Jesus In India — Page 128
118 JESUS IN INDIA being. A time may come upon man when he is, figuratively speak- ing, a bull; and then, when he grows in greed and somewhat in mischief, so he becomes a dog; the first existence dies giving place to the second, corresponding to the quality of the actions of the first. But all these 'metamorphoses, take place in this very life. Thus this creed is also not opposed to the teachings of the Gospels. And I have already stated that the Buddha also believes in the existence of the Devil; similarly he also believes in heaven and hell, and angels and he believes also in the Day of Judgment. And this allegation that the Buddha did not believe in God, is a pure fabrication. However, he did not believe in Vedanta¹ and in the corporeal gods that had been fabricated in the Hindu religion. And yes, he was an acute critic of the Vedas, and did not accept the existing Vedas to be accurate; he thought it to be a corrupted altered and modified book. He considered his birth in the period during which he was a Hindu and a follower of the Vedas, to have been an evil birth. For example, he hints that he remained for a certain period, a monkey also, again for a time an elephant, and then he became a deer, and a dog, and became four times a snake, and then became also a sparrow, a frog, twice a fish, ten times a lion, four times a fowl, twice a pig, and once a hare. When he was a hare he used to teach the monkeys, the jackals, and the water dogs. Again, he says that he was once a ghost, once a woman, and once a dancing Devil. All these hints are meant to point to phases of his life as were full of cowardice, effeminacy, impurity, savagery, beastliness, profligacy, gluttony, and superstition. It appears that in point of fact, his confessions pertain to the time when he was a 1. The Vedic concept and philosophy of the Divine. [Publisher]