The Dawn and the Day; Or, The Buddha and the Christ, Part I — Inside the Classic

A Preface of Parallels and Polemics

Niles’s preface does not merely introduce; it establishes the poem’s intellectual stakes. He compares Humboldt’s observation of analogous flora on different continents to Max Müller’s discovery of “Dyaus Pitar” as a cognate for “Zeus Pater” and “Our Father.” This analogy serves to naturalize the presence of Christian-like truths in Buddhism without requiring direct borrowing. Niles explicitly rejects both the theory that Buddhists derived their ethics from Nestorian Christians and the counter-claim that Christianity borrowed from Buddhist missionaries. Instead, he posits a common divine source. The preface thus functions as a theological argument in miniature, preparing the reader to view the ensuing narrative not as mere story but as evidence of universal religious harmony.

Buddha’s Rhetoric of Moral Causality

In the central excerpt, Buddha’s intervention at the sacrifice is less a miracle than a sustained ethical lecture. He employs a series of similes to describe sin: it works “like corroding rust and eating moth,” “like poisoned blood,” “like deadly drug,” “like fell disease.” Each image emphasizes internal, automatic consequence rather than external punishment. The passage culminates in a garden metaphor: “patient labor, day by day, / Uprooting cherished evils one by one” is required to grow the “precious seed” of virtue. Niles’s Buddha does not invoke divine command but natural law—sin produces its own suffering, and reform requires gradual cultivation. The king and priests are persuaded not by authority but by the logic of these analogies, and the altar is replaced with flowers.

Landscape as Moral Geography

After the sacrifice scene, the poem shifts to a detailed description of the landscape as Siddhartha departs. The “five bold hills” and “two outer gates” of the mountain rampart are mapped with precision: the western gate opens “toward Gaya, through the red Barabar hills,” and the Phalgu River winds past lotus-covered plains. This geographical specificity grounds the narrative in a real topography, but Niles also uses it to mark a transition. Siddhartha becomes homeless—“Buddha had not whereon to lay his head”—and the description of his journey is juxtaposed with a meditation on how “men marked distance in those ancient times” versus the “headlong age” of the present. The landscape thus serves as both setting and symbol of the renunciation central to the Buddha’s path.

Readers should attend to how Niles balances narrative momentum with doctrinal exposition. The poem’s blank verse often shifts between concrete action (loosing the goat, walking through the gate) and extended simile or moral commentary. The preface’s argument about shared fundamentals versus divergent dogmas provides a lens for interpreting these shifts: the story illustrates the fundamentals, while the dogmatic differences may emerge in later parts not included here. This first part establishes a Buddha who teaches through analogy and example, setting the stage for a Christ whose teachings may be presented in parallel form.

I’ve often thought Niles’s Buddha, halting that poor goat with such gentle urgency, shares a quiet kinship with the psalmists’ pleading for mercy. Both knew the weight of blood and the ache for something holier. In The Dawn and the Day that cry feels ancient; in The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 1 Psalms I.-XXXVIII. — Text and Context it breathes again, just as raw.