The Historical Greeks Who Transformed to Buddhism

It will exhausting­ly be notable to make the acquain­tance of a Greek Bud­dhist at the moment. Regardless of hav­ing orig­i­nat­ed in Asia, that reli­gion — or phi­los­o­phy, or lifestyle, or what­ev­er you pre­fer to name it — now has adher­ents everywhere in the world. Mod­ern-day Bud­dhists needn’t make an ardu­ous jour­ney with a purpose to beneath­take an much more ardu­ous course of examine beneath a rec­og­nized mas­ter; nor are the types of Bud­dhism they prac­tice at all times rec­og­niz­capable of the lay­man. What’s extra sur­pris­ing is that the trans­plan­ta­tion into and hybridiza­tion with oth­er cul­tures that has led to so many nov­el strains of Bud­dhism was happening even within the historic world.

Take, for examination­ple, the “Gre­co-Bud­dhism” described in the Reli­gion for Break­quick video above, the sto­ry of which includes a vari­ety of fas­ci­nat­ing fig­ures each uni­ver­sal­ly recognized and rel­a­tive­ly obscure. Probably the most well-known of all of them could be Alexan­der the Nice, who, as host Andrew Hen­ry places it, “con­quered a mas­sive empire stretch­ing from Greece throughout cen­tral Asia all the best way to the Indus Riv­er, Hel­l­eniz­ing the pop­u­la­tions alongside the best way.”

However “the cul­tur­al trade did­n’t simply go a method,” as evi­denced by the still-new Bud­dhist reli­gion additionally unfold­ing within the oth­er direc­tion, illus­trat­ed by items of textual content and artistic endeavors clear­ly formed by each civ­i­liza­tion­al cur­rents.

Oth­er main play­ers in Gre­co-Bud­dhism embody the philoso­pher Pyrrho of Elis, who trav­eled with Alexan­der and took concepts of the sus­pen­sion of judg­ment from Indi­a’s “fitness center­nosophists”; Ashoka, emper­or of the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent within the third cen­tu­ry BC, an avowed Bud­dhist who renounced vio­lence for com­pas­sion (and professionals­e­ly­ti­za­tion); and King Menan­der, “probably the most well-known Greek who con­vert­ed to Bud­dhism,” who seems as a char­ac­ter in an ear­ly Bud­dhist textual content. It may well nonetheless be dif­fi­cult to say for positive precise­ly who believed what in that peri­od, however it’s not exhausting to iden­ti­fy res­o­nances between Bud­dhist prin­ci­ples, broad­ly converse­ing, and people of such broad­ly recognized historic Greek colleges of thought as Sto­icism. Each of these perception sys­tems now hap­pen to have a great deal of cur­ren­cy in Sil­i­con Val­ley, although what lega­cy they’ll depart to be dis­cov­ered in its ruins a cou­ple mil­len­nia from now stays to be seen.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Take Harvard’s Intro­duc­to­ry Course on Bud­dhism, One among 5 World Reli­gions Class­es Provided Free On-line

Be taught the His­to­ry of Indi­an Phi­los­o­phy in a 62 Episode Collection from The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps: The Bud­dha, Bha­gavad-Gita, Non Vio­lence & Extra

One of many Previous­est Bud­dhist Man­u­scripts Has Been Dig­i­tized & Put On-line: Discover the Gand­hara Scroll

Breath­tak­ing­ly Detailed Tibetan E book Print­ed 40 Years Earlier than the Guten­berg Bible

Dis­cov­er the World’s Previous­est Uni­ver­si­ty, Which Opened in 427 CE, Housed 9 Mil­lion Man­u­scripts, and Then Edu­cat­ed Stu­dents for 800 Years

Con­cepts of the Hero in Greek Civ­i­liza­tion (A Free Har­vard Course)

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the guide The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by means of Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social internet­work for­mer­ly generally known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.