Jesus meets Buddha

The November first week issue of L’osservatore Romano, a weekly published by the Vatican, claims that there was a collaboration between Christians and Buddhists in the sixth and seventh centuries, the testimony to which is the St.Thomas Cross with the Lotus symbol. It is a symbol Buddhists used to convey messages.

The article written by Prof Philip Jenkins, distinguished professor of History at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, and Emeritus Edwin Erle Sparks, professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University, and titled The Cross and the Lotus, explains the exchanges between the Christian Church and the Buddhists in the early centuries.

“When the Nestorian Christians were passing across central Asia during the sixth and seventh centuries, they met the missionaries and saints of an equally confident and expansionist religion: Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists, too, wanted to take their saving message to the world, and launched great missions and monasteries from India’s monasteries and temples. The Buddhist and Christian monasteries were likely to stand side by side, as neighbours and even, sometimes as collaborators,” Professor Jenkins says in his article.

Prof Jenkins says that according to some historians, the Christian Nestorian Missionaries influenced the religious practices of the Buddhist religion, then developing in Tibet. He adds that the Christians told their stories in the forms of sutras and verse patterns already made famous by Buddhist missionaries and teachers.

As proof of this, a stunning collection of Jesus sutras was found in the caves at Dunhuang in northwest China. “Some Nestorian writings draw heavily on Buddhist ideas, as they translate prayers and Christian services in ways that would make sense to Asian readers,” the article says. Presenting more evidence, he says that one story in particular suggests an almost shocking degree of collaboration between the faiths.

“In 782, the Indian Buddhist missionary Prajna arrived in Chang’an, bearing rich treasures of sutras and other scriptures. Unfortunately, these were written in Indian languages. He consulted the local Nestorian Bishop, Adam, who had already translated parts of the Bible into Chinese. Together, Buddhists and Christian scholars worked amiably together for some years to translate seven copious volumes of Buddhist wisdom,” the article establishes the Buddhists and Christian links.

These efforts bore fruit far beyond China. Other residents of Changa’n at this very time included Japanese monks, who took these translations back with them to their homeland. In Japan, these works became the founding texts of the great Buddhist schools of the middle ages.

Prof Jenkins says that by the 12th century, flourishing churches in southern  India and China were using the Lotus Cross. “For 2000 years, Buddhist artists have used the Lotus to convey these messages in countless paintings and sculptures. The Christian Cross, meanwhile, teaches a comparable lesson, of divine victory over sin and injustice, of the defeat of the world. Somewhere in Asia, Yeshua’s forgotten followers made the daring decision to integrate the two emblems, which till today forces us to think about the parallels between the kinds of liberation and redemption offered by each faith.”

The article begins by mentioning the visit of Pope Francis to Myanmar in 2017. He made every effort to show respect and affection for Buddhism and its traditions, drawing comparisons from Buddhist and Christian teachings.

The article concludes by saying that the Christian thinkers did present their message in the category of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, and there is no reason why they could not do so again.