Jesus In India — Page 124
114 JESUS IN INDIA attacked their sincere well-wishers and caused pain to the hearts of their compassionate friends, and wounded their dear ones. But now darkness shall not remain. The night is gone and the day has dawned. And blessed is he who no longer remains deprived!! And from among the testimonies which we have found in Buddhist books is the testimony mentioned on page 419 of the book, 'Buddhism' by Oldenberg. It is recorded on the authority of the book named Mahavagga (page 54 section 1) that a man called Rahulta¹ was a successor to the Buddha. This Rahulta has been described not only as his devoted disciple, but also as his son. Here I make the claim that this Rahulta which appears in the books of Buddhism is simply a corruption of the name, ‘Ruhullah, which is one of the titles of Jesus, may peace be on him. And the story that Rahulta was the son of the Buddha, whom he abandoned in his infancy, and went to some other land; that furthermore, intend- ing to part company forever, he fled to some other land leaving his wife asleep without informing her or saying farewell; this story appears altogether absurd and derogatory and contradictory to the high station of the Buddha. It portrays him as a cruel-natured and hard-hearted man who had no compassion for his helpless wife and left her asleep and slunk away like a thief without saying a word of consolation to her. He altogether ignored the duties he owed to her as a husband, neither divorcing her nor asking her permission to proceed on an endless journey, wounded her heart by disappearing so suddenly and did not care to send her even a single letter and took no pity on his child who grew up to man- hood in his absence. A man such as this who had no respect even 1. Also known as Rahula. See Appendix, extract 5. [Publisher]