How their fables, evolved between the second and
third centuries after Buddha's death, when the fever of proselytism and
the adoration of his memory were at their height, could be borrowed and
then appropriated from the Christian legends written during the first
century of the Western era, can only be explained by a German
Orientalist. Mr. T.W. Rhys Davids (Jataka Book) shows the contrary to
have been true. It may be remarked in this connection that, while the
first "miracles" of both Krishna and Christ are said to have happened at
a Mathura, the latter city exists to this day in India--the antiquity of
its name being fully proved--while the Mathura, or Matures in Egypt, of
the "Gospel of Infancy," where Jesus is alleged to have produced his
first miracle, was sought to be identified, centuries ago, by the stump
of an old tree in thee desert, and is represented by an empty spot!
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What can be thought of Prof. Weber's endeavour when, "to determine more
accurately the position of Ramayana (called by him the 'artificial
epic') in literary history," he ends with an assumption that "it rests
upon an acquaintance with the Trojan cycle of legend .
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