Ponniyin Selvan Varalaatru Peravai

Hi All,
I had happened to be reading Ancient India by R.C.Majumdar, around the same time this email was sent to the group. The following contents will be off-topic or deviating from the general interest of the group, but it will provide us a whole new way of looking at things that people profess evangically. Added to the I would recommend R.C. Majumdar as a must read to understand the hinduism's growth as a religion and from a history point of view.
Christian literature borrows heavily from the buddhist's literature. This is the view that many historians hold.
Reproducingexcerpts from the book "Ancient India" by R.C.Majumdar dealing from the pre-historic times till 1200AD. First edition came in the year 1952. Refer to Page No . 188 This section gives us an idea of how the christian thought itself is modelled on the Buddhists thought line and the Buddhists church model.
Buddhist Literature, A World Literature:
Buddhist literature rose to the rank o a world literature. It was studied all over Asia, and many of its legends, fables and anecdotes found their way into Europe. Nay it is even surmised by many, that the Christian gospels, and particularly the story of Christ's life, were profoundly influenced by the Buddhist canon. Rudolf Seydel, who has gone more deeply into this branch of study than any other scholar, has pointed out a close agreement between a larger number of Buddhist and Christian legends, parables and max indebted to a large extent to the Buddhist Literature. Laer scholars have disputed this theory, but have not been able to demolish it altogether. There is, however no doubt that the Apocrypha, which originated in the second and third century AD and is admitted by the Roman catholics inot the Old Testament, borrowed largely from the Buddhist literature.
Barlaam and Josaphat
The influence of Buddhism and Buddhist literature in euroope at a later date is most conspicuously illustrated by the "Barlaam and Josaphat", "one of the most widely spread religious romances of the middle ages, relating the conversion of the Indian prince Josaphat by the hermit Barlaam, his subsequent resistance to all forms of temptation, and his becoming a hermit. The whole story is 'nothing more or less than a christienised version of the legendary history of Buddha agreeing with it in all essentials and many details'. The romance was originally composed in the Pehlevi language about the sixth or the seventh century A.D. and translated in Arabic and Syriacat a later date. The syrian version was translated into Greek, and the Greek version was translated into many European languages. The book exists in Latin, French, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Italian, Spanish, German, English, Swedish, Dutch, Armenian, Russian and Rumanian versions, and was even translated
as early as 1204AD into Icelandic. It is also interesting to note that by the fourteenth century AD, Barlaam and Josphat were recognised as saints by the Holy Pope. Prof. Max Mueller has pointed out how Gautama, the buddhar under the name of St.Josaphat, is at the present day officially recognised and honoured thoroughout the Catholic christendom as a Saint of the church of christ.
Footnote: Josaphat is written in Arabic as Yudasatf which is simply a corruption of Bodhisat, the arabic letter y and b being often confused with each other. Barlaam is probably to be traced to "Bhagvan".
The Christian Lindtner Theory (CLT) of the Buddhist Origins ofthe New Testament Gospels
http://www.jesusisbuddha.com/thundy.html
http://www.jesusisbuddha.com/CLT.html
http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=122937
CLT theory has detailed material on how the New testament seems to be like an inspired gospel broadly and majorly on the lines of the Buddhist literature.
I wonder how these people would react to such a link.