Jesus In India — Page 125
CHAPTER FOUR 115 for the morals he taught his disciples could never be righteous? Conscience refuses to accept this story, just as it refuses to accept the story of the Gospels that once Jesus, the Messiah, failed to show regard for his mother, that he did not attend to her when she called on him and uttered words which were disrespectful. So although the two stories about hurting the feelings of a wife and a mother have a mutual resemblance, yet we cannot ascribe such stories as do not size up to the lowest level of moral conduct either to Jesus, the Messiah, or to Gautama Buddha. If the Buddha did not love his wife, had he no pity on a helpless woman and her suffering child either? It is so serious a lapse of moral conduct that I am shocked even to think of this story which is hundreds of years old and belongs to the dead past. Why at all should he have behaved like this? To be a bad man, it is enough to be callous towards one's wife, unless she no longer remains virtuous and obedient, or becomes faithless, malevolent, and a threat to one's life. We cannot, therefore, ascribe such offensive behaviour to the Buddha, which goes against his own teachings. All this shows that the story is false. In point of fact, 'Rahulta' means Jesus, the Messiah, may peace be on him, whose other name is Ruhullah. The word Ruhullah in Hebrew comes close to Rahulta, and Rahulta, or, Ruhullah, has been described as a dis- ciple of the Buddha because, as I have already stated, Jesus, the Messiah, came after the Buddha and brought a teaching similar to that of the Buddha. That is why the followers of the Buddhist faith declared that the Buddha was the source of the teachings of Jesus, the Messiah, and that Jesus, the Messiah, was one of his dis- ciples. It should also not be surprising if the Buddha, on the basis of revelation from God Almighty, should have declared Jesus, the