246 was the period of the first Buddhist council under Asok, and shortly after this, Mahuida, a priestly son of Asoka, went as a missionary to Ceylon; other emissaries went to Burmah, China, Japan, and it is believed elsewhere. The oral promulgation of the Dhammapada would probably begin about b.c. 560--twenty years or thereabouts before the death of Siddartha. If we turn to contemporary history in the west of Asia, we find that at this period Jerusalem was in ruins, and the Jews were captives in Babylonia--no copies of any Hebrew sacred book were known to be in existence (2 Esdras xiv. 21; 2 Maccabees ii. 1-13--see also 1 Maccabees i. 21-23), and, so far as we could learn, India was a country wholly unknown to the Shemitic race. The acquaintanceship between Hindustan and Europe seems to have been made in the time when the Greek monarch, Alexander, overthrew Darius of Persia. Alexander invaded India about b.c. 327, consequently we infer that there was no possibility of Buddha being influenced by western notions in b.c. 560. * _Buddhaghosa's Parables_, translated from Burmese, by Capt T. Rogers; with an introduction, containing Buddha's Dhammapada, or "Path of Virtue," by Max Mueller. Truebner & Co., London, 1870. To these considerations we must add the fact that the Jews have never been, from the earliest to the latest times, a missionary nation,--indeed, their laws and precepts forced them to be so peculiarly reserved, that even if they had known about India they would not have sent their emissaries there, inasmuch as the Mosaic law obliged them to present themselves at the Temple at Jerusalem thrice a-year, which was wholly incompatible with distant travel. Moreover, there are many extant histories to show that intelligent westerns went to India for knowledge and religion, and never seemed to think of carrying their own faith thither. The whole course of history points to religion and civilization coming westerly from India or Central Asia. The dates above given will clearly show that Sakya Muni could not have derived his ideas from the teaching of Jesus, or of the Talmudists, neither of whom were in existence when he flourished. Whatever similarity, therefore, we find in the doctrines, &c., of the two, cannot be accounted for by supposing that Christian missionaries carried the New Testament to India. The reverse is far more probable, as we have demonstrated in a preceding chapter.