NÂRADA SÛTRA.

feel convinced that no system of religion belonging to so highly civilised, sensitive and emotional a race could omit the doctrine of love, the doctrine of the heart, as the complement to the doctrine of the understanding.

Bhakti Yoga original: "Bhakti Yoga" — The yoga of devotion or the path to spiritual liberation through love and surrender to the Divine. then, the “Doctrine of Salvation by Love and Devotion,” will everywhere be found permeating Indian thought. There is no need to try and account for its derivation by forced processes from a belated Christian doctrine of faith, which found its way into India in some way or other. The author is addressing a common academic debate of the time, where some Western scholars argued that any concept of "divine love" in Hinduism must have been copied from the New Testament. It is far more probable that the Indian doctrine of love found its way to Judea, perhaps through Buddhist priests who wandered far and wide, in the reign of the Buddhist Emperor Aśoka: A powerful Indian emperor (c. 268–232 BCE) who converted to Buddhism and sent diplomatic and religious missions as far as Greece and Egypt., and by his direction to Judea, Alexandria, etc., for details as to which the Aśoka inscriptions The "Edicts of Ashoka" are inscriptions on pillars and rocks throughout the Indian subcontinent that describe his policies and efforts to spread "Dhamma" (righteousness). can be studied.

“And he lets his mind pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of love, and so the second, and so the third, and This quote is likely from the Buddhist Suttas (scriptures), specifically describing the "Four Brahmaviharas" or Divine Abodes, where a practitioner radiates loving-kindness in all directions.