One thing, however, is inevitable. Facts and evidence as to origin, analogies, and adaptation of the Christian Mysteries from ancient India, are widely known, and the time has come when these mysteries are being examined as to their intrinsic meaning and their bearing on the daily life of man and the progress of the human race.
The author of this little book has only attempted a bare outline of these great facts, and to put them in such shape that the reader may perceive their general bearing, and the sources whence they are derived.
The following extracts made almost at random, the quantity of evidence being so redundant, from Jacolliot’s “Bible in India,” a translation of which was made in this country as early as 1873, and Prof. Max Müller’s Lectures, “India, What Can It Teach Us?” printed here more than a quarter of a century ago, will give the reader the evidence and the assurance that these ancient sources of wisdom are scarcely yet known in outline to the Western World.
Jacolliot spent many years in India, studying its present civilization and its ancient lore, while Prof. Max Müller derived his knowledge largely from study of Sanscrit and the Vedanta.
“Soil of Ancient India, cradle of humanity, hail! Hail, venerable and efficient nurse, whom centuries of brutal invasion have not yet buried under the dust of oblivion! Hail, fatherland of faith, of love, of poetry, and of science. May we hail a revival of thy past in our Western future.
“I have dwelt ’midst the depths of your mysterious forests, seeking to comprehend the language of your lofty nature, and the evening airs that murmured ’midst the foliage of banyans and tamarinds whispered to my spirit these three magic words: Zeus, Jehovah, Brahma.
“I have inquired of Brahmins and priests under the porches of temples and ancient pagodas, and they have replied:
“‘To live is to think, and to think is to study God, who is all, and in all....
“‘To live is to learn, to learn is to examine and to fathom in all their perceptible forms the innumerable manifestations of celestial power.
“‘To live is to be useful; to live is to be just; and we learn to be useful and just in studying this book of the Vedas, which is the word of eternal wisdom, the principle of principles as revealed to our fathers.’” (“The Bible in India,” p. 15.)