the ingenuous. But there is no account of seven people, or indeed seven loaves and two fishes, being mixed up in any such transaction. In a bread oblation on one side is the table and the mortals, on the other the divinity. These seven beings are on what we may call the divine side of the table, the basketsful of bread being on the other. Also they are not at the table at all, but separated from it by a broad band something like a lady's skein of wool. This in one instance is painted azure blue. This design has puzzled modern Christians, and an acute writer in Smith's "Christian Antiquities" suspects that the group is altogether mystic.

In early Buddhism, as I have shown, the chief ritual was a litany in praise of the seven great Buddhas, each of whom had his shrine in the early topes. From Josephus we know that the Essenes had their angel-worship, and from the Apocalypse we may jump to the conclusion that the number of these angels was also seven. Of these angels it has been inferred that Christ was one from certain passages. At any rate that is plainly stated in the "Pastor" of Hermas.1 It seems plain also that these seven angels were the seven great prophets of the earth.2 The only explanation I can suggest is that the fish represent the great Father and Mother, and the seven loaves on the altar typify the mystic one in seven, the Lotus-bearer, the Padma Pâni with his seven heads. Clement of Alexandria talks of the "exhibition of the loaves," placed on a table north of the altar in the Mosaic rites. "So, very mystically, the five loaves are broken by the Saviour and fill the crowd of the listeners." of the "seven spirits resting on the rod that springs from the root of Jesse."3 It certainly seems probable that the Catacombs' design of the loaves refers to some great mystery analogous to those of Mithraism and Therapeutisın. To sum up

1 Hermas, Vis. ix. 109.

He talks also

I. The resemblances between Buddhism and the Roman Catholic religion are so minute that the question of derivation must be considered en bloc. The influence of a supposititious traveller here and there cannot be considered for a moment.

2. No apparatus has yet been suggested which could have Christianised the many communities of the Buddhist lands. On the other hand, we find at the very source of Christianity an independent community whose rites and dogmas are pronounced by Catholics quite identical with those of the Christians, and by Protestants quite identical with those of the Buddhists of Nepâl.

3. Even a powerful school of Buddhist thought (the atheistic) has been quite unable to banish the prayer, "May Buddha forgive my sin!" from the Buddhist ritual. How much more difficult must it have proved for strangers of a different creed to alter so stubborn a thing as ritual!

4. Many of the ideas and dogmas supposed to have been derived from Christianity must have been known to Buddha as a Brahmachârin. In some points, such as buildings, we see growth and change before the perfected institution figures in both religious communities.

5. Some details, such as lights before altars, are sensible enough in the night-worship of Buddhism, but quite unmeaning in the day-worship of the Roman Catholics.

6. Had the Buddhists borrowed their religion from the Christians, the points of divergence between the two creeds ought a priori to have been adopted likewise. But in Buddhism there is no trace of bloody sacrifice, atonement, or of the use of wine in their Eucharist.

CHAPTER XIV.

BUDDHA AND WODEN.

ONE portion of Her Majesty's subjects calls the fourth day of the week the "Day of Woden," and a still larger portion calls it the "Day of Buddha." Is there any connection between Woden and Buddha? Professor Max Müller ridicules the idea; on the other hand, the great archæologist Professor Holmboe takes up the opposite view. In the first place, the earliest traditions of the Norsemen and their earliest historians assert that they came from beyond the Tanaqvisl (Don or Tanais), from Asaland, from the city of Asgard; and these Asas are identified by the Professor as the Asioi or Asiani of Strabo and other classical writers, certain invaders of Bactria from beyond the Jaxartes. These Asas arrived in Norway, and they have left behind them an abundance of monuments which prove that their rites, and temples, and symbols are precisely the same as those of the Buddhists. The haug is a servile copy of the tope; and its concomitants, the stambha or solitary tower, the circles of upright stones, the tank or lake for baptismal purposes, and the sacred trees, are everywhere found. Inside these haugs are discovered copies of the coins of Bactrian kings of the first century A.D., and also many Buddhist symbols-the Swastica, the Nandavarta, and the Professor might have added, as I shall show, the Triratna. To make his case more complete, the Professor points to a line of these haugs and

circles stretching across Europe, which indicates the pathway of these migrating Asas; and the w and b in Sanskrit being identical letters, the word Woden, he points out, could have easily been manufactured out of Bodhi, Budh, &c. As these Asas had so much to do with us likewise, and as their haugs or howes are at Avesbury, Stonehenge, Orkney, &c., I will examine in a brief chapter the facts collected by Professor Holmboe,1 and add some facts that I myself noted down before I came across the Professor's book.

A rough heap or cairn of stones was the primitive idea · of the tope. In the tope par excellence the hemispherical shape was adopted as the most complete representation of the heaven of the Buddhists. The tope at Sanchi near Bhilsâ in Bhopal is a simple hemisphere, and was erected about the middle of the sixth century B.C., according to General Cunningham. The next oldest topes are the smaller Bhilsâ topes. In these the hemisphere is raised up a few feet by the addition of a cylindrical portion. In the Afghan topes, which were erected about the Christian era, the hemisphere is still further elevated. In a fourth class of tope, of which the Sârnâth tope at Benares is a fine specimen, the cylindrical portion is as high as the diameter of the tope.

"2

In India the origin of the tope is attributed to Buddha; in Norway the haug is attributed to Woden. Snorro Sturlasen in his "History of the Ancient Kings of Norway thus writes: "Woden gave to the kingdom the law which governs the Asas. He ordered that all the dead should be burned, and their property should be carried with them to the pyre. In this way each would reach Walhalla with his riches; he would enjoy also all that he had hid in the earth. The ashes were to be thrown in the sea or buried. After the death of heroes haugs were to be erected to their memory, and over the bodies of brave men bautasten (monoliths) were to be erected."

1 Traces de Buddhisme en Norvége. 2 Ynglinga Saga, chap. viii.

Let us now compare the haug and the tope. "The tumuli of Europe," says the Professor, composed of stones, sand, and earth, have received the most natural shape for a heap, that of a truncated cone rounded at the top. The topes of Asia developed gradually from the earliest cuneiform stupa or heap, which was replaced to get the inner cell more solid by a quadrangular wall surmounted by a cone. Then this construction was raised aloft from its base by a cylinder. The haugs of Norway and the topes of Asia seem to have had originally the same form, and the sole difference between these ancient monuments is the more developed form of the topes, which have, however, always retained the conic cupola, striking a mean between the cone and the hemisphere. In Norway and Tibet square monuments of the same description are found, although these are exceptional.

"Also in Norway we find tumuli with a little tumulus at the summit of each, as if to imitate the topes with their basement, which in Afghanistan is more often a heap of stones thrown together without order. In Jutland and at Bornholm are tumuli of this construction."

Another point of resemblance traced by the Professor is the immense masses of materials heaped up to produce an imposing effect. The Valders haug at Valderöe, an island belonging to Norway, is four hundred feet in circumference, and must have been once about thirty feet high. Another haug, the Ous haug, is four hundred and fifty feet in circumference; a haug at Yttre Holmedel is four hundred feet in circumference. Turning to the topes, we find that the Amrâvati is five hundred feet in circumference and now about sixteen feet high. This is about the height of most of the Norwegian haugs. The Bhilsâ tope is five hundred and fifty-four feet in circumference. The Manikyala tope, between Attock and Lahore, is three hundred and twenty feet in circumference. The haugs are constructed without the use of cement, with this

1 Traces de Buddhisme, p. 9.