BUDDHA AND COLUMBUS.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10268, 10 February 1899, Page 4

BUDDHA AND COLUMBUS.

These two great men little in common beyond the fact that their bones, at the present moment, are thought to be matters of international importance. More than twenty-two centuries ago Buddha founded a religion which is now believed to embrace fully a third of the human family. Columbus, only four centuries ago, found a continent which already contains about one hundred and twenty-five millions of civilised people. They are, therefore, both historical figures of the very first magnitude, and religious devotion in one case, and national pride in the other, make their dust sacred. At his death Gautama Buddha was cremated, and his ashes were shared among various trib'os and towns, and buried in topes or monumental mounds. No doubt his own people, the Sakyas cf Kapilavastu, on the frontier cf Nepaul, received a share, and buried it. Nepaul is a kind of Buddhist holy land; there alone have the ancient Buddhist Scriptures, completed 250 years before our era, been found. European scholarship has proved that the rest of the Buddhist world has only versions and translations of these. A few months ago a property owner on the frontier of Nepaul opened a mound on his estate, and found a large stone coffer, crystal and steatite vases, bone and ash relics, and a quantity of jewels and ornaments placed in two vases in honour of the relics. A careful list was made c_| the articles, and they were offered to the Government by the finder, and gladly accepted. The inscription on one of the urns fays: " This relic receptacle of the Blessed Sakya Buadha is dedicated by the renowned brethren,'' etc. This shows that the builder of the tope believed the relics to be those cf Buddha. As to the age of the inscription, Professor Buhrer says the style of writing is older than that of the inscriptions of As4_a. Asoka was the Buddhist ConstaHtine, who made Buddhism a State religion in India about the year 200 a.d., and who has left inscriptions from the Hindu Kush to Ceylon. There is, therefore, a prima facie case in favour of the genuineness of the relics, and as there was a danger of scandalising hundreds ti: millions -of Buddhists, the disposal of them became quite a serious matter. The King of Siam is now the only independent monarch who rules a purely Buddhist people, so the Bfitish Government presented the relics to him on condition that he shared them with his co-religionists in Burma, Ceylon, and Bankok. The King, as the cable recently informed us, gladly accepted the gift, and sent a special envoy to receive it. We are familiar with the spectacle of Christian powers making use of the martyrdom of missionaries to exact concessions, and are therefore prepared to believe that the ashes of the Light of Ashmay carry a political mearung with them. France is believed to have designs upon the independence of Siam, and this extraordinary gift to the King can hardly be intended to facilitate those designs. The bones of Columbus may prove more difficult of identification than the ashes of Bu*_dha. It is well known that the remains of the great navigator have been often buried—once or twice in Spain, subsequently in San Domingo, and, after the revolt of that island, in Havana. Spain, in her disasters, cherishes of the man whom she allowed to die in want, and now removes them from Havana back to Spain. But when all this has been done, the barbarians of San Domingo declare, so we are told, tnat they never parted with the real Columbus, and that Spain ha. only secured the bones of his son Diego. One is reminded of tne history of the bones of St. Alban. They were miraculously discovered some centuries after the death of the Saint, and served their purpose passing well at St. Albans. When the Danes invaded the country the bones were sent by the Abbot for greater security to Ely. When the fear of the Danes passed away, they were supposed to be brought back, and were 1 again much visited. Hereupon they of Ely declared that they had _.ept the real bones, and sent bac_; common substitutes. This was like to prove a great, disaster to St. Albans, but the Abbot was equal to the occasion, and vowed tnat he had never sent the real bones away, but only some cheap substitutes, as a blind to the enemy. The entertaining story may be fcuifd in Froude's "Short Studies," but we are.afraid that altered circumstances wil. prevent the Spanish authorities making use a; it as a model to follow in th_ dispute with the wags of San Domingo.