I have only space left to touch upon two of the most important of these identifications. And first the imitation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Lassen (i. 784 and iv. 570) fixes as late a date as 1420–1445 for the introduction of the Trimurti worship, or, as he expresses it, the bootless attempt to unite various schools by propounding the equality and unity of the three great rival gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who were the chief gods favoured by each respectively. Devarâja of Vigajanagara erected the first temple to the Trimurti about this date. Ganesha, the god of wisdom and knowledge, appeared to his minister Laxmana and bid him build a temple on the banks of the Penar to the Hiranjagarbha, called Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; this is the first example of any inscription of honour paid to the Trimurti[38].
Secondly, the worship of the god Crishna, whose name and attributes as well as his substitution for Vishnu, the second god of the Trimurti, present so many analogies with the teaching concerning our Divine Lord[39]. Whatever difficulty there may be in fixing the date of the origin of the great Pânkarâtra sect, there appears none in affirming that the full development of its teaching in the direction of these analogies was subsequent to the establishment of Christianity. This is how A. Weber speaks of it[40]. Brahmans, who had travelled to Alexandria, and perhaps Asia Minor, at a time when Christianity was in its first bloom, brought back its teaching respecting a Supreme God and a Christ whom they identified with and fastened upon their sage or hero, who had already in some measure received Divine honours—Crishna Devakiputra (Son of the divine woman). He also dwells on the influence exercised by the teaching of Christian missionaries. The importance given to Devaki would point to an incorporation of Christian teaching concerning the Virgin Mary. Weber, in a paper entitled “Einige Data auf das Geburtsfest Krishna’s,” instances many passages in the Bavrishjottara-Purana (one of the latest Puranas), which it is impossible to read without being reminded of the place of “the Virgin and Child” in Christian tradition, and which find no counterpart in earlier Indian writings. Similarly it was the later schools which dwelt on the fact of his having Nanda the herdsman for his father, seemingly suggested by our Lord’s character of “the good Shepherd,” because in the earlier Crishna Legends[41] this fact is sunk in the view that (though sprung from the herdsmen) he was a warrior and a hero. Nor was the teaching concerning this character of Crishna at all rapid in its extension. Its chief seat, according to Lassen[42], in what he expresses as “the earliest times,” was Madura; but the first date he mentions in connexion with it is 1017, when a Crishna temple was destroyed by Mahmûd of Ghazna, Lalitâditja, king of Cashmere, built him a temple containing a statue of solid silver, and he reigned from 695 to 732; but the gold armour the image bore would point to his warrior character still prevailing down to this time. Lassen even finds[43] the introduction of the worship of Crishna[44] a subject of opposition by certain Brahmans as late as the tenth century. The great epic poem concerning him, the Gitagovinda, by Gajadeva (still sung at the present day at the Resa festival), was not written till the end of the 12th century[45]. In an inscription at Gajanagara, not very far from Madura, Crishna is mentioned as an incarnation of Vishnu, but the date of this is 1288; and the idea does not seem to have reached Orissa till the end of the 15th century[46].
[2.] From this exordium we must plainly gather that the original collector of these Tales was himself a Madhjamika, since he begins his work with an invocation of Nâgârg′una, founder of that school. He calls him “second teacher” because his undertaking was, not to supersede, but to develope and perfect the teaching of Shâkjamuni, whom he himself reverenced as first teacher[47].
Nâgârg′una was the 15th Patriarch in the Buddhist succession, born in South India, and educated a Brahman; he wrote a Treatise, in 100 chapters, on the Wisdom of the Buddhist Theology, and died B.C. 212 (Lassen, “Indische Alterthumskunde,” ii., Appendix, p. vi.); but at p. 887 of the same volume, and again at p. 1072, he tells us he lived in the reign of Abhimanju, king of Cashmere, and that it was by the assistance of his sage advice that the Buddhists were enabled for a while successfully to withstand opposition dictated by the Brahmanical proclivities of this king, whose date he fixes at 45–65 A.C. The difference between the two dates arises out of that existing between the computations of the northern and southern Buddhists[48]. In the Raga-Tarangini, ii. v. 172–177 (a chronicle of Cashmere, written not later than A.D. 1148) Nâgârg′una is thus alluded to: “When 150 years had passed by, since sacred Shâkjamuni had completed his time in this world of sufferers, there was a Bodhisattva[49], who was supreme head of all the earth. This was Nâgârg′una, who possessed in himself the power of six Archats[50].... Protected by Nâgârg′una the Buddhists obtained the chief influence in the country.”
Among the Chinese Buddhists he is called Lung-shu, which name Abel Rémusat tells us was given him because after death he was taken up into the serpent-Paradise[51].
The following legend has been told concerning the manner of his conversion from Brahmanism; but it is probable that what is historically true in it belongs to the life of another and much later Buddhist patriarch.
A Samanaer[52] came wandering by his residence. Seeing it to be nobly built, and pleasantly situated amid trees and fountains, and provided with all that was needful and desirable for the life of man, made up his mind to obtain admission to it. Nâgârg′una, before admitting him, required to know whence, and what manner of man he was. On his declaring himself a teacher of Buddhism the door was immediately closed against him. Determined not to be so easily repulsed the Samanaer knocked again and again, till Nâgârg′una, provoked by his pertinacity, appeared on the terrace above, and cried out to him, “It is useless for you to go on knocking. In this house is nothing.”
“Nothing!” retorted the Samanaer; “what sort of a thing is that, pray?”
Nâgârg′una saw by this answer the man must be of a philosophical turn of mind, and was thus induced to break his rule, which forbid him intercourse with Buddhists, and let him in that he might have more discourse with him. The Samanaer by degrees fascinated his mind with the whole Buddhist doctrine, and ultimately told him that Buddha had left a prophecy, saying, that long years after he had departed this life there should arise a great teacher out of Southern India, who by the wisdom of his teaching should renew the face of the earth; that this prophecy he was destined to accomplish. Nâgârg′una believed his words, and subsequently fulfilled them.