Page 162 - Islam and Buddhism

Islam and Buddhism

tion [is] summoned to its Book"

(45: 28). These verses show us that
God could certainly have sent a
messenger to the Hindus; and one
of them could have been
Siddhartha Gautama. Buddhism
resembles revealed religion in an-
other one of its tenets: that

throughout history, prophets have
come to reveal the same truths to
humanity, but after them, human
followers have debased these reli-
gious truths. Indeed, after
Gautama's death, his teaching may
have lost its roots and become dis-
torted in just this way, mixing with
Buddhists, or those who convert to
the religions and cultures of the Buddhism out of a desire to imitate or
countries to which it spread, and attract attention do not realize how de-
ceived they are. Buddhism alienates
assimilating various local myths
them from all beauty and esthetical
and superstitions. (But of course, values and leads its followers into a
only God knows the truth.) realm of darkness and gloom.
In such case, doubtless the
real biography of Siddhartha Gautama would be much different from
the mythological stories about him that we know today. There exist

conflicting versions of his life story—a clear sign that the reality may
have been probably quite different from the "history" we are now fa-
miliar with. Some of the true moral principles that Buddhism pro-
motes lead us to believe that it might have developed from an
originally monotheistic religion. Western scholar J. M. Robertson ex-
plains the Buddhist belief of the "chain of prophets":

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