The character of Sakya-muni must be learned from his religion and from authentic tradition. In many respects his character and influence resembled that of Jesus. He opposed priestly assumptions, taught the equality and brotherhood of man, sent out disciples to teach his doctrine, was a reformer who relied on the power of truth and love. Many of his reported sayings resemble those of Jesus. He was opposed by the Brahmans as Jesus by the Pharisees. He compared the Brahmans who followed their traditions to a chain of blind men, who move on, not seeing where they go.[11] Like Jesus, he taught that mercy was better than sacrifices. Like Jesus, he taught orally, and left no writing. Jesus did not teach in Hebrew, but in the Aramaic, which was the popular dialect, and so the Buddha did not speak to the people in Sanskrit, but in their own tongue, which was Pâli. Like Jesus, he seems to have instructed his hearers by parables or stories. He was one of the greatest reformers the world has ever seen; and his influence, after that of the Christ, has probably exceeded that of any one who ever lived.
But, beside such real resemblances between these two masters, we are told of others still more striking, which would certainly be hard to explain unless one of the systems had borrowed from the other. These are said to be the preëxistence of Buddha in heaven; his birth of a virgin; salutation by angels; presentation in the temple; baptism by fire and water; dispute with the doctors; temptation in the wilderness; transfiguration; descent into hell; ascension into heaven.[12] If these legends could be traced back to the time before Christ, then it might be argued that the Gospels have borrowed from Buddhism. Such, however, is not the fact. These stories are taken from the Lalita Vistara, which, according to Rhys Davids,[13] was probably composed between six hundred and a thousand years after the time of Buddha, by some Buddhist poet in Nepaul. Rhys Davids, one of our best authorities, says of this poem: "As evidence of what early Buddhism actually was, it is of about the same value as some mediæval poem would be of the real facts of the gospel history."[13] M. Ernest de Bunsen, in his work on the "Angel Messiah," has given a very exhaustive statement, says Mr. Davids, of all the possible channels through which Christians can be supposed to have borrowed from the Buddhists. But Mr. Davids's conclusion is that he finds no evidence of any such communications of ideas from the East to the West.[14] The difference between the wild stories of the Lalita Vistara and the sober narratives of the Gospels is quite apparent. Another writer, Professor Seydel,[15] thinks, after a full and careful examination, that only five facts in the Gospels may have been borrowed from Buddhism. These are: (1) The fast of Jesus before his work; (2) The question in regard to the blind man--"Who did sin, this man, or his parents"? (3) The preëxistence of Christ; (4) The presentation in the Temple; (5) Nathanael sitting under a fig-tree, compared with Buddha under a Bo-tree. But Kuenen has examined these parallels, and considers them merely accidental coincidences. And, in truth, it is very hard to conceive of one religion borrowing its facts or legends from another, if that other stands in no historic relation to it. That Buddhism should have taken much from Brahmanism is natural; for Brahmanism was its mother. That Christianity should have borrowed many of its methods from Judaism is equally natural; for Judaism was its cradle. Modern travelers in Burma and Tartary have found that the Buddhists hold a kind of camp-meeting in the open air, where they pray and sing. Suppose that some critic, noticing this, should assert that, when Wesley and his followers established similar customs, they must have borrowed them from the Buddhists. The absurdity would be evident. New religions grow, they are not imitations.