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    THE METAPHYSIC

    OF

    CHRISTIANITY

    AND

    BUDDHISM.

    _A SYMPHONY._

    BY
    MAJOR-GENERAL DAWSONNE M. STRONG, C.B.
    (_Late Indian Army_),

    AUTHOR OF "SELECTIONS FROM THE BOSTĀN OF SÂDI,
    TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE."

    "Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon."--_Bible._

    LONDON:

    WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET ST.

    1899.




    LOVINGLY DEDICATED

    TO

    MY WIFE

    IN MEMORY OF OUR SOJOURN

    IN

    THE EAST.




CONTENTS.


  CHAP.                                         PAGE

  INTRODUCTION                                   vii

  I. JESUS AND GOTAMA                              1

  II. GOD AND THE KOSMOS                          33

  III. SOUL, SELF, INDIVIDUALITY, AND KARMA       55

  IV. HEAVEN AND NIRVANA                          82

  V. SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS                     103

  AT THE MALAGAWA TEMPLE, CEYLON                 113

  APPENDIX:--METRICAL ADAPTATIONS OF BUDDHISTIC
  LEGEND AND SCRIPTURE:--

    1. The Last Words of Gotama Buddha to his
    Favourite Disciple Ananda                    115

    2. Samsâra and Nirvana                       116

    3. Rejoice                                   118

    4. The Goal                                  120

    5. Buddha and the Herdsman                   123

    6. Buddha and the King                       126




INTRODUCTION.

 "Si notre foi diffère quant à la forme et aux dogmes, nos âmes restent
 toujours d'accord sur un principe éternel et divin."--GEORGE SANDS.


An immense difficulty has to be encountered by those who have been
deeply impressed by the value and beauty of Christianity when they are
called upon to consider the claims of other faiths. Anyone who has had
within his experience and under his observation such an exceptional
case as that of a sincere Christian who, from childhood to old age,
has set before him the ideal Christ and the Christian conception of an
all-compassionate Father--a Christian whose inner light has been so
pure that no darkness of doubt has ever dimmed it, and no doctrinal
warfare has ever stained its radiance--he, I contend, has an almost
insuperable obstacle to overcome when he attempts to associate holiness
and purity, of the same supreme order, with the followers of other
religious systems which have been formulated for the comfort and
salvation of humanity.

It is doubtful if any ordinary adherent of the Christian faith, however
extensive his sympathies towards persons outside his own flock, has
ever been able to pass this barrier, which always seems to interpose
itself when search is made for a common bond of union with an alien
belief.

A man may have lived many a year in the East, and witnessed there, with
deep appreciation, the purity, the endurance, the touching self-denial
of the devout peasantry, and the beautiful charity of the poor towards
the poor; or he may have associated with saintly ascetics in India,
and with the yellow-robed and gentle _religieux_ of Ceylon; he may
have surveyed the famous temple of that fair island, in the intense
stillness of a tropical night, till all identity of self seemed to
vanish in the solemnity of the surroundings, and the only sound was
that of a monk's intoning voice heard from within the dungeon-like
apertures of the building, and the only light that of the fitful
fireflies amid the lofty and drooping foliage;--yet, in each and all of
these experiences, that aroma of holiness, so perceptible at times in
our own religious atmosphere, would somehow seem strangely absent to
the unacclimatized senses, and no halo would be distinguishable by a
vision which had been restricted by prejudice.

Still more difficult is it to rise to the same height of reverence
for a saintly and surpassing personality if it is presented in
sacred records other than those to which one has owned a prior
allegiance. Nevertheless, the discovery in other religious systems of
a correspondence with one's own particular persuasion must assuredly
tend towards the attainment of that attitude of mind commended by St.
Paul of "being all things to all men." To pave the way towards the
acquisition of this mental posture in relation to religious concepts is
the main object I have had in view in composing this small book.

It has been said that no age has more needed a departure in this
direction than our own. "On the one hand, sectarian hatred and
dogmatism almost obscure the great truths _common_ to all mankind; on
the other, merciless and destructive criticism, in undermining much
that used to be generally accepted, seems at times to threaten even the
foundations of truth."

Some people, however, maintain that there is an appreciable value
to be attached to all dogmatic declarations, and that those who are
working in strictly-confined theological grooves are contributing, as
specialists, to a knowledge of the whole. Even if these workers are
possessed of all the uncharitable qualities sometimes attributed to
the narrow-minded, yet they may be held deserving of encouragement
in view of the probability that the more their limited ideas become
exposed to the light by their enthusiastic endeavours to assert them as
final truth, the sooner will their imperfections be obliterated. The
fragmentary opinions they cling to will then be discovered to possess
no value except as constituent elements of the whole.

Others go the length of advocating that the flames of bigotry should be
fanned to furnace-heat in order that the feeding fuel may be the more
rapidly consumed.

In any case, the more apparent it becomes that every religion worthy
of the name springs from a root common to all, and is really, at
bottom, the one true cosmic religion, and that the variations are
superficial and unimportant in themselves, the greater will be the
advantages accruing to humanity in the political, social, and moral
spheres. In other words, the advantage to be derived from the study of
the obscure phases of religions lies in this--that, in so doing, our
minds are better able to grasp the solidarity of religious thought and
aspirations throughout the world. We are enabled to see more clearly
that all religious forms, and even formless philosophies, however crude
and idolatrous the former may appear to people of wide culture, and
however mystical and evasive the latter may be regarded by those of
narrow vision, are but the effects of one cause common to all.

When we have got rid, Buddhistically, of the idea of separateness,
or, in a Christian sense, have exercised self-suppression, we can
then proceed to eliminate the notion of separateness in religions and
philosophies. Thus, whether we are Determinists or Indeterminists,
we shall experience the sensation that, according to the law of
development, it is in the scheme of things for us to struggle forward
on our several paths, not in antipathy to,