Ernst Christian Ludwig von Bunsen or Ernest de Bunsen (1819 in Rome – 1903 in London) was an Anglo-German writer whose speculative works proposing common origins of Buddhism, Essene Judaism and Christianity were later taken up as part of racist Aryan mythology.
[5][6] Ernest was educated at Berlin in a school for cadets and served in the Prussian Guards.
"[12] According to Bunsen the account of Genesis was to be read that Adam was the first Aryan, and the serpent in Eden the first Semite.
[13] Bunsen's theory that the "doctrine of the Angel-Messiah in Buddhism," as he called it, was transmitted first to the Essenes and then to Christianity fared little better in Britain than the theories of the British officer in India, Arthur Lillie, who converted to Buddhism and became the author of a number of texts on religion (and croquet).
[14] His residence was at Abbey Lodge, a house bought for him and his wife in 1849 by his father-in-law in Hanover Terrace overlooking Regent′s Park, in Westminster.