How far west did Buddhism reach?

I followed that link, and it took me to the forward of the work, and I couldn't find any references to 'buddhist' or 'immolation', for instance.

Geography said:
"From one place in India, and from one king, namely, Pandion, or, according to others, Porus, presents and embassies were sent to Augustus Caesar. With the ambassadors came the Indian Gymnosophist, who committed himself to the flames at Athens, like Calanus, who exhibited the same spectacle in the presence of Alexander."

Geography XV said:
This writer states that at Antioch, near Daphne, he met with ambassadors from the Indians, who were sent to Augustus Cæsar. It appeared from the letter that several persons were mentioned in it, but three only survived, whom he says he saw. The rest had died chiefly in consequence of the length of the journey. The letter was written in Greek upon a skin; the import of it was, that Porus was the writer, that although he was sovereign of six hundred kings, yet that he highly esteemed the friendship of Cæsar; that he was willing to allow him a passage through his country, in whatever part he pleased, and to assist him in any undertaking that was just.

Eight naked servants, with girdles round their waists, and fragrant with perfumes, presented the gifts which were brought. The presents were a Hermes (i. e. a man) born without arms, whom I have seen, large snakes, a serpent ten cubits in length, a river tortoise of three cubits in length, and a partridge (?) larger than a vulture. They were accompanied by the person, it is said, who burnt himself to death at Athens. This is the practice with persons in distress, who seek escape from existing calamities, and with others in prosperous circumstances, as was the case with this man. For as everything hitherto had succeeded with him, he thought it necessary to depart, lest some unexpected calamity should happen to him by continuing to live; with a smile, therefore, naked, anointed, and with the girdle round his waist, he leaped upon the pyre. On his tomb was this inscription,—ZARMANOCHEGAS, AN INDIAN, A NATIVE OF BARGOSA, HAVING IMMORTALIZED HIMSELF ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF HIS COUNTRY, HERE LIES.

That he was Buddhist is matter to speculation, that said.
 
IOTL, Buddhism was more assimilated to an obscure mysteria or a philosophy than a religion by Greco-Romans. Which was the best you could have, granted they were really cautious about foreign cults they couldn't assimilate or identify to their own (and Buddhism would be radically different from these).

I agree. It's hard to see how people with a weird alien art like this:

Buddha-Vajrapani-Herakles.JPG


could ever assimilate into classical culture.

Buddhism if anything would be more assimilationist than Christianity, since it has no problem weaving local religions in. "Have you heard how Demeter made the Earth quake to testify as to the Buddha's merit?"
 
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.

The systematical identification is eventually more due to pre-Niceans and Niceans Christians scholars, rather than what Gnostics and Gnose followers may have said about themselves. Their extreme variety makes actual systematisation hard.


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.

I guess i have to read more about that in order to understand it. I seached up Valentinianism. According to Wikipedia, Valentinians identified the God of the Old Testament as the Demiurge.

Is Zoroastrianism a form of Gnosticism?
 

fi11222

Banned
Buddhism was present at least as far west as Hormuz in pre-Islamic times, as Buddhist symbols exist on Qeshm island, and there were Buddhists in the Arsacid royal court.
Yes and there were apparently Buddhists in appreciable numbers in Sassanian Mesopotamia. Mani, who was an aramaic-speaking subject of the Sassanians, mentions Buddha by name and included explicit Buddhist references in his religious synthesis. For this to be possible, there must have been an appreciable Buddhist minority in Mesopotamia at the time. And where there are Buddhists, there are monks. And where there are monks, there are Viharas.
 
Yes and there were apparently Buddhists in appreciable numbers in Sassanian Mesopotamia. Mani, who was an aramaic-speaking subject of the Sassanians, mentions Buddha by name and included explicit Buddhist references in his religious synthesis. For this to be possible, there must have been an appreciable Buddhist minority in Mesopotamia at the time. And where there are Buddhists, there are monks. And where there are monks, there are Viharas.

Manichaeism is a Gnostic religion, isn´t it? If he was influenced by Buddhism, it shows that at least ''one'' Gnostic group was influenced by Buddhism. Of course there are also big differences, I am not saying that Manichaeism was a Buddhist religion.
 
I agree. It's hard to see how people with a weird alien art like this:

Buddha-Vajrapani-Herakles.JPG


could ever assimilate into classical culture.

Buddhism if anything would be more assimilationist than Christianity, since it has no problem weaving local religions in. "Have you heard how Demeter made the Earth quake to testify as to the Buddha's merit?"

Whilst I could see buddhism becoming mainstream in Greece, there are hurdles that buddhism was fortunate to bypass.
Namely, Indic-Sinic civilisations had themes that buddhism could adapt itself to quite well. Obviously more so in India being the land of its birth, but Daoism having well established itself through the Far East was fortunate for buddhism as it enabled the super hard to grasp idea of emptiness to be grasped by people as a norm. When it comes to emptiness and karma, western civilisations are going to have a hard time adapting to that.
 
Namely, Indic-Sinic civilisations had themes that buddhism could adapt itself to quite well. Obviously more so in India being the land of its birth, but Daoism having well established itself through the Far East was fortunate for buddhism as it enabled the super hard to grasp idea of emptiness to be grasped by people as a norm. When it comes to emptiness and karma, western civilisations are going to have a hard time adapting to that.

Buddhism is not just a bunch of people seeking nirvana. Look at Pure Land Buddhism as an example of how Buddhism developed, and Pure Land Buddhism has antecedents going back to the early common era.
 
Buddhism is not just a bunch of people seeking nirvana. Look at Pure Land Buddhism as an example of how Buddhism developed, and Pure Land Buddhism has antecedents going back to the early common era.

Not sure where you got me saying buddhism is just people seeking nirvana from what I said...

My point is that buddhism whilst a universalist religion still needed something to latch onto. Even in a religion which changes so drastically as budhism (e.g. I would argue there are more differences between even mainstream (or perhaps for the same of the point "non zen") Mahayana and it's offspring Zen/Chan than there is between Christianity and Islam), wherever it spread it had cultural links that monks could use to explain both the basics and the more indepth elements of the tradition, both of which you need to have both practitioners and preachers.

There isn't anything that fits that well west. A more commonplace stoicism or higher praised cynicism could be avenues in, but w.e. Th case may be, something always was there for buddhism to translate itself across cultural boundaries.
 
Not sure where you got me saying buddhism is just people seeking nirvana from what I said...

You are saying that in China, Daoism makes emptiness the norm. Whether that is true (something I think people praying to Guanyin would probably disagree with!) this is not what Buddhism, especially lay Buddhism, was about.
 
You are saying that in China, Daoism makes emptiness the norm. Whether that is true (something I think people praying to Guanyin would probably disagree with!) this is not what Buddhism, especially lay Buddhism, was about.
Ignoring the fact that one’s understanding of emptiness =/= Nirvana alone, there is a difference between the norm, and a cultural norm.


So obviously china was not filled with people who had deep insight into emptiness. China was however filled with people who had a passing familiarity with Daoism, an emptiness driven philosophy as something “normal” and vaguely understood.


With Christianity we see this a lot. The whole of Europe is very familiar with Christianity, but is generally unfamiliar with some of the larger doctrinal points. The Logos for instance which is one of the key doctrines of Trinitarian Christianity would be unfamiliar with most, but because of a long history of western rationalism going back to stoicism (which laid down the foundations and indeed coined the doctrine for the most part) it is something that is easy to explain and assimilate into an understanding of Christianity.


This is important because of the nature of convertors and priests. Buddhism in particular as a religion which in every sect has authority on some level (e.g. communally the Sangha, personally the local monk) is going to be the kind of person who wants to invest themselves into the religion and thus naturally seeks out the deeper doctrinal influences. Not only are they pointless without it (for beyond knowledge and practice of the religion, why would people bother being a monk/going to see a monk?) but it is also essential to understanding what you should teach laymen which going back to Siddhartha has guidelines and suggestions that differ depending on the student’s understanding of the Dharma.
Now for a religion like Buddhism to survive in the west (beyond some modern day digital adaptations which go beyond the span of the OP question) it needs to have both adherents who are going to be laymen (who do not need to understand the greater doctrines) but also the kind of people who are going to dedicate themselves to the path to then guide the laymen/ continue on the spread.


So when we look at Daoism, it has a lot going for it in this regard. It is far easier to make somebody an effective monk when from a young age they at least have a vague understanding of emptiness. Likewise as far west as it managed to hold significant ground, it did so with cultures which also had ideas of Dharma and Karma from their links to India or Indo-Iranian civilisation.
 
I agree. It's hard to see how people with a weird alien art like this
Someone's feeling snarky today? You may have overlooked this, but this depiction is a Greco-Buddhist one.

And, surprisingly, what did I said in my very first post?

Greco-Roman world would be an hard nut to break, unless you manage to have Helleno-Indian kingdoms (which were pretty much marginal politically) not only somehow survives longer but as well pull a Kushan to impose a more westernized version of Budhism. Eventually, it could mean a more acceptable take that could be exportated in the Mediterranean basin.

If you manage to get an Hellenized Buddhism in Western Asia, I don't see why you couldn't have an expension in Eastern Europe (tough I think it could have issues really develloping outside eastern mediterranean basin and in more rural regions or less touched by Romanisation-Hellenization).

Next time, please, try to read until the end of the post, even if you have a really really good joke to do.

Buddhism if anything would be more assimilationist than Christianity, since it has no problem weaving local religions in. "Have you heard how Demeter made the Earth quake to testify as to the Buddha's merit?"
I'd disagree : Christianism is basically an Hellenized/Romanized version of Judaism, more-western compatible (I'm talking, should I precise, of Christianism as once structurated itself and distinct from Judaism, meaning IIth century). A buddhism directly importated from India, without an equivalent "westernisation" would have an harder time making massive conversion in a different cultural sphere : but as I pointed above, that can be easily dealt with.


According to Wikipedia, Valentinians identified the God of the Old Testament as the Demiurge.
That's quite disputed, actually : it's mostly based on a letter from a Valentian scholars, Ptolemy, whom we don't know anything about and that was used in an anti-Gnostic treaty.
For all we know, it might just be a litterary device, making Valentians fitting the Gnostic definition of pre-Niceans to better criticize them.

Is Zoroastrianism a form of Gnosticism?
I don't think : even if it may certainly have influenced it, I think it lacks the "two-levels" church and a certain disregard for Scriptures (or at least heavily intellectualized interpretation)
 

NothingNow

Banned
Buddhism can work in the Hellenistic world, because it already did in the actually wealthy parts. It's really more a matter of prestige and patronage driving said success than anything else. It's where Buddhism fell flat in the Med IOTL, but would be entirely plausible elsewhere.

I agree. It's hard to see how people with a weird alien art like this:
could ever assimilate into classical culture.

The funniest thing about that is how iconoclastic Buddhism is actually a Greco-Bactrian/Gandharan invention/bastardization that got spread through the patronage of Asoka the Great, and basically re-indianized/sinicized/etc.
 
Someone's feeling snarky today? You may have overlooked this, but this depiction is a Greco-Buddhist one.

No, it's Gandharan, which didn't start off until after the Indo-Greek Kingdoms fell. It's Kushan art. This is a difference, and I'm being a bit of a jerk, but Buddhism was capable of adapting to a ton of cultures; Southeast Asia, Mongolia, China, Japan, Central Asia... and it did so by assimilating and adapting traits from all of these.

Indo-Greek, IMO, Buddhism is misleading. You have Menander's sutra, but otherwise you don't have much; and no Greek texts, which is pretty telling.

I'd disagree : Christianism is basically an Hellenized/Romanized version of Judaism, more-western compatible (I'm talking, should I precise, of Christianism as once structurated itself and distinct from Judaism, meaning IIth century).

But Judaism still requires accepting only one god; no room for the old cults. In a Buddhist Mediterranean, where the saffron robes spread west, like sparks of light in the night, you could still see the Vestal Virgins in 1000 AD.
 
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.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't YHWH seen as the demiurge?
 
No, it's Gandharan, which didn't start off until after the Indo-Greek Kingdoms fell. It's Kushan art.
I think you're playing on words there : you clearly have an hellenized adaptation, that lasted from Indo-Greek period even if Indo-Greek states disappeared (a bit like romanized Christianism didn't disappeared before the Roman state did).

but Buddhism was capable of adapting to a ton of cultures; Southeast Asia, Mongolia, China, Japan, Central Asia... and it did so by assimilating and adapting traits from all of these.
Again, I never said Buddhism couldn't adapt : in the post you quoted, I said that if it did adapted to Hellenistic grounds, I wouldn't see why it wouldn't have a grasp on the overall Hellenistic world.

Indo-Greek, IMO, Buddhism is misleading. You have Menander's sutra, but otherwise you don't have much; and no Greek texts, which is pretty telling.
Which is why I proposed, above, a survival of Indo-Greek kingdoms as a doorway to Hellenistic world, both culturally and structurally (with political support).

But Judaism still requires accepting only one god; no room for the old cults.
I'm not seeing your point there : what I answered was your point about Christianism being less roman-compatible than Buddhism. In spite of being less "assimilationist", it nevertheless was largely made along Roman cultural lines (not exactly from the start, but at least, quickly so).

The point, there, is less religious compatibility (IOTL can point that "assimilationist" cults weren't that more successful only because of such) than cultural. Hence why I think a Buddhism that would have adapted and transited trough Hellenistic grounds would have better chances to really get established in Mediterranean Basin, not unlike it became adapted in China, with its own schools, translations fitting Greco-Romans philisophies (which would certainly help a lot having an imperial support), etc.

Basically a Buddhism in "saffron palliums", if you allow me the metaphor.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't YHWH seen as the demiurge?
Not all Gnostics cults used a demiurge-figure, and not all which did clearly identified Yaweh with it.
Of course, it's what pre-Niceans Christians argued, but the systematisation is quite suspicious as it concerns groups whom, when he have some texts from them (which is arguably rare) can be really silent about this.

So basically, it seems to have been the case enough for (non-Gnostics) Christians to make it a ground criticism of their beliefs, but systematisation itself is suspicious.
 
I think you're playing on words there : you clearly have an hellenized adaptation, that lasted from Indo-Greek period even if Indo-Greek states disappeared (a bit like romanized Christianism didn't disappeared before the Roman state did).

Sort of. This seems like a minor difference, but I think it's a major one. You're positing an Indo-Greek Buddhism. I'm positing a North Indian Buddhism that incorporated ideas from Hellenism and other cultures. You're giving too much agency to the Greeks and not enough to the other peoples of
the region.

This is also why I want to throw rocks at the authors of the Wikipedia page on Indo-Greek Buddhism.

I'm not seeing your point there : what I answered was your point about Christianism being less roman-compatible than Buddhism. In spite of being less "assimilationist", it nevertheless was largely made along Roman cultural lines (not exactly from the start, but at least, quickly so).

I guess I'm not seeing how Judaism is more compatible with Roman and Greek polytheism than a religion that still allows for indigenous religious practices and yet promises eternal afterlife. I absolutely agree that Buddhism
will change (probably becomes very stoic, at the philosophical level).
 
Taken from the Wikipedia article about Manichaeism: "Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements....
Buddhist influences were significant in the formation of Mani's religious thought."

As far as I understand, Manichaeism is a Gnostic sect, and it is among others influenced by Buddhism.
 
Sort of. This seems like a minor difference, but I think it's a major one. You're positing an Indo-Greek Buddhism. I'm positing a North Indian Buddhism that incorporated ideas from Hellenism and other cultures.
Fair point.

You're giving too much agency to the Greeks and not enough to the other peoples of the region.
Let's precise my intent there : I didn't said that Indo-Greeks were a definitive part on Buddhist history, even if they had some particular influence on some points. What I'm saying is that, by having Indo-Greeks surviving politically, they could be such for a western expansion of Buddhism not by "assimilating" themselves Buddhism to Hellenism but by giving a geocultural opportunity for Buddhism to Hellenize along a Silk Road dominated by Hellenistic culture (as for matters politics) up to Mediterranean.

This is also why I want to throw rocks at the authors of the Wikipedia page on Indo-Greek Buddhism.
Giving what I found sometimes on other subjects, I can related. Well, do you have some better sources to propose, then? All I have are some parts of books on Ancient religion in Greco-Roman world that doesn't focus on Buddhism.

I guess I'm not seeing how Judaism is more compatible with Roman and Greek polytheism than a religion that still allows for indigenous religious practices and yet promises eternal afterlife..
It may, if you don't mind me, because you see it on a dogmatic level. Which is relevant of course, but ignoring too much the cultural context "forcing" an evolution towards something more "compatible" (it's why Judaism never really went dominant, while Christianism had this possibility) may be a problem.

At the end it was less the most assimilationist that won IOTL, but most structurated cults that proposed a clear political identity (Mithraism, Appollonism weren't that assimilationist : it's just it was irrelevant on the question).

As far as I understand, Manichaeism is a Gnostic sect, and it is among others influenced by Buddhism.
More exactly, Manicheism was both influenced (among other influences, it was pretty much syncretic) by Gnosticism and Buddhism rather than Buddhist or Gnostic itself.
 
There seems to be various sources that consider Manichaeism to be a Gnostic religion

... Crusader Kings' wiki? Really?

I wonder why you went for websites that aren't well sourced, if at all, (and often wrong when it comes to basic statements, such as Catharism being a Manicheism), and not went for Wikipedia for that all his faults implied above, have still some sources.

Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements.[5]

Mani began preaching at an early age and was possibly influenced by contemporary Babylonian-Aramaic movements such as Mandaeanism, and Aramaic translations of Jewish apocalyptic writings similar to those found at Qumran (such as the book of Enoch literature), and by the Syriac dualist-gnostic writer Bardaisan (who lived a generation before Mani).

Mani was also influenced by writings of the Assyrian gnostic Bardaisan (154–222), who like Mani, wrote in Syriac, and presented a dualistic interpretation of the world in terms of light and darkness, in combination with elements from Christianity.

Again, influenced by Gnosticism doesn't mean being Gnostic itself.

It seems to me you REALLY want to make Manicheism a full Gnosticism, scrapping for what you could find supporting it, including games wiki and neo-gnostic websites.
At this point, I'm not sure that anything I could say would count if you're already convinced of the contrary, to be honest.
 
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