A Voyage on Common Spiritual Roots Across Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam

Abstract

This article explores the structural and thematic similarities among four major world religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. It focuses on general cosmological beliefs, universal flood myths, theories of salvation and the debated notion of Buddhist influence on the historical figure of Jesus. By examining Theravāda canonical texts, Purāṇic literature, Biblical and Qur'anic writings and existing scholarship in comparative religion, the article argues that the identified similarities, especially flood narratives (such as Matsya, Noah, and Nūḥ), liberation hierarchies and the Vaishnavite interpretation of the Buddha as the ninth avatāra of Viṣṇu, are systematic and structurally significant enough to warrant scholarly study. The article employs a standard of evidence suitable for a comparative religion context, identifies claims lacking documentary support as hypotheses, acknowledges traditions that are debated within their own contexts, and avoids the common pitfall of asserting that all religions are identical. The posited central claim is more modest yet arguably more intriguing. These traditions exhibit recurring deep structures in soteriology and eschatology that require explanation, whether through shared prehistoric origins, independent parallel development or by combining both. The article elucidates on the documented convergence of the religions, a structural analogy and “contested contact” theory; thus, this hierarchy is for categorizing inter-religious parallels based on the quality of available evidence.