The Ancient Greeks Who Converted to Buddhism

This is an

ancient

Buddhist inscription carved into a rock in eastern Afghanistan and it says Namo obodo Namo oo Namo oo For centuries Buddhists have recited some variation of this formula as an expression of Buddhist devotion by taking refuge or paying homage to the three jewels of the Buddhism that I take. I take refuge in Buddha I take refuge in the Dharma or the teachings of him I take refuge in the S, the Buddhist Community, but all the linguists in the audience will notice that this is not written in a Buddhist devotional language like Sanskrit or Poly. a rough transliteration from Sanskrit to Greek, technically Greco-Bactrian, a Hellenistic script based directly on the Greek alphabet.

It's a little hard to see the Greek letters here because it's recursive and carved into a rock, but you might recognize, for example, the letter Omega right here. So how is it possible that a Greco-Bactrian speaking Buddhist inscribed a Hayniz version of a Sanskrit mantra here in Afghanistan? Well, we owe a lot of this cultural mix to this guy, Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonia, who conquered a huge empire stretching from Greece to Central. Asia to the Indis Heniz River, populations along the way introduced the Greek language, Greek philosophy, and Greek urban life, but the cultural exchange was not just one way: Buddha had died between 100 and 150 years before Alejandro will arrive on scene. and around this time, the relatively new religion of Buddhism was beginning to make inroads in this same region, resulting in a unique cultural synthesis sometimes called Greco Buddhism.

So what do we know about the

ancient

Greeks who

converted

to Buddhism? Cultural exchange between the Greek Mediterranean world and what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwestern India dates back to 500 BC. C., the Greek historian Herodotus mentions a Greek explorer named skyx who undertook an expedition for the Persian ruler Darius I sailing the Indies through the Arabian Sea to Suz and archaeologists have also found a lot of Greek coins circulating in the region , so trade between these two regions was already Ono long before Alexander arrived on the scene, but he arrived, and in his wake came waves of Greek-speaking immigrants from the eastern Mediterranean who populated dozens of new Greek-style cities. with names that sound familiar, if you have ever studied Greek or Roman history, cities like Antioch and of course Alexandria, there are so many Alexandrias here.

Some scholars think that the archaeological site I visited in Afghanistan was one of those Alexandrias in the oxys. a city founded by general alexander ccas on the oxis river that runs through central asia. This identification is now debated, but whatever this city was originally called, historians call icum an outpost of the Hellenistic code. It had all the essential elements for a sophisticated Greek life, a theater and Greek gym. columns everywhere and it wasn't just the architecture, archaeologists have also found evidence of Greek religion and philosophy here too, the gymnasium was dedicated to the god Hermes and the hero Hercules, archaeologists have found here a fragment of papyrus from the Greek philosophy and a local politician.

He even inscribed some maxims from the Oracle of Deli on his tomb, as one historian Yorgos Halia says: Clearly we are not talking about trading posts or military garrisons, here we are talking about vibrant Greek cities that formed powerful kingdoms henis first you have the sald Empire that dominated the region until the ruler Diodotus I decided to change things and separate, forming his own independent kingdom that historians call the Greco-Bactrians. Fast forward to the 2nd century BC. C., the Greco-Bactrians invaded what is now southern Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India, establishing dynasties that historians call the Indo-Greek kingdoms, these were kingdoms with diverse populations, descended from Greek-speaking people of the Mediterranean. who integrated with the Indians, Persians and other ethnic groups of Central Asia.

The Greeks were taking Indian names and the Indians were taking Greek names and with all this cultural exchange, indeed. We also begin to see religious exchange, we see a fascinating example of a possible Buddhist and Greek crossover with the philosopher Piro de Ellis. Pyrus traveled with Alexander to India as part of Alexander's entourage and yes, Alexander traveled with a group of philosophers while he was at war because who? does not need an existential debate while on the battlefield The bitter Greek report that Alexander and his mobile philosophy department spent a lot of time interacting with Indian philosophers and this was deliberate.

Alexander's philosophers sought audiences with them, some of whom were probably Buddhists. Pyrus himself spent months and possibly years in northwestern India, as well as in the city of Taxila in Pakistan and, according to the Greek biographer Diogenes Larus, it was here that he met the gymnosists of India, the so-called naked sages, and this led him to adopt a The noblest philosophy now we do not know who these naked sages were, presumably some kind of Indian atheistic group and they may not even have been Buddhists, but many scholars believe that they were and, in any case, Piro He returned home to develop a beautiful Buddhist sound.

Philosophy to finish that quote from Diogenes, this led him to adopt a very noble philosophy taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgment. He denied that anything was honorable or dishonorable, just or unjust and so universally held that there is nothing really existing in other words. P was suggesting a radical disengagement from the judgments and dualities that plague our perceptions. One of Piro's students, Timone, adds more layers on a surviving fragment. Dog declared that things are equally undifferentiated, immeasurable and undecidable, for this reason neither our sensations nor our opinions tell us the truth. or falsehoods, therefore, for this reason we must not trust them even a little, but must be stubborn, uncompromising and unwavering.

Many have noted that this sounds like a radical form of skepticism. PIR basically said that we cannot trust our senses and reasoning and therefore should not trust dogmatic opinions about the nature of reality, but scholars have noted that his ideas do not simply sound like generic philosophical skepticism, but specifically like ideas found in early Buddhist thought, especially ideas found in the Mam School traditionally founded by the Narina Buddhist philosopher, the Medam school, developed philosophies about the nature of reality, particularly the concept of shunyata or emptiness, which which means that all phenomena are devoid or empty of intrinsic existence, which is very similar to Piro's belief that nothing really exists, and both Manam and Paronian thought are used.

The logical tool known as a tetralemma when evaluating a truth statement is called a tetralemma rather than a dilemma because it has four parts: the proposition can be true, not true, true and false, or neither true nor false. The tetralemma is very popular in Indian philosophy. so its appearance in Piro's philosophy is notable. The Paronian texts also say that the ultimate goal of this suspension of judgment is to achieve aoia, a state of serene Tranquility that some have compared to the Buddhist concept of Awakening by not adhering to rigid beliefs and recognizing uncertainty. and contradictions and all truth claims, one can remain unperturbed by the variability of the world.

These connections led him to call Piro a Buddhist for Greece. Now, to be clear, this connection has not been definitively proven and critics of the theory have pointed out that the mamic school. It emerged a few hundred years after Pyrus, but many scholars think there are too many connections to early Buddhist philosophy to be a coincidence in the centuries after Alexander the Great expanded into these regions. With a little help from one of the most famous Buddhist emperors of all time Emperor Ashoka of the Moran dynasty, who ruled almost the entire Indian subcontinent from about 268 to 232 BC.

C., like many larger-than-life historical figures, later generations created all kinds of fantastic legends about him and for a long time that's really all we knew about him. as a historical figure until 1837, it was then that the Brahi script was deciphered and suddenly historians realized that they had almost direct access to Asoka himself by translating Ashoka's edicts into an inscription, he declares, you know how great my reverence and faith in the Buddha, the Dharma and the S note here that the formulation of the three jewels, since it turns out that Ashoka had less to do with conquest and more to do with conversion, at least initially Ashoka may have had an experience of dramatic conversion and sometimes in his edicts references overwhelmed by remorse for having ordered the death of tens of thousands of people in his conquests is read in an edict.

From that moment on, compassion and sadness invaded him and he was very anguished by the how he had acted after converting to Buddhism which he apparently sponsored as a missionary. efforts throughout his kingdom and abroad, even sending missionaries as far away as the Mediterranean, the conquest by Dharma has been repeatedly won by Ashoka both here and across all borders and continues until Nam drop. Hellenistic kings like Antiochus II of Syria and tmy II of Egypt, if you are not exaggerating, this means that Buddhist missionaries were mixing with Egyptians and Greeks in the 3rd century BC. C., in the same edict he then says that the Greeks closest to home were also becoming here in the king's territory, among the Greeks everywhere where the people are.

In accordance with Ashoka's instructions in darkness, these edicts were multilingual with Aramaic and Greek translations side by side and historians think that these edicts were made specifically to introduce Buddhist ethics among the Hellenic people of Asia and we see hints that Buddhism is being repackaged for a Greek-speaking language. audience in another inscription the concept of Dharma was translated with the Greek word Yia Yia as Dharma is a semantically rich word that we could translate as piety, reverence towards the gods or filial respect. Ashoka's Greek translators apparently chose this as the best way to translate the Buddha's message, Ashoka called their efforts a conquest of the Dharma and even references a special rank within his government called Dharma Commissioners, presumably a kind of government official who traveled helping to establish Buddhism in major towns and cities and his efforts apparently worked.

An edict refers to those who are devoted to the Dharma among the Greeks and Persians The Greeks were beginning to convert to Buddhism Chief among them was King Menander, the most famous Greek to convert to Buddhism, at least according to historian Olga Kubaka . Well, it's complicated CU, it's possible that there were two Manders kings. Menander the First, who ruled an Indo-Greek kingdom from 165 to 130 BC. C. and a later king, Menander II, who may have been his grandson, but in any case a king Menander is the main character of an early Buddhist text, Melinda panha or Melinda's questions about this text.

It possibly dates back to 10,000 BC. C. and is a philosophical dialogue between King Melinda, generally identified as King Menander I, and a Buddhist monk named Nagina in the text. Mander plays the skeptic grilling Nagasena with a bunch of questions about Buddhism, but Nagina expertly answers each one. and each question and finally Mander decides to convert, while the text probably describes a legendary encounter, other evidence supports the broad outlines of the story that an Indo-Greek king named Mander

converted

to Buddhism, for example see the so-called cat reliquary Shin, this was a Round Stone Container discovered in northern Pakistan and is said to have originally contained a coffin inside with some ashes.

An inscription on the lid of the box refers to the reign of Maharaja Manra, the great King Mander, and goes on to describe that it contains the bodily relics of the Lord, the sage Shakya, the Buddha himself. Now, this inscription doesn't have much to go on and doesn't definitively prove that Menander was a practicing Buddhist, but it does suggest that he is more than just a fanatic and perhaps even a patron of Buddhism. Menander. He may have commissioned reliquaries like this and endowed buildings called stupas to house them, perhaps to gain public favor, moral authority, or enhance his own legitimacy as a ruler.

Most scholars identify this menander as mander, whose fame dates back even to the Mediterranean world. Plutarch writes that Mander the first died in a military camp and his ashes were distributed evenly among several cities and stored in what he calls memorials which scholars believe is a reference to stupas. If Plutarch is right, this may lend credibilityto the idea that Menander I had converted and may have even achieved an exalted status as an awakened being with his Buddhist subjects venerating his relics, so it appears that during Menander's reign Buddhism was already establishing itself in elite circles indog

greeks

.

Menander's son issued coins like this where he is labeled as a dhaca follower of Dharma and over the centuries we began to see evidence of religious syncretism or hybridization. Look at this coin from Mander II showing the god Zeus enthroned alongside the goddess Nike and right here the Dharma chakra, the eight-spoke wheel of the Dharma that represents Buddhist teachings, the historian Yorgos Hulas I mentioned earlier has argued that attitudes religious traditions of the Indo-Greeks may have helped this syncretism. He says that for the most part the Indog Greeks were followers of various Hellenistic and foreign cults, so they adopted the image of Buddha's hero worship. it would have been adopted without much difficulty along with all the ritual practices that accompany everyday Buddhism: reciting prayers, propitiating deities, venerating relics, etc.

Greek Buddhism is also sometimes referred to as an artistic movement, although modern historians criticize the terminology. Gonda Buddhist artworks now appear to be from northwestern Pakistan and northeastern Afghanistan. They may be influenced by Greek artistic methods or even crafted by Greek artists, for example, Buddhist sculptures like these depict the Buddha or bodhisatta mraa with lifelike features wearing a robe resembling a curtain seen in Greek sculptures of the early 20th century, the French scholar Alfred Fuche coined the phrase Greco Buddhism to refer to these sculptures saying that all these technical details surprisingly indicate the hand of an artist of some Greek studio basically fuche was arguing that only the Greeks could produce such masterpieces, this of course is not true, definitely local artists could make them and that is why historians have since debated how to characterize this art.

Historian Olga Kubaka argues that we cannot exclude the idea that Greek artists made them, but neither can we evaluate their role with precision. Others argue that these sculptures and others like them actually date from a century or more after the fall of the Indog Greek kingdoms, so it is more likely that these works arose from later interactions with the Roman Empire with local artists imitating the art. imported Roman or Roman artists who moved to Gonda to create prestigious commissions for the local rich. Regardless of the connoisseurs, it is clear that Buddhist art of this era borrowed from Greco-Roman imagery, such as figures resembling Hercules and the goddess.

These two appear in the artwork of the Kusan dynasty and the iconography appears to have been borrowed to represent local deities or bodhisattvas, the Bodhisatwa Vajrapani for example being frequently depicted as a Hercules-like figure. Vajrapani is recognized as a protector and companion of Buddha and these artists were apparently familiar with Hercules as a powerful hero and used these attributes to communicate Vran's own qualities as a guardian, as well as local goddesses such as Ardoo and The hariti are sometimes depicted with The attributes of the Greek goddess Taii holding a large Cornucopia or a boat. Examples of helm like this are often labeled syncretism, commonly understood as the blending of different religious traditions, but I think syncretism is often oversimplified, the term itself implies. two distinct monolithic entities, Hellenistic culture on the one hand and Buddhism on the other, merging like a diagram you see, but in real-world scenarios, ideas, practices and artistic expressions from different cultures often combine and influence each other in ways complex and asymmetrical.

Scholars in recent years describe syncretism. more like a process of indigenization or localization when individuals in one local culture actively seek to make sense of another culture on their own terms and idioms. The Greek translator who decided to translate Ashoka's Dharma with the Greek word Yia was participating in a syncretism trying to make sense of it. of a different concept in the Greek term itself, compare this with the inscription at the beginning of this video. Whoever carved this inscription decided not to fully translate the original Mantra into Greco-Bactrian words, but still used Greco-Bactrian letters, so the Mantra could be read and pronounced, the pronunciation and readability mattered more than the meaning, for example, how Christians Today they can sing Hallelujah without knowing the original Hebrew meaning of the word.

Greek Buddhism thus illustrates the often deliberate and selective adaptation that occurs when different cultures meet during the last few months. I've been promoting the Archeology Hunting video series that follows our hosts Lorraine and Stephanie as they learn how to survive in the Paleolithic Era, how to forage for food, how to make stone tools, and how to start a fire, and they finally made it to the episode in the We've all been waiting, or at least what I've been waiting for, the spear episode. I'm not the only one who thinks the spear is the coolest weapon, right?

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