166 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY AND

"She 1, having gone to the foot of a well-omened Sal-tree, became desirous of grasping a branch of the Sal-tree. The Sal-tree branch, having bent down like the end of a stick well softened with steam, came within the reach of the princess's hand. She, having stretched out her hand, seized the branch. ... Childbirth came upon her just as she stood, grasping the branch of the Sal-tree."

The differences between this and the account of Christ's birth as related in the passage in the Qur'an which we have quoted above are but slight. Muhammad mentions a palm-tree, the best-known of all trees to an Arab, in place of the species of flowering tree mentioned in the Buddhist book, since the Sal-tree of India does not grow in Arabia. Doubtless the legend had changed in this way in its transmission, as is generally the case in similar tales. The Indian legend intimates that the exertion made by Buddha's mother in reaching after the flowers growing on the branch above her head brought on the child's birth unexpectedly. The Qur'an seems to give no such good reason at all for the birth occurring below the palm-tree. But the stories are evidently one and the same. We notice here, as in the Qur'an, that the tree bent down its
1 "Sa mangalasalamulam gantva salasakhayam ganhitukama ahosi. Salasakha suseditavettagam viya onamitva deviya hatthapatham upaganchi. Sa hattham pasaretva sakham aggahesi. ... Salasakham gahetva titthamanaya eva c'assa gabbhavutthanam ahosi."
CHRISTIAN APOCRYPHAL BOOKS. 167

branches to let Maya pluck the flowers, — or, as the Qur'an has it, let its ripe dates fall upon Mary.

The other account of this latter incident, — that given in the apocryphal Gospel, — is connected with the Flight into Egypt, when our Lord was an infant. This is parallel with what we read in the Cariya-Pitakam, (cap. i., poem ix.). There we are informed that in a former birth Buddha was a prince called Vessantaro. Having offended his people, he was banished from his kingdom, along with his wife and two little children. As they wandered towards the distant mountains, where they wished to find an asylum, the children became hungry. Then, the Buddhist narrative tells us:—

"If 1 the children see fruit-bearing trees on the mountain-side, the children weep for their fruit. Having seen the children weeping, the great lofty
1 Verses 34, 35:—

"Yadi passanti pavane darika phalite dume,
tesam phalanam hetumhi uparodanti darika.
Rodante darike disva ubbidha vipula duma,
Sayem ev' onamitvana upagacchanti darike."

The story of Buddha's birth under a tree is also found in the Romantic History of Buddha, translated by Beal from the Chinese Sanskrit (p. 43), and also in the Phu-yau-king (ibid., p. 347).
The fancy that Mary was brought up in the Temple is, of course, along with the name of her mother Anna (Hannah), derived from the account of Samuel's dedication by his mother Hannah. But it is an evidence of great ignorance to imagine the same thing possible in the case of a girl, and still more so to say, as the apocryphal books do, that Mary was brought up in the Holy of Holies!