India and the Greek world : a study in the transmission of culture

What was India’s contribution to Western civilization? This question, which began to be seriously discussed nearly two centuries ago, remains a controversial subject into our own day. How did it happen that the Orphics and Pythagoreans of ancient Greece believed in a kind of soul-wandering almost identical to the Indian concept, but found nowhere else? Or that similar notions of the nature of the world appear in the Indian Upanishads and in the Greek philosophers of Ionia? The question is intriguing because, to the best of our knowledge, the Greeks knew little of India as such. New information about India penetrated into the Greek world in the wake of Alexander the Great’s invasion. Tradition has it that Alexander himself discussed philosophy with Indian Brahmins. A regular commerce in gold, spices and fine cloth developed between India and the Mediterranean world. Seamen and merchants, perhaps also preachers and monks, travelled back and forth. Hence there are reasons to believe that India may have made a serious impact upon the Hellenistic world. Stories similar to those about Buddha are told of Jesus, both in the New Testament and the Apocrypha. Gnosticism, which influenced early Christianity, shows close analogies with some Indian thought-systems. Important Hellenistic thinkers like Apollonius and Plotinus held Indian wisdom in high esteem. Manichaean and Indian asceticism show striking similarities — paralleling the rise of monasticism in 3rd- and 4th-century Christianity. India and the Greek World explores these and many other connections. What did the Greeks really know about India? Can we speak of a true Indian influence on the Hellenistic world, or can the undoubted cultural similarities be traced to other factors? These and similar questions are discussed in this remarkable contribution to cultural history on a global scale. Jean W. Sedlar is associate professor of history and political science, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. She is the editor, with William H. McNeill, of six volumes of the Readings in World History series. Cover Flap text Half Title Imprint Contents List of Maps Foreword Notes on Terminology and Spelling Abbreviations of Periodicals and General Collections Introduction PART ONE The Pre-Classical and Classical Age I First Contacts: the Pre-Classical Age II First Echoes: India in Greece III Classical Notes on India IV The Nature of the World V Soul-Wandering Map for Part I — Relevant Sites 26—27 VI Asceticism: Celibacy and Food Laws VII World Renewals PART TWO The Hellenistic Age VIII Alexander's Indian Expedition Map for Part II — Relevant Sites 58—59 IX Greek Civilization in India X Alexander and the Indian Wise Men XI Pyrrhon the Sceptic XII Travellers Indian and Greek XIII The India Trade XIV Folk Tales and Fables XV Christian-Buddhist Affinities XVI Gnosis: the Indian Parallels XVII Gnosis: the Jewish and Christian Parallels XVIII The Mandaeans: between India and Palestine XIX Two Philosophers: Basileides and Bardaisan XX Saint Thomas, Apostle to India XXI The Krishna-Christ Analogies XXII Apollonios of Tyana: Ascetic in the Indian Mode XXIII Neo-Platonism and Its Indian Affinities XXIV The Indian Origins of Manichaeism XXV Asceticism on the Rise: from India Westward XXVI India's Image in the West: 1000 Years from Alexander to Muhammad XXVII Conclusions: the Picture Whole Notes Bibliography Index