As far as I understand Buddhism did at least reach Afghanistan. Of course, the later expansion of Islam meant that this area was later lost to Buddhism, but how far west did it reach before the arrival of Islam?
If I had to guess, probably Kalmykia, which is now part of southern Russia. It's still mainly Bhuddist to this day from what I've heard.
Depends on what you mean by "reach". According to Strabo's Geography, a buddhist monk immolated himself in Athens in 13 A.D.
Ive heard people say Buddhism and Platonism are similar, but in many ways I would disagree...I was thinking more about where they were able to get many converts. Of course "many" is a relative word.
About Buddhists visiting Greece, this is interesting as it might have lead some to see similarities between Buddhism and Platonism.
I think both Platonism and Buddhism has been suggested as influences upon Gnosticism.
I'm not really convinced : influence of mysterion and more or less intellectualisation of Judaism by certain circles are enough to explain it without resorting to a clearly not present (without clear proofs) Buddhism and a Platonicism that self-indulged in contempt on Christianism.
Bud Judaism is about as far as you can get from Gnosticism. Judaism worships the creator god.
Judaism isn't exactly ony big monolithic things. As for every religion, you had its mystical, intellectuals groups; and it wasn't exactly immune to hellenistic influence.
But if they rejected Jahve as god, they would not really be Jews anymore.
I don't think you understand what Gnosticism is. It's not about rejecting God or Yahwe as God, but arguing there's more complexity (basically two-levels of religious understanding) to scriptures.
IOTL Gnosticism WAS Christian, just a different denomination. And Kabbalah or Merkabah isn't about not worshipping Yawhe.
It varies a lot from one Gnostic groups to another. Not all groups making demiurge distinction are gnostics (even if they may be influenced by) and all gnostics doesn't makes this distinction and when they do so, Yawhe isn't always assimilated to the demiurge (generally, it's far more vague, and maybe inspired by zoroastrianism, about two essences) as in Valentinian Gnosticism.Didn´t Christian Gnostics consider Jahve to be the demiurge, that is the imperfect creator god associated with matter and the flesh, while they considered Jesus to be the saviour God, associated with the soul and perfection.
But then again, I never said there was a Jewish gnose, but said that rather than looking at Buddhism, looking at Jewish intellectualist and/or mystic groups as influence to Christian gnosticism may be interesting.If this understanding is correct, then it is difficult to see how to make a Jewish form of Gnosticism, as Judaism is based on worshipping the creator god.
Depends on what you mean by "reach". According to Strabo's Geography, a buddhist monk immolated himself in Athens in 13 A.D.