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 8. The figure in the plates numbered 8, descriptive of Buddha or Cristna, is given by Mons. Creuzer. The following is the account given of this plate by Mons. Guigniaut: Crichna 8 avatar ou incarnation de Vichnou, sous la figure d’un enfant, allaité par Devaki, sa mère, et recevant des offrandes de fruits; près de là est un groupe d’animaux rassemblés dans une espèce d’arche. La tête de l’enfant-dieu, noir, comme indique son nom, est ceinte d’une auréole aussi bien que celle de sa mère. On peut voir encore, dans cette belle peinture, Buddha sur le sein de Maya.

M. Creuzer observes that the images of Cristna and Buddha are so similar, that it is difficult to distinguish them; and the groupe [sic] pictured above is acknowledged by Moore, in his Hindoo Pantheon, to be applicable to Buddha on the knee of his beautiful mother Maya. But yet there is one circumstance of very great importance which is peculiar to Buddha, and forms a discriminating mark between him and Cristna, which is, that he is continually described as a Negro, not only with a black complexion, in which he agrees with Cristna, but with woolly hair and flat face. M. Creuzer observes, that the black Buddha, with frizzled or curled hair, attaches himself at the same time to the three systems into which the religion of India divides itself.

9. Mr. Moore, on his woolly head, says, “Some statues of Buddha certainly exhibit thick Ethiopian lips; but all woolly hair: there is something mysterious, and unexplained, connected with the hair of this, and only of this, Indian deity. The fact of so many different tales having been invented to account for his crisped, woolly head, is alone sufficient to excite suspicion, that there is something to conceal—something to be ashamed of; more than meets the eye.”

The reason why Buddha is a Negro, at least in the very old icons, I trust I shall be able to explain in a satisfactory manner hereafter. The Brahmins form a species of corporation, a sacerdotal aristocracy, possessing great privileges; but the Buddhists have a regular hierarchy; they form a state within a state, or a spiritual monarchy at the side of a temporal one. “They have their cloisters, their monastic life, and a religious rule. Their monks form a priesthood numerous and powerful, and they place their first great founder at their head as the sacred depositary of their faith, which is transmitted by this spiritual prince, who is supported by the contributions of the faithful, from generation to generation, similar to that of the Lamas of Thibet.” M. Creuzer might have said, not similar to, but identical with the Lama himself; who, like the Pope of Rome, is God on Earth, at the head of all, a title which the latter formerly assumed. Indeed the close similarity between the two is quite wonderful to those who do not understand it.

The monks and nuns of the Buddhists, here noticed by M. Creuzer, take the three cardinal vows