The well-known modern traveler, Mr. Ditson, who visited India but a
few years since, uses the emphatic declaration, "In fact, as soon as
Chrishna was born he was saluted by a chorus of devatas, or angels." In
the evangelical narrative of the Christian Savior an angel is reported
to have saluted his mother thus: "Hail, thou that art highly favored;
the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women." (Luke, i. 28.) And
in the next chapter the angel is reported as joining with "the heavenly
host" in praising God. A similar report is found in the Hindoo bible
(the Ramayana), appertaining to the mother of the eighth Savior, of whom
it is declared "Brahma and Siva, with a host of attending spirits, came
to her and sang, 'In thy delivery, O favored among women, all nations
shall have cause to exult.'" And when the celestial infant (Chrishna)
appeared (it is related in a subsequent chapter), "a chorus of heavenly
spirits saluted him with hymns; the whole room was illuminated by
his light, and the countenance of his father and mother shone with
brightness and glory (by reflection), their understandings were opened
so that they knew him to be the Preserver of the world, and they began
to worship him." The last text here quoted brings to mind Luke xxiv.
45, which declares, "Then he (Christ) opened their (his parents)
understandings."
The ninth avatar of India (Sakia) furnishes to some extent a similar
parallel. According to the account of an exploration made in India, and
published in the New York Correspondent of 1828, "There is on a silver
plate in a cave in India an inscription stating that about the time of
the advent of Budha Sakia (600 B. C.), a saint in the woods learned by
inspiration that another avatar (Messiah or Savior) had appeared in the
house of Rajah of Lailas. Learning which, he flew through the air to the
place, and when he beheld the new-born Savior he declared him to be the
great avatar (Savior or prophet), and that he was destined to establish
a new religion"--the New Covenant Religion.
We next draw on the history of Greece. It is authentically related
of Pythagoras (600 B.), that his fame having reached Miletas and
neighboring cities, men renowned for wisdom (wise men) came to visit
him. (Progress of Religious Ideas, vol. i.) In the Anacalypsis we are
told that "Magi came from the East to offer gifts at Socrates' birth,
bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh," the same kind of offering as
that presented to the two divine infants Chrishna and Christ, according
to their respective "inspired" biographers. (See Matt. ii. 4, and the
Ramayana).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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