To commence with Crishna, the Hindoo Saviour, he was of royal descent, although born in a state the most abject and humiliating. Thomas Maurice says of him: "Crishna, in the male line, was of royal descent, being of the Yadava line, the oldest and noblest of India; and nephew, by his mother's side, to the reigning sovereign; but, though royally descended, he was actually born in a state the most abject and humiliating; and, though not in a stable, yet in a dungeon." Buddha was of royal descent, having descended from the house of Sakya, the most illustrious of the caste of Brahmans, which reigned in India over the powerful empire of Mogadha, in the Southern Bahr.' R. Spence Hardy says, in his "Manual of Buddhism :" "The ancestry of Gotama Buddha is traced from his father, Sodhódana, through various individuals and races, all of royal dignity, to Maha Sammata, the first monarch of the world. Several of the names, and some of the events, are met with in the Puranas of the Brahmins, but it is not possible to reconcile one order of statement with the other; and it would appear that the Buddhist historians have introduced races, and invented names, that they may invest their venerated sage with all the honors of heraldry, in addition to the attributes of divinity." How remarkably these words compare with what we have just seen concerning the genealogies of Jesus! Rama, another Indian avatar-the seventh incarnation of Vishnu-was also of royal descent.* Fo-hi; or Fuh-he, the virgin-born "Son of Heaven," was of royal descent. He belonged to the oldest family of monarchs who ruled in China." Confucius was of royal descent. His pedigree is traced back in a summary manner to the monarch Hoang-ty, who is said to have lived and ruled more than two thousand years before the time of Christ Jesus." Horus, the Egyptian virgin-born Saviour, was of royal descent, having descended from a line of kings.' He had the title of "Royal Good Shepherd." Hercules, the Saviour, was of royal descent.' Bacchus, although the Son of God, was of royal descent.' Perseus, son of the virgin Danae, was of royal descent." Esculapius, the great performer of miracles, although a son of God, was notwithstanding of royal descent. Many more such cases might be mentioned, as may be seen by referring to the histories of the virgin-born gods and demi-gods spoken of in Chapter XII. 1 See Greek and Italian Mythology, p. 81. Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 117. Murray: Manual of Mythology, p. 118, and Roman Antiquities, p. 71. See Bell's Pantheon, vol. ii. p. 170, and Bulfinch: The Age of Fable, p. 161. • See Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 27. Roman Antiquities, p. 136, and Taylor's Diegesis, p. 150. CHAPTER XVIII. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS. INTERWOVEN With the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus, the star, the visit of the Magi, &c., we have a myth which belongs to a common form, and which, in this instance, is merely adapted to the special circumstances of the age and place. This has been termed "the myth of the dangerous child." Its general outline is this: A child is born concerning whose future greatness some prophetic indications have been given. But the life of the child is fraught with danger to some powerful individual, generally a monarch. In alarm at his threatened fate, this person endeavors to take the child's life, but it is preserved by divine care. Escaping the measures directed against it, and generally remaining long unknown, it at length fulfills the prophecies concerning its career, while the fate which he has vainly sought to shun falls upon him who had desired to slay it. There is a departure from the ordinary type, in the case of Jesus, inasmuch as Herod does not actually die or suffer any calamity through his agency. But this failure is due to the fact that Jesus did not fulfill the conditions of the Messiahship, according to the Jewish conception which Matthew has here in mind. Had he—as was expected of the Messiah-become the actual sovereign of the Jews, he must have dethroned the reigning dynasty, whether represented by Herod or his successors. But as his subsequent career belied the expectations, the evangelist was obliged to postpone to a future time his accession to that throne of temporal dominion which the incredulity of his countrymen had withheld from him during his earthly life. The story of the slaughter of the infants which is said to have taken place in Judea about the time of the birth of Jesus, is to be found in the second chapter of Matthew, and is as follows: "When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying: 'Where is he that is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.' When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. Then Herod, when he had privately called the wise inen, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said: 'Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word.'' The wise men went to Bethlehem and found the young child, but instead of returning to Herod as he had told them, they departed into their own country another way, having been warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod. "Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under.” We have in this story, told by the Matthew narrator—which the writers of the other gospels seem to know nothing about,almost a counterpart, if not an exact one, to that related of Crishna of India, which shows how closely the mythological history of Jesus has been copied from that of the Hindoo Saviour. Joguth Chunder Gangooly, a "Hindoo convert to Christ," tells us, in his "Life and Religion of the Hindoos," that: " A heavenly voice whispered to the foster father of Crishna and told him to fly with the child across the river Jumna, which was immediately done.' This was owing to the fact that the reigning monarch, King Kansa, sought the life of the infant Saviour, and to accomplish his purpose, he sent messengers' to kill all the infants in the neighboring places.'” Mr. Higgins says: "Soon after Crishna's birth he was carried away by night and concealed in a region remote from his natal place, for fear of a tyrant whose destroyer it was foretold he would become; and who had, for that reason, ordered all the male children born at that period to be slain." "3 Sir William Jones says of Crishna: "He passed a life, according to the Indians, of a most extraordinary and incomprehensible nature. His birth was concealed through fear of the reigning tyrant Kansa, who, at the time of his birth, ordered all new-born males to be slain, yet this wonderful babe was preserved.” In the Epic poem Mahabarata, composed more than two thousand years ago, we have the whole story of this incarnate deity, born of a virgin, and miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reigning tyrant of his country, related in its original form. 1 A heavenly voice whispered to the fosterfather of Jesus, and told him to fly with the child into Egypt, which was immediately done. (See Matthew, ii. 13.) Life and Relig. of the Hindoos, p. 134. • Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 129. See, also, Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 134, and Maurice : Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 331. 259. Asiatic Researches, vol. i. pp. 273 and Representations of this flight with the babe at midnight are sculptured on the walls of ancient Hindoo temples.' This story is also the subject of an immense sculpture in the cave-temple at Elephanta, where the children are represented as being slain. The date of this sculpture is lost in the most remote antiquity. It represents a person holding a drawn sword, surrounded by slaughtered infant boys. Figures of men and women are also represented who are supposed to be supplicating for their children.' Thomas Maurice, speaking of this sculpture, says: "The event of Crishna's birth, and the attempt to destroy him, took place by night, and therefore the shadowy mantle of darkness, upon which mutilated figures of infants are engraved, darkness (at once congenial with his crime and the season of its perpetration), involves the tyrant's bust; the string of death heads marks the multitude of infants slain by his savage mandate; and every object in the sculpture illustrates the events of that Avatar."3 Another feature which connects these stories is the following: Sir Wm. Jones tells us that when Crishna was taken out of reach of the tyrant Kansa who sought to slay him, he was fostered at Mathura by Nanda, the herdsman; and Canon Farrar, speaking of the sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt, says: "St. Matthew neither tells us where the Holy Family abode in Egypt, nor how long their exile continued; but ancient legends say that they remained two years absent from Palestine, and lived at Mataréeh, a few miles north-east of Cairo." Chemnitius, out of Stipulensis, who had it from Peter Martyr, Bishop of Alexandria, in the third century, says, that the place in Egypt where Jesus was banished, is now called Matarea, about ten miles beyond Cairo, that the inhabitants constantly burn a lamp in remembrance of it, and that there is a garden of trees yielding a balsam, which was planted by Jesus when a boy." Here is evidently one and the same legend. Salivahana, the virgin-born Saviour, anciently worshiped near Cape Comorin, the southerly part of the Peninsula of India, had the same history. It was attempted to destroy him in infancy by a tyrant who was afterward killed by him. Most of the other circumstances, with slight variations, are the same as those told of Crishna and Jesus." 1 See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 61. "See Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. 130, 13. and Maurice: Indian Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 112, 113, and vol. iii. pp. 45, 95. • Indian Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 112, 113. Арос. Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 259. See Introduction to Gospel of Infancy. 7 See vol. x. Asiatic Researches. |