This was the proclamation made on June 3, 1870 by F. Max Muller, described by Donald Lopez as “the most famous scholar of Asian Religion in the 19th century.” In a 2012 lecture at Harvard, Lopez offers a portion of Muller's full quote:
St. Josaphat is the Buddha of the Buddhist canon. It follows that Buddha has become a saint in the roman [Catholic] Church; it follows that, though under a different name, the sage of Kapilavastu, the founder of a religion which, whatever we may think of its dogma, is, in the purity of its morals, nearer to Christianity than any other religion, and which counts even now, after an existence of 2,400 years, more believers than any other creed, has received the highest honours that the Christian Church can bestow. And whatever we may think of the sanctity of saints, let those who doubt the right of Buddha to a place among them, read the story of his life as it is told in the Buddhistical canon. If he lived the life which is there described, few saints have a better claim to the title than Buddha; and no one either in the Greek or in the Roman Church need be ashamed of having paid to his memory the honor that was intended for St. Josaphat, the prince, and the saint.
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