Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2021 4:53 am
Fragm. XLIII.
Clem. Alex. Strom. I. p. 305, A, B (ed. Colon. 1688).
Of the Philosophers of India.*
[*Philosophy, then, with all its blessed advantages to man, flourished long ages ago among the barbarians, diffusing its light among the Gentiles, and eventually penetrated into Greece. Its hierophants were the prophets among the Egyptians, the Chaldaeans among the Assyrians, the Druids among the Gauls, the Sarmanaeans who were the philosophers of the Baktrians and the Kelts, the Magi among the Persians, who, as you know, announced beforehand the birth of the Saviour, being led by a star till they arrived in the land of Judaea, and among the Indians the Gymnosophists, and other philosophers of barbarous nations.]
There are two sects of these Indian philosophers — one called the Sarmanai and the other the Brachmanai. Connected with the Sarmanai are the philosophers called the Hylobioi,*...
[*The reading of the MSS is Allobioi.]
who neither live in cities nor even in houses. They clothe themselves with the bark of trees, and subsist upon acorns, and drink water by lifting it to their mouth with their hands. They neither marry nor beget children (like those ascetics of our own day called the Enkratetai. Among the Indians are those philosophers also who follow the precepts of Boutta, whom they honour as a god on account of his extraordinary sanctity.)*
[*V. 1. [x]. — The passage admits of a different rendering: "They (the Hylobioi) are those among the Indians who follow the precepts of Boutta." Colebrooke in his Observations on the Sect of the Jains, has quoted this passage from Clemens to controvert the opinion that the religion and institutions of the orthodox Hindus are more modern than the doctrines of Jina and of Buddha. "Here," he says, "to my apprehension, the followers of Buddha are clearly distinguished from the Brachmanes and Sarmanes. The latter, called Germanes by Strabo, and Samanaeans by Porphyrius, are the ascetics of a different religion, and may have belonged to the sect of Jina, or to another. The Brachmanes are apparently those who are described by Philostratus and Hierocles as worshipping the sun; and by Strabo and by Arrian as performing sacrifices for the common benefit of the nation, as well as for individuals ... They are expressly discriminated from the sect of Buddha by one ancient author, and from the Sarmanes (a) (Samana is the Pali form of the older Sramana.) or Samanaeans (ascetics of various tribes) by others. They are described by more than one authority as worshipping the sun, as performing sacrifices, and as denying the eternity of the world, and maintaining other tenets incompatible with the supposition that the sects of Buddha or Jina could be meant. Their manners and doctrine, as described by those authors, are quite conformable with the notions and practice of the orthodox Hindus. It may therefore be confidently inferred that the followers of the Vedas flourished in India when it was visited by the Greeks under Alexander, and continued to flourish from the time of Megasthenes, who described them in the fourth century before Christ, to that of Porphyrius, who speaks of them, on later authority, in the third century after Christ."]
Clem. Alex. Strom. I. p. 305, A, B (ed. Colon. 1688).
Of the Philosophers of India.*
[*Philosophy, then, with all its blessed advantages to man, flourished long ages ago among the barbarians, diffusing its light among the Gentiles, and eventually penetrated into Greece. Its hierophants were the prophets among the Egyptians, the Chaldaeans among the Assyrians, the Druids among the Gauls, the Sarmanaeans who were the philosophers of the Baktrians and the Kelts, the Magi among the Persians, who, as you know, announced beforehand the birth of the Saviour, being led by a star till they arrived in the land of Judaea, and among the Indians the Gymnosophists, and other philosophers of barbarous nations.]
There are two sects of these Indian philosophers — one called the Sarmanai and the other the Brachmanai. Connected with the Sarmanai are the philosophers called the Hylobioi,*...
[*The reading of the MSS is Allobioi.]
who neither live in cities nor even in houses. They clothe themselves with the bark of trees, and subsist upon acorns, and drink water by lifting it to their mouth with their hands. They neither marry nor beget children (like those ascetics of our own day called the Enkratetai. Among the Indians are those philosophers also who follow the precepts of Boutta, whom they honour as a god on account of his extraordinary sanctity.)*
[*V. 1. [x]. — The passage admits of a different rendering: "They (the Hylobioi) are those among the Indians who follow the precepts of Boutta." Colebrooke in his Observations on the Sect of the Jains, has quoted this passage from Clemens to controvert the opinion that the religion and institutions of the orthodox Hindus are more modern than the doctrines of Jina and of Buddha. "Here," he says, "to my apprehension, the followers of Buddha are clearly distinguished from the Brachmanes and Sarmanes. The latter, called Germanes by Strabo, and Samanaeans by Porphyrius, are the ascetics of a different religion, and may have belonged to the sect of Jina, or to another. The Brachmanes are apparently those who are described by Philostratus and Hierocles as worshipping the sun; and by Strabo and by Arrian as performing sacrifices for the common benefit of the nation, as well as for individuals ... They are expressly discriminated from the sect of Buddha by one ancient author, and from the Sarmanes (a) (Samana is the Pali form of the older Sramana.) or Samanaeans (ascetics of various tribes) by others. They are described by more than one authority as worshipping the sun, as performing sacrifices, and as denying the eternity of the world, and maintaining other tenets incompatible with the supposition that the sects of Buddha or Jina could be meant. Their manners and doctrine, as described by those authors, are quite conformable with the notions and practice of the orthodox Hindus. It may therefore be confidently inferred that the followers of the Vedas flourished in India when it was visited by the Greeks under Alexander, and continued to flourish from the time of Megasthenes, who described them in the fourth century before Christ, to that of Porphyrius, who speaks of them, on later authority, in the third century after Christ."]
As Bareau, Schopen, and other scholars have begun showing, the traditional stories, including even much of the canon, cannot be dated to anywhere near the time of the Buddha himself. Even the epithet "Buddha" does not appear in the Greek sources until Clement of Alexandria (mid-second to early third century AD), though it does appear on a Kushan coin of Kanishka I (r. first half of the second century AD), where it is written in Bactrian spelling [x] 'Buddha' http://www.bpmurphy.com/cotw/week2.htm, and bodhi 'awakening' is attested in the early third-century AD Major Inscriptions of king Devanampriya Priyadarsi, q. v. Chapter Two and Appendix C. Megasthenes, Pyrrho's contemporary, refers to Buddhists as Sarmanes, the Sramanas of the Mauryan inscription fragments in Greek. The word Sramana was the unambiguous term for 'Buddhists', and was still used exclusively in that sense in the Middle Ages, as shown in Chapter Two.
-- Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith