Resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity.

Within the sacred edifice everything to strike the senses was lavishly displayed.  The passion of the East, as opposed to Greek simplicity, is for decoration; yet in Japan, decorative art, though sometimes bursting out in wild profusion or running to unbridled lengths, was in the main a regulated mass of splendor in which harmony ruled.  Differing though the Buddhist sects do in their temple furniture and altar decorations, they are, most of them, so elaborately full in their equipment as to suggest repeatedly the similarity between the Roman Catholic organization, altars, vestments and ritual, and those of Buddhism, and remarks on this point seem almost commonplace.  Almost everything in Roman Catholicism is found in Buddhism,[20] and one may even say, vice versa, at least in things exterior.  We take the liberty of transcribing here a passage from the chapter entitled “Christianity and Foreigners” in The Mikado’s Empire, written twenty years ago.

“Furthermore, the transition from the religion of India to that of Rome was extremely easy.  The very idols of Buddha served, after a little alteration with the chisel, for images of Christ.  The Buddhist saints were easily transformed into the Twelve Apostles.  The Cross took the place of the torii.  It was emblazoned on the helmets and banners of the warriors, and embroidered on their breasts.  The Japanese soldiers went forth to battle like Christian crusaders.  In the roadside shrine Kuanon, the Goddess of Mercy, made way for the Virgin, the mother of God.  Buddhism was beaten with its own weapons.  Its own artillery was turned against it.  Nearly all the Christian churches were native temples, sprinkled and purified.  The same bell, whose boom had so often quivered the air announcing the orisons and matins of paganism, was again blessed and sprinkled, and called the same hearers to mass and confession; the same lavatory that fronted the temple served for holy water or baptismal font; the same censer that swung before Amida could be refilled to waft Christian incense; the new convert could use unchanged his old beads, bells, candles, incense, and all the paraphernalia of his old faith in celebration of the new.

“Almost everything that is distinctive in the Roman form of Christianity is to be found in Buddhism:  images, pictures, lights, altars, incense, vestments, masses, beads, wayside shrines, monasteries, nunneries, celibacy, fastings, vigils, retreats, pilgrimages, mendicant vows, shorn heads, orders, habits, uniforms, nuns, convents, purgatory, saintly and priestly intercession, indulgences, works of supererogation, pope, archbishops, abbots, abbesses, monks, neophytes, relics and relic-worship, exclusive burial-ground, etc., etc., etc."[21]

Nevertheless, these resemblances are almost wholly superficial, and have little or nothing to do with