communed with God.
In Milan the Swami was much impressed by the great cathedral and by Leonardo's
'Last Supper.' Pisa, with the leaning tower, and Florence, with its magnificent
achievements in art, immensely delighted him. But the peak of his happiness was
reserved for Rome, where he spent Christmas week. Many things there reminded him
of India: the tonsure of the priests, the incense, the music, the various ceremonies of
the Catholic Church, and the Holy Sacrament — the last of these recalling to his mind
the prasada of the Hindu temples, the food partaken of by devotees after it has been
offered to God.
When asked by a lady companion about the church ritual, the Swami said, 'If you love
the Personal God, then give Him your best — incense, flowers, fruit, and silk.' But he
was a little bewildered by the imposing High Mass at St. Peter's on Christmas Day, and
whispered to the Seviers: 'Why all this pageantry and ostentatious show? Can it be
possible that the Church which loves such a display of pomp and ceremonies is the true
follower of the humble Jesus, who had nowhere to lay his head?' He could never forget
that Christ was a sannyasin, a world-renouncing monk, and that the essence of his
teachings was renunciation and detachment.
He enjoyed his visit to the catacombs, associated with the memories of early Christian
martyrs and saints. The Christmas festival at Santa-Maria d'Ara Coeli, with the stalls
where sweets, toys, and cheap pictures of the Bambino were sold, reminded him of
similar religious fairs in India. Christmas in Rome filled his heart with a warm
devotion for Jesus Christ, who was an Asiatic and whom Asia had offered to the West
as a gift to awaken its spiritual consciousness.
The Swami spent a few days in Naples, visiting Vesuvius, Pompeii, and other places of
interest. Then the ship at last arrived from Southampton with Mr. Goodwin as one of
her passengers. The Swami and his friends sailed from Naples on December 30, 1896,
expecting to arrive in Colombo on January 15, 1897.
On board the ship the Swami had a significant vision. One night, somewhere between
Naples and Port Said, he saw in a vivid dream a venerable, bearded old man, like a
rishi of India, who said: 'Observe carefully this place. You are now in the Island of
Crete. This is the land where Christianity began. I am one of the Therapeutae who used
to live here.' The apparition uttered another word, which the Swami could not
remember. It might have been 'Essene,' a sect to which John the Baptist belonged.
Both the Therapeutae and the Essenes had practised renunciation and cherished a
liberal religious outlook. According to some scholars, the word Therapeutae may be
derived from the Buddhist word Sthaviraputtra or theraputta, meaning the sons or
disciples of the Theras, or Elders, the superiors among the Buddhist monks. The word
Essene may have some relation with Isiyana, meaning the Path of the Lord, a well-
known sect of Buddhist monks. It is now admitted that the Buddhists at an early time
had monasteries in Asia Minor, Egypt, and generally along the eastern part of the
Mediterranean.