the echo replies. 
    Ours the glory of giving the world
    Its science, religion, its poetry and art. 
    We were the first of the men who unfurled
    The banner of freedom on earth’s every part,
    Brought tidings of peace and of love to each heart.”]

LECTURE IV.

THE BHAGAVAD GITA AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

No other portion of Hindu literature has made so great an impression on Western minds as the Bhagavad Gita, “The Lord’s Lay,” or the “Song of the Adorable.”  It has derived its special importance from its supposed resemblance to the New Testament.  And as it claims to be much older than the oldest of the Gospels or the Epistles, it carries the inference that the latter may have borrowed something from it.

A plausible translation has been published in Boston by Mr. Mohini M. Chatterji, who devoutly believes this to be the revealed word of the Supreme Creator and Upholder of the universe.[74] He admits that at a later day “the same God, worshipped alike by Hindus and Christians, appeared again in the person of Jesus Christ,” and that “in the Bible He revealed Himself to Western nations, as the Bhagavad Gita had proclaimed Him to the people of the East.”  And he draws the inference that “If the Scriptures of the Brahmans and the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians, widely separated as they are by age and nationality, are but different names for one and the same truth, who can then say that the Scriptures contradict each other?  A careful and reverent collation of the two sets of Scriptures will show forth the conscious and intelligent design of revelation.”  The fact that the Bhagavad Gita is thoroughly pantheistic, while the Bible emphasizes the personality of God in fellowship with the distinct personality of human souls, seems to interpose no serious difficulty in Mr. Chatterji’s view, since he says “‘The Lord’s Lay’ is for philosophic minds, and therefore deals more at length with the mysteries of the being of God.”  “In the Bhagavad Gita,” he says, “consisting of seven hundred and seventy verses, the principal topic is the being of God, while scarcely the same amount of exposition is given to it in the whole Bible;” and he adds, “The explanation of this remarkable fact is found in the difference between the genius of the Hebrew and the Brahman race, and also in the fact that the teachings of Jesus Christ were addressed to ‘the common people.’"[75]

The air of intellectual superiority which is couched in these words is conspicuous.  Mr. Chatterji also finds an inner satisfaction in what he considers the broad charity of the Brahmanical Scriptures.  He quotes a passage from the Narada Pancharata which speaks of the Buddha as “the preserver of revelation for those outside of the Vedic authority.”  And he concludes that when one such revealer is admitted there can be no reason for excluding others; therefore Christianity also should be allowed a place.