Madame Blavatsky connects the periodic incarnations of mankind’s Great Saviours: Krishna, Gautama, and Jesus

Book excerpt: Whenever there is a decline of virtue, an uprising of vice and injustice in the world, a Great Soul incarnates on earth for the establishment of righteousness, the destruction of the wicked, and the preservation of the just. The Hindu Redeemer preceded the Christian by some thousands of years; between the two, Gautama Buddha, reflected Krishna (who appears in every yuga) and projected into the night of the future his own luminous shadow, out of whose collected rays were shaped the outlines of the mythical Jesus, and from whose teachings were drawn those of the historical Christos. Krishna, Gautama, and Jesus appeared like true gods, each in his epoch, and bequeathed to humanity three great religions built on the imperishable rock of ages. If their religions are cleansed from the dross of priestly dogmas, they will be found to be identical for the primitive truths of all three rest on one foundation, the Archaic Wisdom Religion. Kapila, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Basilides, Marcian, Ammonius and Plotinus, founded schools and sowed the germs of many a noble thought and, disappearing, left behind them the refulgence of demi-gods. As Mussulmans will not admit that their Koran is built on the substratum of the Jewish Bible, so the Christians will not confess that they owe next to everything to the Hindu religions. The most praiseworthy Christians are modified Buddhists, though probably not one of them ever heard of Prince Siddhartha. Cruelty and mercy are finite feelings. But the Supreme Deity is infinite, hence it can only be Just, and Justice must be blind. The doctrine of Vicarious Atonement is one of the most demoralizing of doctrines. Even the faintest glimmering sense of Justice revolts against such a pernicious dogma of atonement by proxy and salvation by prayer. The effects of a cause are never limited to the boundaries of the cause, nor can the results of crime be confined to the offender and his victim. The action may be instantaneous, the effects are eternal.