It is an extraordinary fact, a twofold one which nobody seems to have observed and bestowed the special attention which is its due, that first, the Maitreya, the Preacher of Love and Faith, whose coming Gautama prophesied, did actually come in the person of Jesus, and second, that the only figure of Buddha to be found anywhere in Asia portrayed sitting in Western fashion is that of the Maitreya, a huge hundred-feet-high gilded giant in the praying-hall of the picturesque monastery of Basgo, near the Western borders of Tibet. The Orientals to whom Buddha came generally squatted or sat with folded legs on the floor, whereas the Occidentals, among whom Jesus' message was chiefly spread, have generally sat on chairs since the sixteenth century, while their rulers, leaders, and nobles--like those in Egypt and elsewhere--sat on thrones for ceremonial occasions.
-- Notebooks Category 15: The Orient > Chapter 2 : India Part 1 > # 340
