Jesus In India — Page 108
98 JESUS IN INDIA will find how closely the temptation of the Buddha resembles the temptation of Jesus, the Messiah, to the extent that the Buddha's age at the time was nearly the same as that of Jesus, the Messiah. As it appears from Buddhist literature, the Devil did not appear to the Buddha in a corporeal and personified form. It was only a vision seen by the Buddha alone and the talk of the Devil was a satanic inspiration. The Devil, as he appeared to him, suggested to the Buddha that he should abandon his course and follow him and that if he did so, he would give him all the wealth of the world. Likewise, Christian scholars believe that the Devil who appeared to Jesus, may peace be on him, did not come to him in any cor- poreal form, like a human being, before the very eyes of the Jews, traversing the streets in his physical body and talking to Jesus, the Messiah, so as to be audible to those present. On the contrary, this meeting was also of the nature of a vision seen only by Jesus, the Messiah. The talk too was a kind of inspiration. That is to say, as is the Devil's old wont, he put his evil intentions into the heart of Jesus, the Messiah, which the heart of Jesus, the Messiah, did not accept, and, like the Buddha, rejected all the Devil's temptations. The question now arises as to why there was so much resem- blance between the Buddha and Jesus, the Messiah. The Aryas in this connection say that Jesus, the Messiah, God forbid, became acquainted with Buddhism in the course of his journeys in India, and having acquired knowledge of the facts of Buddha's life, incor- porated them in the Gospel on return to his native country; that Jesus, the Messiah, composed his moral precepts by plagiarizing the moral teaching of the Buddha, and that just as the Buddha called himself the Light and Knowledge and adopted other titles, so did Jesus, the Messiah, assume all such titles, so much so, that,