[159:4] Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 150.
[159:5] See Rhys David's Buddhism, p. 25.
[159:6] See Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. ii. p. 31.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GENEALOGY OF CHRIST JESUS.
The biographers of Jesus, although they have placed him in a position the most humiliating in his infancy, and although they have given him poor and humble parents, have notwithstanding made him to be of royal descent. The reasons for doing this were twofold. First, because, according to the Old Testament, the expected Messiah was to be of the seed of Abraham,[160:1] and second, because the Angel-Messiahs who had previously been on earth to redeem and save mankind had been of royal descent, therefore Christ Jesus must be so.
The following story, taken from Colebrooke's "Miscellaneous Essays,"[160:2] clearly shows that this idea was general:
"The last of the Jinas, Vardhamâna, was at first conceived by Devanandā, a Brahmānā. The conception was announced to her by a dream. Sekra, being apprised of his incarnation, prostrated himself and worshiped the future saint (who was in the womb of Devanandā); but reflecting that no great saint was ever born in an indigent or mendicant family, as that of a Brahmānā, Sekra commanded his chief attendant to remove the child from the womb of Devanandā to that of Trisala, wife of Siddhartha, a prince of the race of Jeswaca, of the Kasyapa family."