The Historical Greeks Who Transformed to Buddhism
It could onerously be notable to make the acquaintance of a Greek Buddhist right now. 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 as a way to beneathtake an much more arduous course of examine beneath a recognized master; nor are the types of Buddhism they practice at all times recognizin a position to 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 occurring even within the historic world.
Take, for examinationple, the “Greco-Buddhism” described in the Religion for Breakquick video above, the story of which entails a variety of fascinating figures each universally recognized and relatively obscure. Probably the most well-known of all of them can be Alexander the Nice, who, as host Andrew Henry places it, “conquered a massive empire stretching from Greece throughout central Asia all the way in which to the Indus River, Hellenizing the populations alongside the way in which.”
However “the cultural trade didn’t simply go a technique,” 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 execselytization); 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 possibly nonetheless be difficult to say for certain actually who believed what in that period, however it’s not onerous to identify resonances between Buddhist principles, broadly communicateing, 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.
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Primarily based 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 via Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social internetwork formerly often known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
