ConnectionsWhere the world’s scriptures tell the same story

A warned man, a ship, a flood and a northern mountain

In the Shatapatha the warning comes from a fish, Manu takes no animals aboard, and no bird is sent out. Genesis has God as the warner, the animals two by two, and the raven and the dove.

Darkness, a formless void and water before anything was made

Genesis names God as the maker. The hymn ends by saying that the one in highest heaven “verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.” “Void and formless” is Griffith’s English, so the likeness of wording to the King James is the translator’s, not proof of a link.

“In the beginning”: the one Lord of all that was made

Hiranyagarbha (“golden germ”) is himself born at the beginning; the God of Genesis is not. Verses 1 to 9 end with the question “What God shall we adore with our oblation?”, and verse 10 answers it with the name Prajapati.

The earth brought up out of the waters

In Genesis the dry land appears at a word. In the Vishnu Purana Vishnu takes the form of a boar and lifts the earth on his tusks.

A divine speaker who utters the word

In the hymn a goddess speaks in the first person and says she utters the word. In John the Word is God. Same image, no historical link claimed.

The orders of people and the world made from one great body

The Vishnu Purana repeats the Rigveda’s order of mouth, arms, thighs and feet inside a hymn to Vishnu. Legends of Truth notes that the Pangu story is late and that neither body is a slain chaos monster.

A food or drink that makes the eater live for ever

In the Vishnu Purana the gods churn the ocean to win the drink. In Genesis the man is kept away from the tree.

A king orders boys killed to stop a child he was warned about

Kansa is warned that the child will kill him; Herod is told of a king born in Bethlehem. No borrowing in either direction is claimed here.

One who comes at the end of the age to destroy the wicked

Wilson’s Vishnu Purana does not give Kalki a horse, so this page does not pair the two riders; only the role is matched.

An old holy man sees the newborn child, foretells his work and speaks of his own death

The parallel: Both texts say the same three things: an old holy man comes to see a newborn child, says what the child will do for the world, and in the same speech speaks of his own death. Both describe the child as a light: “a sun of knowledge” and “a light to lighten the Gentiles”.

Asita weeps, because he will die before he can hear the child teach. Simeon is ready to go in peace, because he has seen the child. No borrowing in either direction is claimed here.

The enemy comes to him alone, urges him to give up his path for rule over worlds, fails and leaves

The parallel: In both texts a named enemy comes to the holy man while he is alone, tries to turn him from his path with the prospect of ruling worlds, cannot move him, and goes away.

Māra urges the Buddha to win worlds by his own arrows; the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms if he will worship him. Māra also shoots the arrow of desire and sends an army of demons. The Buddha does not answer; a being in the sky rebukes Māra. Jesus answers the devil himself.

Hatred is not ended by hatred; evil is overcome with good

The parallel: Each text tells the reader not to pay back hatred or evil in kind, but to meet hatred with love and evil with good.

The Dhammapada calls this “an old rule”. Matthew gives it as Jesus’ own command (“But I say unto you”). The near-identical English of Dhammapada 223 and Romans 12:21 is the translators’ wording, not proof of a link.

A son leaves his father and falls into want; the father knows him at once and receives him as his son

The parallel: Both are parables. In both a son leaves his father, ends up poor, and comes back to where his father is; the father knows him at first sight and in the end receives him openly as his son.

In Luke the son decides to go home and is welcomed the same day. In the Lotus Sutra the son reaches his father’s town by chance, runs away in fear, and is hired to clear a heap of dirt; the father names him as his son only near his own death, fifty years after he left. The Lotus Sutra explains the father as the Buddha and the son as his disciples.

Others’ faults are easy to see; one’s own are hard to see

The parallel: Both texts say the same thing about people: a man sees the fault in his neighbour or brother, and does not see, or will not see, his own. This card is our own pairing: the shared point is stated outright in both texts, but no source in this library links the two.

The images differ: the Dhammapada has chaff winnowed and a cheat hiding a bad die; Matthew has a mote and a beam in the eye. The Dhammapada states it as a fact and adds that a man hides his own fault. Matthew asks it as a question, calls the hearer a hypocrite, and tells him to remove his own fault first.