"The Unknown Buddha of Christianity" (book)

Articles compiled, edited, and commented on by Michael Lockwood; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha seated, Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka (© 2016 Ian Lockwood, title page)

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The Unknown Buddha of Christianity: The Crypto-Buddhism of the Essenes (Therapeutæ and Qumranites)

PREFACE

Buddhism indeed had such a rule.

“The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” – Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics: From Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1938), p. 95.

“I was trained in this funny lab at Harvard called the [George] Whitesides Lab, where we scoffed at specialization.... If you were just an inorganic chemist, you weren’t cool. You had to go make it in areas totally outside your field.” – Inorganic chemist, Bryan Shaw, quoted in National Public Radio’s website article, “Chemist Turns Software Developer after Son’s Cancer Diagnosis,” written by Joe Palca (May 6, 2014).

Jesus was born and raised in Africa.

“A little knowledge can baffle an expert. It is relatively easy to acquire a certain bit of knowledge in an expert’s area of interest that the expert does not know. There are a very large number of experts who have been astonished at Dr. G. Siromoney pulling out some information in their own field that they knew nothing about. However, Dr. Siromoney himself knew that the expert possibly knew much more than he did in a large part of that field – that there were possibly only one or a few bits that he knew and that the expert did not know.”

• – Professor Arul Siromoney, writing about his late father, Professor Gift Siromoney. Prof. Gift Siromoney (Statistics Dept.) was one of the members of that informal, interdisciplinary group of faculty members, the ‘Tambaram Research Associates’ of Madras Christian College, who published widely on the Pallava monuments at Mämallapuram and elsewhere. Three other ‘associates’ were Profs. A. Vishnu Bhat (English Dept.), P. Dayanandan (Botany Dept.), and myself (Philosophy Dept.).

The church knew where Jesus came from.

In pursuing our interest in matters outside our so-called areas of expertise, we were able to contribute papers which added significantly to the understanding of these monuments and their historical setting.

We may presume that what the members of the Harvard Whitesides Lab were scoffing at was the limiting of the scope of research to some generally accepted boundaries of a specialization. They were obviously not dissing the area of specialization, itself!

Now, what do we find in that area of research specializing in the study of the ‘origins of Christianity’? We find widespread scoffing at researchers in this field who operate outside the boundaries set by established academic institutions and who may lack degree qualifications, membership in relevant departments or learned bodies, peer review, and so forth.

Here is a description of a bit of reverse scoffing from a person who, in the 17th century, was “outside” of the privileged disciplines of philosophy and theology:

[T]he publication of Nuncius gave Galileo the fame and prestige he needed to risk making known his long held allegiance to the Copernican system. His heightened fame and new boldness, however, moved other colleagues of his, mostly non-clerics, to bitter jealousy. They were so dazzled by what the telescope revealed that some of them, like the illustrious [non-cleric] philosopher Cremonini, refused on principle, to look through it.

In a letter to his esteemed friend, Kepler, Galileo writes about this matter as follows:* Oh, my dear Kepler, how I wish we could have one hearty laugh together! Here at Padua is the principal professor of philosophy whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass which he pertinaciously refuses to do....**

CONTENTS

• PREFACE  3
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 5
• INTRODUCTORY – Michael Lockwood [ML]
• Recapitulation 8
• Buddhist and Christian Miracles of Walking on Water 10
• “I’ll eat a page from my Bible if Jesus didn’t exist” 13
• Overcoming the Thralldom of Tradition and Solving Many Riddles 14
• ARTICLES Jesus and John the Baptist – D.M. Murdock 17
• Q and Trans-Lingual Meta-Q – ML 21
• Jesus Quoted Buddhist Scripture! [Intro. to Edmunds’ article] – ML 25
• Buddhist Texts Quoted as Scripture by the Gospel of John – A.J. Edmunds 26
• Comment on Edmunds’ article – ML 45
• Bibliography – Charles Francis Aiken 53
• Buddhist Influence in the Gospels: Two Catholic Views – ML 68
• Part I: Charles Francis Aiken, 69
• Interlude: How Crypto-Buddhism Won the West!, 147 Part II: J. Edgar Bruns, 176
• The Lotus and the Logos – Robert M. Price 200
• Austin Cline’s Interview with Dennis MacDonald 208
• Jesus’ Transfiguration & the Buddhist Näga-Räja Myth – Christian Lindtner 217
• Love Your Enemy – ML 223
• The Temptation of the Buddha/Christ – Zacharias P. Thundy 228
• Hindu View of Christ – Anand Amaladass 246
• Short Essays – Christian Lindtner: Where Is Paradise?, 254;
• Who Is ‘The Christmas Boy’?, 258;
• How Kßa-tri-yas was reborn as ho Khristos, 260;
• The Mission of the Seventy-Two, 265;
• Augustus, Jesus, and Other Transformations, 271;
• The Empty Tomb: More Mythical Mimesis, 276;
• Christ’s Burial Place: A Buddhist Stüpa, 278;
• An Odd Galilæan Replaces the Old Buddha, 279;
• Two Seminal Books by Lindtner, reviewed by K.K. Raja, 280;
• Jesus wants YOU to Carry the Lotus Sütra, 284;
• The Gospel Is the Sütram, 286.
• Select Bibliography:
• Duncan Derrett’s Comparative Studies – ML 291
• Yoga Mudrâs in Eastern Orthodox Christian Art – Bibhu Dev Misra 295
• Is the Empress Wearing No Clothes? – ML 308
• Literary Influences between Buddhism and Christianity – Maurice Winternitz 367
• Miscellaneous Concluding Remarks – ML 390

INTRODUCTORY

Recapitulation This present book is the third volume of a trilogy devoted to the investigation of the relation of Buddhism to Christianity, the previous volumes being Buddhism’s Relation to Christianity (2010) and Mythicism: A Seven-Fold Revelation of the Buddhist ‘Branch’ Grafted onto Jesse’s ‘Lineage Tree’ (2013). To briefly recapitulate the contents covered in the first volume, here is the summary given on the inside flap: More

• The Unknown Buddha of Christianity (PDF)

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*Quoted from Donald Demarco, “The Dispute between Galileo and the Catholic Church,” (catholiceducation.org), accessed May 8, 2014 – ML.

**Letter to Kepler, 1610, quoted by Oliver Lodge, Pioneers of Science (London, 1913), Chp. 4. Now, something similar is happening when, for example, 21st century theologians and historians of the origins of Christianity refuse to look through Robert M. Price’s ‘telescope’ of Skepticism (concerning the historicity of Jesus) or to look through Christian Lindtner’s Sanskrit/Päli ‘telescope’ (with its persuasive evidence that Christianity is a branch of Buddhism).

I suggest that within this very century this ignoring may turn out to be highly embarrassing to the guild of traditionalists, blinded by a profound enthrallment, which has produced in them the general perception that to propose views such as, ‘Jesus did not exist’ or ‘Christianity is a branch of Buddhism,’ is to be totally unreasonable and, further, is to deliberately hurt the religious sensibilities of Christians and, as such, should not even be entertained.

Note that, in the academic and general public media (excepting the internet), Bart Ehrman’s book, Did Jesus Exist? (2012), was hardly reviewed – undoubtedly due to the fear of public outcry against the very question, itself.

But there is no excuse for universities to keep scholars with radical ideas from joining their faculties and for universities to continue to ignore research along radical lines.

For instance, why is it that the works of the Dutch Radicals haven’t been systematically translated into English by Anglophone theologians or historians of religion? Who is afraid of them?

Institutions claiming to be searching for the Truth must examine themselves on these issues. This book continues my attempt to get a clearer picture of the history of the origins of Christianity through the examination of radical, groundbreaking works of some less enthralled researchers, who, most often, are positioned outside of institutionally accredited “in-groups.” Michael Lockwood, October 27, 2019).

Articles compiled, edited, and commented on by Michael Lockwood, Tambaram Research Associates Tambaram, Chennai 600 059 INDIA Preface, Introduction, & Commentary, Copyright © 2019 Michael Lockwood Produced by Indie Author Books 12 High Street, Thomaston, Maine IndieAuthorBooks.com.