I have shown elsewhere[1151] what close parallels may be found in the Avesta to these radiant and benevolent genii and to the heaven of boundless light which is entered by those who repeat the name of its master.  Also there is good evidence to connect the early worship of Amitabha with Central Asia.  Later Iranian influence may have meant Mithraism and Manichaeism as well as Zoroastrianism and the school of Asanga perhaps owes something to these systems.[1152] They may have brought with them fragments of Christianity or doctrines similar to Christianity but I think that all attempts to derive Amitabhist teaching from Christianity are fanciful.  The only point which the two have in common is salvation by faith, and that doctrine is certainly older than Christianity.  Otherwise the efforts of Amitabha to save humanity have no resemblance to the Christian atonement.  Nor do the relations between the various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas recall the Trinity but rather the Persian Fravashis.

Persian influences worked more strongly on Buddhism than on Hinduism, for Buddhism not only flourished in the frontier districts but penetrated into the Tarim basin and the region of the Oxus which lay outside the Indian and within the Iranian sphere.  But they affected Hinduism also, especially in the matter of sun-worship.  This of course is part of the oldest Vedic religion, but a special form of it, introduced about the beginning of our era, was a new importation and not a descendant of the ancient Indian cult.[1153]

The Brihatsamhita[1154] says that the Magas, that is Magi, are the priests of the sun and the proper persons to superintend the consecration of temples and images dedicated to that deity, but the clearest statements about this foreign cult are to be found in the Bhavishya Purana[1155] which contains a legend as to its introduction obviously based upon history.  Samba, the son of Krishna, desiring to be cured of leprosy from which he suffered owing to his father’s curse, dedicated a temple to the sun on the river Candrabhaga, but could find no Brahmans willing to officiate in it.  By the advice of Gauramukha, priest of King Ugrasena, confirmed by the sun himself, he imported some Magas from Sakadvipa,[1156] whither he flew on the bird Garuda.[1157] That this refers to the importation of Zoroastrian priests from the country of the Sakas (Persia or the Oxus regions) is made clear by the account of their customs—­such as the wearing of a girdle called Avyanga—­[1158]given by the Purana.  It also says that they were descended from a child of the sun called Jarasabda or Jarasasta, which no doubt represents Zarathustra.

The river Candrabhaga is the modern Chenab and the town founded by Samba is Mulasthana or Multan, called Mu-la-san-pu-lu by the Chinese pilgrim Hsuan Chuang.  The Bhavishya Purana calls the place Sambapuri and the Chinese name is an attempt to represent Mulasamba-puri.  Hsuan Chuang speaks enthusiastically of the magnificent temple,[1159] which was also seen by Alberuni but was destroyed by Aurungzeb.  Taranatha[1160] relates how in earlier times a king called Sri Harsha burnt alive near Multan 12,000 adherents of the Mleccha sect with their books and thereby greatly weakened the religion of Persians and Sakas for a century.  This legend offers difficulties but it shows that Multan was regarded as a centre of Zoroastrianism.