when, at a period fixed by destiny, his spirit was
required to, for a time, separate from the Supreme Being.
After telling that Issa descended from poor Israelite parents, the
chronicler makes a little digression, for the purpose of explaining,
according to ancient accounts, who were those sons of Israel.
I have arranged all the fragments concerning the life of Issa in
chronological order and have taken pains to impress upon them the
character of unity, in which they were absolutely lacking.
I leave it to the _savans_, the philosophers and the theologians to
search into the causes for the contradictions which may be found between
the "Life of Issa" which I lay before the public and the accounts of the
Gospels. But I trust that everybody will agree with me in assuming that
the version which I present to the public, one compiled three or four
years after the death of Jesus, from the accounts of eyewitnesses and
contemporaries, has much more probability of being in conformity with
truth than the accounts of the Gospels, the composition of which was
effected at different epochs and at periods much posterior to the
occurrence of the events.
Before speaking of the life of Jesus, I must say a few words on the
history of Moses, who, according to the so-far most accredited legend,
was an Israelite. In this respect the legend is contradicted by the
Buddhists. We learn from the outset that Moses was an Egyptian prince,
the son of a Pharaoh, and that he only was taught by learned Israelites.
I believe that if this important point is carefully examined, it must be
admitted that the Buddhist author may be right.
It is not my intent to argue against the Biblical legend concerning the
origin of Moses, but I think everyone reading it must share my
conviction that Moses could not have been a simple Israelite. His
education was rather that of a king's son, and it is difficult to
believe that a child introduced by chance into the palace should have
been made an equal with the son of the sovereign. The rigor with which
the Egyptians treated their slaves by no means attests the mildness of
their character. A foundling certainly would not have been made the
companion of the sons of a Pharaoh, but would be placed among his
servants. Add to this the caste spirit so strictly observed in ancient
Egypt, a most salient point, which is certainly calculated to raise
doubts as to the truth of the Scriptural story.
And it is difficult to suppose that Moses had not received a complete
education. How otherwise could his great legislative work, his broad
views, his high administrative qualities be satisfactorily explained?
And now comes another question: Why should he, a prince, have attached
himself to the Israelites? The answer seems to me very simple. It is
known that in ancient, as well as in modern times, discussions were
often raised as to which of two brothers should succeed to the father's
throne. Why not admit this hypothesis, _viz._, that Mossa, or Moses,
having an elder brother whose existence forbade him to think of
occupying the throne of Egypt, contemplated founding a distinct kingdom.
It might very well be that, in view of this end, he tried to attach
himself to the Israelites, whose firmness of faith as well as physical
strength he had occasion to admire. We know, indeed, that the Israelites
of Egypt had no resemblance whatever to their descendants as regards
physical constitution. The granite blocks which were handled by them in
building the palaces and pyramids are still in place to testify to this
fact. In the same way I explain to myself the history of the miracles
which he is said to have performed before Pharaoh.
Although there are no definite arguments for denying the miracles which
Moses might have performed in the name of God before Pharaoh, I think it
is not difficult to realize that the Buddhistic statement sounds more
probable than the Scriptural gloss. The pestilence, the smallpox or the
cholera must, indeed, have caused enormous ravages among the dense
population of Egypt, at an epoch when there existed yet but very
rudimentary ideas about hygiene and where, consequently, such diseases
must have rapidly assumed frightful virulence.
In view of Pharaoh's fright at the disasters which befell Egypt, Moses'
keen wit might well have suggested to him to explain the strange and
terrifying occurrences, to his father, by the intervention of the God of
Israel in behalf of his chosen people.
Moses was here afforded an excellent opportunity to deliver the
Israelites from their slavery and have them pass under his own
domination.
In obedience to Pharaoh's will--according to the Buddhistic
version--Moses led the Israelites outside the walls of the city; but,
instead of building a new city within reach of the capital, as he was
ordered, he left with them the Egyptian territory. Pharaoh's indignation
on learning of this infringement of his commands by Moses, can easily be
imagined. And so he gave the order to his soldiers to pursue the
fugitives. The geographical disposition of the region suggests at once
that Moses during his flight must have moved by the side of the
mountains and entered Arabia by the way over the Isthmus which is now
cut by the Suez Canal.
Pharaoh, on the contrary, pursued, with his troops, a straight line to
the Red Sea; then, in order to overtake the Israelites, who had already
gained the opposite shore, he sought to take advantage of the ebb of the
sea in the Gulf, which is formed by the coast and the Isthmus, and
caused his soldiers to wade through the ford. But the length of the
passage proved much greater than he had expected; so that the flood tide
set in when the Egyptian host was halfway across, and, of the army thus
overwhelmed by the returning waves, none escaped death.
This fact, so simple in itself, has in the course of the centuries been
transformed by the Israelites into a religious legend, they seeing in it
a divine intervention in their behalf and a punishment which their God
inflicted on their persecutors. There is, moreover, reason to believe
that Moses himself saw the occurrence in this light. This, however, is a
thesis which I shall try to develop in a forthcoming work.
The Buddhistic chronicle then describes the grandeur and the downfall of
the kingdom of Israel, and its conquest by the foreign nations who
reduced the inhabitants to slavery.
The calamities which befell the Israelites, and the afflictions that
thenceforth embittered their days were, according to the chronicler,
more than sufficient reasons that God, pitying his people and desirous
of coming to their aid, should descend on earth in the person of a
prophet, in order to lead them back to the path of righteousness.
Thus the state of things in that epoch justified the belief that the
coming of Jesus was signalized, imminent, necessary.
This explains why the Buddhistic traditions could maintain that the
eternal Spirit separated from the eternal Being and incarnated in the
child of a pious and once illustrious family.
Doubtless the Buddhists, in common with the Evangelists, meant to convey
by this that the child belonged to the royal house of David; but the
text in the Gospels, according to which "the child was born from the
Holy Spirit," admits of two interpretations, while according to Buddha's
doctrine, which is more in conformity with the laws of nature, the
spirit has but incarnated in a child already born, whom God blessed and
chose for the accomplishment of His mission on earth.
The birth of Jesus is followed by a long gap in the traditions of the
Evangelists, who either from ignorance or neglect, fail to tell us
anything definite about his childhood, youth or education. They commence
the history of Jesus with his first sermon, _i.e._, at the epoch, when
thirty years of age, he returns to his country.
All the Evangelists tell us concerning the infancy of Jesus is marked by
the lack of precision: "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,
filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him," says one of the
sacred authors (Luke 2, 40), and another: "And the child grew, and waxed
strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing
unto Israel." (Luke 1, 80.)
As the Evangelists compiled their writings a long time after the death
of Jesus, it is presumable that they committed to writing only those
accounts of the principal events in the life of Jesus which happened to
come to their knowledge.
The Buddhists, on the contrary, who compiled their chronicles soon after
the Passion occurred, and were able to collect the surest information
about everything that interested them, give us a complete and very
detailed description of the life of Jesus.
In those unhappy times, when the struggle for existence seems to have
destroyed all thought of God, the people of Israel suffered the double
oppression of the ambitious Herod and the despotic and avaricious
Romans. Then, as now, the Hebrews put all their hopes in Providence,
whom they expected, would send them an inspired man, who should deliver
them from all their physical and moral afflictions. The time passed,
however, and no one took the initiative in a revolt against the tyranny
of the rulers.
In that era of hope and despair, the people of Israel completely forgot
that there lived among them a poor Israelite who was a direct descendant
from their King David. This poor man married a young girl who gave birth
to a miraculous child.
The Hebrews, true to their traditions of devotion and respect for the
race of their kings, upon learning of this event went in great numbers
to congratulate the happy father and see the child. It is evident that
Herod was informed of this occurrence. He feared that this infant, once
grown to manhood, might avail himself of his prospective popularity to
reconquer the throne of his ancestors. He sent out his men to seize the
child, which the Israelites endeavored to hide from the wrath of the
king, who then ordered the abominable massacre of the children, hoping
that Jesus would perish in this vast human hecatomb. But Joseph's family
had warning of the impending danger, and took refuge in Egypt.
A short time afterward, they returned to their native country. The child
had grown during those journeyings, in which his life was more than
once exposed to danger. Formerly, as now, the Oriental Israelites
commenced the instruction of their children at the age of five or six
years. Compelled to constantly hide him from the murderous King Herod,
the parents of Jesus could not allow their son to go out, and he, no
doubt, spent all his time in studying the sacred Scriptures, so that his
knowledge was sufficiently beyond what would naturally have been
expected of a boy of his age to greatly astonish the elders of Israel.
He had in his thirteenth year attained an age when, according to Jewish
law, the boy becomes an adult, has the right to marry, and incurs
obligations for the discharge of the religious duties of a man.
There exists still, in our times, among the Israelites, an ancient
religious custom that fixes the majority of a youth at the accomplished
thirteenth year. From this epoch the youth becomes a member of the
congregation and enjoys all the rights of an adult. Hence, his marriage
at this age is regarded as having legal force, and is even required in
the tropical countries. In Europe, however, owing to the influence of
local laws and to nature, which does not contribute here so powerfully
as in warm climates to the physical development, this custom is no more
in force and has lost all its former importance.
The royal lineage of Jesus, his rare intelligence and his learning,
caused him to be looked upon as an excellent match, and the wealthiest
and most respected Hebrews would fain have had him for a son-in-law,
just as even nowadays the Israelites are very desirous of the honor of
marrying their daughters to the sons of Rabbis or scholars. But the
meditative youth, whose mind was far above anything corporeal, and
possessed by the thirst for knowledge, stealthily left his home and
joined the caravans going to India.
It stands to reason that Jesus Christ should have thought, primarily, of
going to India, first, because at that epoch Egypt formed part of the
Roman possessions; secondly, and principally, because a very active
commercial exchange with India had made common report in Judea of the
majestic character and unsurpassed richness of the arts and sciences in
this marvellous country, to which even now the aspirations of all
civilized peoples are directed.
Here the Evangelists once more lose the thread of the terrestrial life
of Jesus. Luke says he "was in the deserts till the day of his shewing
unto Israel" (Luke 1, 80), which clearly demonstrates that nobody knew
where the holy youth was until his sudden reappearance sixteen years
later.
Arrived in India, this land of marvels, Jesus began to frequent the
temples of the Djainites.
There exists until today, on the peninsula of Hindustan, a sectarian
cult under the name of Djainism. It forms a kind of connecting link
between Buddhism and Brahminism, and preaches the destruction of all
other beliefs, which, it declares, are corroded by falsehood. It dates
from the seventh century before Jesus Christ and its name is derived
from the word "djain" (conqueror), which was assumed by its founders as
expressive of its destined triumph over its rivals.
In sympathetic admiration for the spirit of the young man, the Djainites
asked him to stay with them; but Jesus left them to settle in
Djagguernat, where he devoted himself to the study of treatises on
religion, philosophy, etc. Djagguernat is one of the chief sacred cities
of Brahmins, and, at the time of Christ, was of great religious
importance. According to tradition, the ashes of the illustrious
Brahmin, Krishna, who lived in 1580 B.C., are preserved there, in the
hollow of a tree, near a magnificent temple, to which thousands make
pilgrimage every year. Krishna collected and put in order the Vedas,
which he divided into four books--Richt, Jagour, Saman and Artafan;--in
commemoration of which great work he received the name of Vyasa (he who
collected and divided the Vedas), and he also compiled the Vedanta and
eighteen Puranas, which contain 400,000 stanzas.
In Djagguernat is also found a very precious library of Sanscrit books
and religious manuscripts.
Jesus spent there six years in studying the language of the country and
the Sanscrit, which enabled him to absorb the religious doctrines,
philosophy, medicine and mathematics. He found much to blame in
Brahminical laws and usages, and publicly joined issue with the
Brahmins, who in vain endeavored to convince him of the sacred character
of their established customs. Jesus, among other things, deemed it
extremely unjust that the laborer should be oppressed and despised, and
that he should not only be robbed of hope of future happiness, but also
be denied the right to hear the religious services. He, therefore, began
preaching to the Sudras, the lowest caste of slaves, telling them that,
according to their own laws, God is the Father of all men; that all
which exists, exists only through Him; that, before Him, all men are
equal, and that the Brahmins had obscured the great principle of
monotheism by misinterpreting Brahma's own words, and laying excessive
stress upon observance of the exterior ceremonials of the cult.
Here are the words in which, according to the doctrine of the Brahmins,
God Himself speaks to the angels: "I have been from eternity, and shall
continue to be eternally. I am the first cause of everything that exists
in the East and in the West, in the North and in the South, above and
below, in heaven and in hell. I am older than all things. I am the
Spirit and the Creation of the universe and also its Creator. I am
all-powerful; I am the God of the Gods, the King of the Kings; I am
Para-Brahma, the great soul of the universe."
After the world appeared by the will of Para-Brahma, God created human
beings, whom he divided into four classes, according to their colors:
white (Brahmins), red (Kshatriyas), yellow (Vaisyas), and black
(Sudras). Brahma drew the first from his own mouth, and gave them for
their _appanage_ the government of the world, the care of teaching men
the laws, of curing and judging them. Therefore do the Brahmins occupy
only the offices of priests and preachers, are expounders of the Vedas,
and must practice celibacy.
The second caste of Kshatriyas issued from the hand of Brahma. He made
of them warriors, entrusting them with the care of defending society.
All the kings, princes, captains, governors and military men belong to
this caste, which lives on the best terms with the Brahmins, since they
cannot subsist without each other, and the peace of the country depends
on the alliance of the lights and the sword, of Brahma's temple and the
royal throne.
The Vaisyas, who constitute the third caste, issued from Brahma's belly.
They are destined to cultivate the ground, raise cattle, carry on
commerce and practice all kinds of trades in order to feed the Brahmins
and the Kshatriyas. Only on holidays are they authorized to enter the
temple and listen to the recital of the Vedas; at all other times they
must attend to their business.
The lowest caste, that of the black ones, or Sudras, issued from the
feet of Brahma to be the humble servants and slaves of the three
preceding castes. They are interdicted from attending the reading of the
Vedas at any time; their touch contaminates a Brahmin, Kshatriya, or
even a Vaisya who comes in contact with them. They are wretched
creatures, deprived of all human rights; they cannot even look at the
members of the other castes, nor defend themselves, nor, when sick,
receive the attendance of a physician. Death alone can deliver the
Sudra from a life of servitude; and even then, freedom can only be
attained under the condition that, during his whole life, he shall have
served diligently and without complaint some member of the privileged
classes. Then only it is promised that the soul of the Sudra shall,
after death, be raised to a superior caste.
If a Sudra has been lacking in obedience to a member of the privileged
classes, or has in any way brought their disfavor upon himself, he sinks
to the rank of a pariah, who is banished from all cities and villages
and is the object of general contempt, as an abject being who can only
perform the lowest kind of work.
The same punishment may also fall upon members of another caste; these,
however, may, through repentance, fasting and other trials, rehabilitate
themselves in their former caste; while the unfortunate Sudra, once
expelled from his, has lost it forever.
From what has been said above, it is easy to explain why the Vaisyas and
Sudras were animated with adoration for Jesus, who, in spite of the
threats of the Brahmins and Kshatriyas, never forsook those poor people.
In his sermons Jesus not only censured the system by which man was
robbed of his right to be considered as a human being, while an ape or a
piece of marble or metal was paid divine worship, but he attacked the
very life of Brahminism, its system of gods, its doctrine and its
"trimurti" (trinity), the angular stone of this religion.
Para-Brahma is represented with three faces on a single head. This is
the "trimurti" (trinity), composed of Brahma (creator), Vishnu
(conservator), and Siva (destroyer).
Here is the origin of the trimurti:--
In the beginning, Para-Brahma created the waters and threw into them the
seed of procreation, which transformed itself into a brilliant egg,
wherein Brahma's image was reflected. Millions of years had passed when
Brahma split the egg in two halves, of which the upper one became the
heaven, the lower one, the earth. Then Brahma descended to the earth
under the shape of a child, established himself upon a lotus flower,
absorbed himself in his own contemplation and put to himself the
question: "Who will attend to the conservation of what I have created?"
"I," came the answer from his mouth under the appearance of a flame. And
Brahma gave to this word the name, "Vishnu," that is to say, "he who
preserves." Then Brahma divided his being into two halves, the one male,
the other female, the active and the passive principles, the union of
which produced Siva, "the destroyer."
These are the attributes of the trimurti; Brahma, creative principle;
Vishnu, preservative wisdom; Siva, destructive wrath of justice. Brahma
is the substance from which everything was made; Vishnu, space wherein
everything lives; and Siva, time that annihilates all things.
Brahma is the face which vivifies all; Vishnu, the water which sustains
the forces of the creatures; Siva, the fire which breaks the bond that
unites all objects. Brahma is the past; Vishnu, the present; Siva, the
future. Each part of the trimurti possesses, moreover, a wife. The wife
of Brahma is Sarasvati, goddess of wisdom; that of Vishnu, Lakshmi,
goddess of virtue, and Siva's spouse is Kali, goddess of death, the
universal destroyer.
Of this last union were born, Ganesa, the elephant-headed god of wisdom,
and Indra, the god of the firmament, both chiefs of inferior divinities,
the number of which, if all the objects of adoration of the Hindus be
included, amounts to three hundred millions.
Vishnu has descended eight times upon the earth, incarnating in a fish
in order to save the Vedas from the deluge, in a tortoise, a dwarf, a
wild boar, a lion, in Rama, a king's son, in Krishna and in Buddha. He
will come a ninth time under the form of a rider mounted on a white
horse in order to destroy death and sin.
Jesus denied the existence of all these hierarchic absurdities of gods,
which darken the great principle of monotheism.
When the Brahmins saw that Jesus, who, instead of becoming one of their
party, as they had hoped, turned out to be their adversary, and that the
people began to embrace his doctrine, they resolved to kill him; but his
servants, who were greatly attached to him, forewarned him of the
threatening danger, and he took refuge in the mountains of Nepaul. At
this epoch, Buddhism had taken deep root in this country. It was a kind
of schism, remarkable by its moral principles and ideas on the nature of
the divinity--ideas which brought men closer to nature and to one
another.
Sakya-Muni, the founder of this sect, was born fifteen hundred years
before Jesus Christ, at Kapila, the capital of his father's kingdom,
near Nepaul, in the Himalayas. He belonged to the race of the Gotamides,
and to the ancient family of the Sakyas. From his infancy he evinced a
lively interest in religion, and, contrary to his father's wishes,
leaving his palace with all its luxury, began at once to preach against
the Brahmins, for the purification of their doctrines. He died at
Kouçinagara, surrounded by many faithful disciples. His body was burned,
and his ashes, divided into several parts, were distributed between the
cities, which, on account of his new doctrine, had renounced Brahminism.
According to the Buddhistic doctrine, the Creator reposes normally in a
state of perfect inaction, which is disturbed by nothing and which he
only leaves at certain destiny-determined epochs, in order to create
terrestrial buddhas. To this end the Spirit disengages itself from the
sovereign Creator, incarnates in a buddha and stays for some time on
the earth, where he creates Bodhisattvas (masters),[3] whose mission it
is to preach the divine word and to found new churches of believers to
whom they will give laws, and for whom they will institute a new
religious order according to the traditions of Buddhism.
A terrestrial buddha is, in a certain way, a reflection of the sovereign
creative Buddha, with whom he unites after the termination of his
terrestrial existence. In like manner do the Bodhisattvas, as a reward
for their labors and the privations they undergo, receive eternal bliss
and enjoy a rest which nothing can disturb.
Jesus sojourned six years among the Buddhists, where he found the
principle of monotheism still pure. Arrived at the age of twenty-six
years, he remembered his fatherland, which was then oppressed by a
foreign yoke. On his way homeward, he preached against idol worship,
human sacrifice, and other errors of faith, admonishing the people to
recognize and adore God, the Father of all beings, to whom all are alike
dear, the master as well as the slave; for they all are his children, to
whom he has given this beautiful universe for a common heritage. The
sermons of Jesus often made a profound impression upon the peoples among
whom he came, and he was exposed to all sorts of dangers provoked by the
clergy, but was saved by the very idolators who, only the preceding day,
had offered their children as sacrifices to their idols.
While passing through Persia, Jesus almost caused a revolution among the
adorers of Zoroaster's doctrine. Nevertheless, the priests refrained
from killing him, out of fear of the people's vengeance. They resorted
to artifice, and led him out of town at night, with the hope that he
might be devoured by wild beasts. Jesus escaped this peril and arrived
safe and sound in the country of Israel.
It must be remarked here that the Orientals, amidst their sometimes so
picturesque misery, and in the ocean of depravation in which they
slumber, always have, under the influence of their priests and teachers,
a pronounced inclination for learning and understand easily good common
sense explications. It happened to me more than once that, by using
simple words of truth, I appealed to the conscience of a thief or some
otherwise intractable person. These people, moved by a sentiment of
innate honesty,--which the clergy for personal reasons of their own,
tried by all means to stifle--soon became again very honest and had only
contempt for those who had abused their confidence.
By the virtue of a mere word of truth, the whole of India, with its
300,000,000 of idols, could be made a vast Christian country; but ...
this beautiful project would, no doubt, be antagonized by certain
Christians who, similar to those priests of whom I have spoken before,
speculate upon the ignorance of the people to make themselves rich.
According to St. Luke, Jesus was about thirty years of age when he began
preaching to the Israelites. According to the Buddhistic chroniclers,
Jesus's teachings in Judea began in his twenty-ninth year. All his
sermons which are not mentioned by the Evangelists, but have been
preserved by the Buddhists, are remarkable for their character of divine
grandeur. The fame of the new prophet spread rapidly in the country, and
Jerusalem awaited with impatience his arrival. When he came near the
holy city, its inhabitants went out to meet him, and led him in triumph
to the temple; all of which is in agreement with Christian tradition.
The chiefs and elders who heard him were filled with admiration for his
sermons, and were happy to see the beneficent impression which his words
exercised upon the populace. All these remarkable sermons of Jesus are
full of sublime sentiments.
Pilate, the governor of the country, however, did not look upon the
matter in the same light. Eager agents notified him that Jesus announced
the near coming of a new kingdom, the reestablishment of the throne of
Israel, and that he suffered himself to be called the Son of God, sent
to bring back courage in Israel, for he, the King of Judea, would soon
ascend the throne of his ancestors.
I do not purpose attributing to Jesus the _rôle_ of a revolutionary, but
it seems to me very probable that Jesus wrought up the people with a
view to reestablish the throne to which he had a just claim. Divinely
inspired, and, at the same time, convinced of the legitimacy of his
pretentions, Jesus preached the spiritual union of the people in order
that a political union might result.
Pilate, who felt alarmed over these rumors, called together the priests
and the elders of the people and ordered them to interdict Jesus from
preaching in public, and even to condemn him in the temple under the
charge of apostasy. This was the best means for Pilate to rid himself of
a dangerous man, whose royal origin he knew and whose popularity was
constantly increasing.
It must be said in this connection that the Israelites, far from
persecuting Jesus, recognized in him the descendant of the illustrious
dynasty of David, and made him the object of their secret hopes, a fact
which is evident from the very Gospels which tell that Jesus preached
freely in the temple, in the presence of the elders, who could have
interdicted him not only the entrance to the temple, but also his
preachings.
Upon the order of Pilate the Sanhedrim met and cited Jesus to appear
before its tribunal. As the result of the inquiry, the members of the
Sanhedrim informed Pilate that his suspicions were without any
foundation whatever; that Jesus preached a religious, and not a
political, propaganda; that he was expounding the Divine word, and that
he claimed to have come not to overthrow, but to reestablish the laws of
Moses. The Buddhistic record does but confirm this sympathy, which
unquestionably existed between the young preacher, Jesus, and the elders
of the people of Israel; hence their answer: "We do not judge a just
one."
Pilate felt not at all assured, and continued seeking an occasion to
hale Jesus before a new tribunal, as regular as the former. To this end
he caused him to be followed by spies, and finally ordered his arrest.
If we may believe the Evangelists, it was the Pharisees who sought the
life of Jesus, while the Buddhistic record most positively declares that
Pilate alone can be held responsible for his execution. This version is
evidently much more probable than the account of the Evangelists. The
conquerors of Judea could not long tolerate the presence of a man who
announced to the people a speedy deliverance from their yoke. The
popularity of Jesus having commenced to disturb Pilate's mind, it is to
be supposed that he sent after the young preacher spies, with the order
to take note of all his words and acts. Moreover, the servants of the
Roman governor, as true "agents provocateurs," endeavored by means of
artful questions put to Jesus, to draw from him some imprudent words
under color of which Pilate might proceed against him. If the preachings
of Jesus had been offensive to the Hebrew priests and scribes, all they
needed to do was simply to command the people not to hear and follow
him, and to forbid him entrance into the temple. But the Evangelists
tell us that Jesus enjoyed great popularity among the Israelites and
full liberty in the temples, where Pharisees and scribes discussed with
him.
In order to find a valid excuse for condemning him, Pilate had him
tortured so as to extort from him a confession of high treason.
But, contrary to the rule that the innocent, overcome by their pain,
will confess anything to escape the unendurable agonies inflicted upon
them, Jesus made no admission of guilt. Pilate, seeing that the usual
tortures were powerless to accomplish the desired result, commanded the
executioners to proceed to the last extreme of their diabolic cruelties,
meaning to compass the death of Jesus by the complete exhaustion of his
forces. Jesus, however, fortifying his endurance by the power of his
will and zeal for his righteous cause--which was also that of his people
and of God--was unconquerable by all the refinements of cruelty
inflicted upon him by his executioners.
The infliction of "the question" upon Jesus evoked much feeling among
the elders, and they resolved to interfere in his behalf; formally
demanding of Pilate that he should be liberated before the Passover.
When their request was denied by Pilate they resolved to petition that
Jesus should be brought to trial before the Sanhedrim, by whom they did
not doubt his acquittal--which was ardently desired by the people--would
be ordained.
In the eyes of the priests, Jesus was a saint, belonging to the family
of David; and his unjust detention, or--what was still more to be
dreaded--his condemnation, would have saddened the celebration of the
great national festival of the Israelites.
They therefore prayed Pilate that the trial of Jesus should take place
before the Passover, and to this he acceded. But he ordered that two
thieves should be tried at the same time with Jesus, thinking to, in
this way, minimize in the eyes of the people, the importance of the fact
that the life of an innocent man was being put in jeopardy before the
tribunal; and, by not allowing Jesus to be condemned alone, blind the
populace to the unjust prearrangement of his condemnation.
The accusation against Jesus was founded upon the depositions of the
bribed witnesses.
During the trial, Pilate availed himself of perversions of Jesus' words
concerning the heavenly kingdom, to sustain the charges made against
him. He counted, it seems, upon the effect produced by the answers of
Jesus, as well as upon his own authority, to influence the members of
the tribunal against examining too minutely the details of the case, and
to procure from them the sentence of death for which he intimated his
desire.
Upon hearing the perfectly natural answer of the judges, that the
meaning of the words of Jesus was diametrically opposed to the
accusation, and that there was nothing in them to warrant his
condemnation, Pilate employed his final resource for prejudicing the
trial, viz., the deposition of a purchased traitorous informer. This
miserable wretch--who was, no doubt, Judas--accused Jesus formally, of
having incited the people to rebellion.
Then followed a scene of unsurpassed sublimity. When Judas gave his
testimony, Jesus, turning toward him, and giving him his blessing, says:
"Thou wilt find mercy, for what thou has said did not come out from
thine own heart!" Then, addressing himself to the governor: "Why dost
thou lower thy dignity, and teach thy inferiors to tell falsehood, when
without doing so it is in thy power to condemn an innocent man?"
Words touching as sublime! Jesus Christ here manifests all the grandeur
of his soul by pardoning his betrayer, and he reproaches Pilate with
having resorted to such means, unworthy of his dignity, to attain his
end.
This keen reproach enraged the governor, and caused him to completely
forget his position, and the prudent policy with which he had meant to
evade personal responsibility for the crime he contemplated. He now
imperiously demanded the conviction of Jesus, and, as though he
intended to make a display of his power, to overawe the judges, ordered
the acquittal of the two thieves.
The judges, seeing the injustice of Pilate's demand, that they should
acquit the malefactors and condemn the innocent Jesus, refused to commit
this double crime against their consciences and their laws. But as they
could not cope with one who possessed the authority of final judgment,
and saw that he was firmly decided to rid himself, by whatever means, of
a man who had fallen under the suspicions of the Roman authorities, they
left him to himself pronounce the verdict for which he was so anxious.
In order, however, that the people might not suspect them of sharing the
responsibility for such unjust judgment, which would not readily have
been forgiven, they, in leaving the court, performed the ceremony of
washing their hands, symbolizing the affirmation that they were clean of
the blood of the innocent Jesus, the beloved of the people.
About ten years ago, I read in a German journal, the _Fremdenblatt_, an
article on Judas, wherein the author endeavored to demonstrate that the
informer had been the best friend of Jesus. According to him, it was out
of love for his master that Judas betrayed him, for he put blind faith
in the words of the Saviour, who said that his kingdom would arrive
after his execution. But after seeing him on the cross, and having
waited in vain for the resurrection of Jesus, which he expected to
immediately take place, Judas, not able to bear the pain by which his
heart was torn, committed suicide by hanging himself. It would be
profitless to dwell upon this ingenious product of a fertile
imagination.
To take up again the accounts of the Gospels and the Buddhistic
chronicle, it is very possible that the bribed informer was really
Judas, although the Buddhistic version is silent on this point. As to
the pangs of conscience which are said to have impelled the informer to
suicide, I must say that I give no credence to them. A man capable of
committing so vile and cowardly an action as that of making an
infamously false accusation against his friend, and this, not out of a
spirit of jealousy, or for revenge, but to gain a handful of shekels!
such a man is, from the psychic point of view, of very little worth. He
ignores honesty and conscience, and pangs of remorse are unknown to him.
It is presumable that the governor treated him as is sometimes done in
our days, when it is deemed desirable to effectually conceal state
secrets known to men of his kind and presumably unsafe in their keeping.
Judas probably was simply hanged, by Pilate's order, to prevent the
possibility of his some day revealing that the plot of which Jesus was a
victim had been inspired by the authorities.
On the day of the execution, a numerous detachment of Roman soldiers was
placed around the cross to guard against any attempt by the populace for
the delivery of him who was the object of their veneration. In this
occurrence Pilate gave proof of his extraordinary firmness and
resolution.
But though, owing to the precautions taken by the governor, the
anticipated revolt did not occur, he could not prevent the people, after
the execution, mourning the ruin of their hopes, which were destroyed,
together with the last scion of the race of David. All the people went
to worship at Jesus' grave. Although we have no precise information
concerning the occurrences of the first few days following the Passion,
we could, by some probable conjectures, reconstruct the scenes which
must have taken place.
It stands to reason that the Roman Cæsar's clever lieutenant, when he
saw that Christ's grave became the centre of universal lamentations and
the subject of national grief, and feared that the memory of the
righteous victim might excite the discontent of the people and raise the
whole country against the foreigners' rule, should have employed any
effective means for the removal of this rallying-point, the mortal
remains of Jesus. Pilate began by having the body buried. For three days
the soldiers who were stationed on guard at the grave, were exposed to
all kinds of insults and injuries on the part of the people who, defying
the danger, came in multitudes to mourn the great martyr. Then Pilate
ordered his soldiers to remove the body at night, and to bury it
clandestinely in some other place, leaving the first grave open and the
guard withdrawn from it, so that the people could see that Jesus had
disappeared. But Pilate missed his end; for when, on the following
morning, the Hebrews did not find the corpse of their master in the
sepulchre, the superstitious and miracle-accepting among them thought
that he had been resurrected.
How did this legend take root? We cannot say. Possibly it existed for a
long time in a latent state and, at the beginning, spread only among the
common people; perhaps the ecclesiastic authorities of the Hebrews
looked with indulgence upon this innocent belief, which gave to the
oppressed a shadow of revenge on their oppressors. However it be, the
day when the legend of the resurrection finally became known to all,
there was no one to be found strong enough to demonstrate the
impossibility of such an occurrence.
Concerning this resurrection, it must be remarked that, according to the
Buddhists, the soul of the just Issa was united with the eternal Being,
while the Evangelists insist upon the ascension of the body. It seems to
me, however, that the Evangelists and the Apostles have done very well
to give the description of the resurrection which they have agreed upon,
for if they had not done so, _i.e._, if the miracle had been given a
less material character, their preaching would not have had, in the
eyes of the nations to whom it was presented, that divine authority,
that avowedly supernatural character, which has clothed Christianity,
until our time, as the only religion capable of elevating the human race
to a state of sublime enthusiasm, suppressing its savage instincts, and
bringing it nearer to the grand and simple nature which God has
bestowed, they say, upon that feeble dwarf called man.
_Explanatory Notes_
_Chapter III._
_§§ 3, 4, 5, 7_
The histories of all peoples show that when a nation has reached the
apogee of its military glory and its wealth, it begins at once to sink
more or less rapidly on the declivity of moral degeneration and decay.
The Israelites having, among the first, experienced this law of the
evolution of nations, the neighboring peoples profited by the decadence
of the then effeminate and debauched descendants of Jacob, to despoil
them.
_§ 8_
The country of Romeles, _i.e._, the fatherland of Romulus; in our days,
Rome.
_§§ 11, 12_
It must be admitted that the Israelites, in spite of their incontestable
wit and intelligence, seem to have only had regard for the present.
Like all other Oriental peoples, they only in their misfortunes
remembered the faults of their past, which they each time had to expiate
by centuries of slavery.
_Chapter IV_
_§ 6_
As it is easy to divine, this verse refers to Joseph, who was a lineal
descendant from King David. Side by side with this somewhat vague
indication may be placed the following passages from the Gospels:
--"The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph,
thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife" ... (Matt.
i, 20.)
--"And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried,
saying, Hosanna to the son of David" (Matt. xxi, 9.)
--"To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of
David;" ... (Luke i, 27.)
--"And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David;"
... (Luke i, 32.)
--"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as
was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli ... which was
the son of Nathan, which was the son of David" (Luke iii, 23-31.)
_§ 7_
Both the Old and the New Testaments teach that God promised David the
rehabilitation of his throne and the elevation to it of one of his
descendants.
_§§ 8, 9_
--"And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom,
and the grace of God was upon him."
--"And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the
temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and
asking them questions."
--"And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and
answers."
--"And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that
I must be about my Father's business?"
--"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and
man" (Luke ii, 40, 46, 47, 49, 52.)
_Chapter V_
_§ 1_
"Sind," a Sanscrit word, which has been modified by the Persians into
Ind. "Arya," the name given in antiquity to the inhabitants of India;
signified first "man who cultivates the ground" or "cultivator."
Anciently it had a purely ethnographical signification; this appellation
assumed later on a religious sense, notably that of "man who believes."
_§ 2_
Luke says (i, 80): "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and
was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel." The
Evangelists say that Jesus was in the desert, the Buddhists explain this
version of the Gospels by indicating where Jesus was during his absence
from Judea. According to them he crossed the Sind, a name which,
properly spoken, signifies "the river" (Indus). In connection with this
word it is not amiss to note that many Sanscrit words in passing into
the Persian language underwent the same transformation by changing the
"s" into "h"; per example:
_Sapta_ (in Sanscrit), signifying seven--_hafta_ (in Persian);
_Sam_ (Sanscrit), signifying equal--_ham_ (Persian);
_Mas_ (Sanscrit), meaning mouth--_mah_ (Persian); _Sur_ (Sanscrit),
meaning sun--_hur_ (Persian); _Das_ (Sanscrit), meaning ten--_Dah_
(Persian); _Loco citato_--and those who believed in the god Djain.
There exists, even yet, on the peninsula of Hindustan, a cult under the
name of Djainism, which forms, as it were, a link of union between
Buddhism and Brahminism, and its devotees teach the destruction of all
other beliefs, which they declare contaminated with falsehood. It dates
as far back as the seventh century, B.C. Its name is derived from Djain
(conqueror), which it assumed as the symbol of its triumph over its
rivals.
_§ 4_
Each of the eighteen Puranas is divided into five parts, which, besides
the canonical laws, the rites and the commentaries upon the creation,
destruction and resurrection of the universe, deal with theogony,
medicine, and even the trades and professions.
_Chapter VI_
_§ 12_
Owing to the intervention of the British, the human sacrifices, which
were principally offered to Kali, the goddess of death, have now
entirely ceased. The goddess Kali is represented erect, with one foot
upon the dead body of a man, whose head she holds in one of her
innumerable hands, while with the other hand she brandishes a bloody
dagger. Her eyes and mouth, which are wide open, express passion and
cruelty.
_Chapter VIII_
_§§ 3, 4_
Zoroaster lived 550 years before Jesus. He founded the doctrine of the
struggle between light and darkness, a doctrine which is fully expounded
in the Zend-Avesta (Word of God), which is written in the Zend language,
and, according to tradition, was given to him by an angel from Paradise.
According to Zoroaster we must worship Mithra (the sun), from whom
descend Ormuzd, the god of good, and Ahriman, the god of evil. The world
will end when Ormuzd has triumphed over his rival, Ahriman, who will
then return to his original source, Mithra.
_Chapter X_
_§ 16_
According to the Evangelists, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which the
Buddhistic version confirms, for only from Bethlehem, situated at a
distance of about seven kilometres from Jerusalem, could the walls of
this latter city be seen.
_Chapter XI_
_§ 15_
The doctrine of the Redemptor is, almost in its entirety, contained in
the Gospels. As to the transformation of men into children, it is
especially known from the conversation that took place between Jesus and
Nicodemus.
_Chapter XII_
_§ 1_
--"Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute
unto Cæsar, or not?" (Matt. xxii, 17.)
_§ 3_
--"Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which
are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are God's." (Matt. xxii, 21;
_et al._)
_Chapter XIV_
_§ 3_
According to the Buddhistic belief, the terrestrial buddhas after death,
lose consciousness of their independent existence and unite with the
eternal Spirit.
_§§ 10, 11_
Here, no doubt, reference is made to the activity of the Apostles among
the neighboring peoples; an activity which could not have passed
unnoticed at that epoch, because of the great results which followed the
preaching of the new religious doctrine of love among nations whose
religions were based upon the cruelty of their gods.
* * * * *
Without permitting myself indulgence in great dissertations, or too
minute analysis upon each verse, I have thought it useful to accompany
my work with these few little explanatory notes, leaving it to the
reader to take like trouble with the rest.
--_Finis_
[1] The Vaisyas and Sudras castes.
[2] Brahmins and Kshatriyas.
[3] _Sanscrit_:--"He whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence
(bhodi)," those who need but one more incarnation to become perfect
buddhas, _i.e._, to be entitled to Nirvâna.
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