Gymnosophists
Encyclopedia
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
to certain ancient Indian philosophers
Indian philosophy
India has a rich and diverse philosophical tradition dating back to ancient times. According to Radhakrishnan, the earlier Upanisads constitute "...the earliest philosophical compositions of the world."...
who pursued asceticism
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought (sadhu
Sadhu
In Hinduism, sādhu denotes an ascetic, wandering monk. Although the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus. The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa , the fourth and final aśrama , through meditation and contemplation of brahman...
s or yogi
Yogi
A Yogi is a practitioner of Yoga. The word is also used to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of South Asian Religions including Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.-Etymology:...
s).
The Digambar Jain monks
Jain muni
Jain Muni or simply Muni is the term often used for monks and nuns in Jainism.. They are often called sadhus and sadhvis, respectively, in the Svetambara traditions.-Monastic ranks:...
in India even now remain unclothed; they have been identified as the gymnosophists by several researchers,. Xuanzang
Xuanzang
Xuanzang was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period...
mentions having come across Digambar Jain monks in Taxila
Taxila
Taxila is a Tehsil in the Rawalpindi District of Punjab province of Pakistan. It is an important archaeological site.Taxila is situated about northwest of Islamabad Capital Territory and Rawalpindi in Panjab; just off the Grand Trunk Road...
during his 7th century CE visit to India, in the same Punjab region where Alexander encountered the gymnosophists.
Ancient accounts
The term is first used by PlutarchPlutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
in the 1st century CE, when describing an encounter by Alexander the Great with ten gymnosophists in Punjab.
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...
(ix. 61 and 63) refers to them, and reports that Pyrrho
Pyrrho
Pyrrho , a Greek philosopher of classical antiquity, is credited as being the first Skeptic philosopher and the inspiration for the school known as Pyrrhonism, founded by Aenesidemus in the 1st century BC.- Life :Pyrrho was from Elis, on the Ionian Sea...
of Elis, the founder of pure scepticism, came under the influence of the Gymnosophists while travelling to India with Alexander, and on his return to Elis, imitated their habits of life; however, the extent of their influence is not described.
Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
says that gymnosophists were religious people among the Indians (XVI,I), and otherwise divides Indian philosophers into Brahman
Brahman
In Hinduism, Brahman is the one supreme, universal Spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is sometimes referred to as the Absolute or Godhead which is the Divine Ground of all being...
s and Sramanas (XV,I,59-60), following the accounts of Megasthenes
Megasthenes
Megasthenes was a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica.He was born in Asia Minor and became an ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, India. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain...
. He further divides the Sramanas into "Hylobioi" (forest hermits, c.f. Aranyaka
Aranyaka
The Aranyakas are part of the Hindu śruti, the four Vedas; they were composed in late Vedic Sanskrit typical of the Brahmanas and early Upanishads; indeed, they frequently form part of either the Brahmanas or the Upanishads....
) and "Physicians."
Philo mentions the Gymnosophists twice in the course of listing foreign ascetics and philosophers who are, in his estimation, "prudent, and just, and virtuous" and therefore truly free:
In the 2nd century CE, the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...
distinguishes the Gymnosophists, the philosophers of the Indians, from the Sramanas, "the philosophers of the Bactrians":
See also
- BragmanniBragmanniIn the historical context, Bragmanni or Brabanters were hired mercenaries employed in the armies of competing princes of western Europe.Bragmanni were a mythical race of people thought by medieval Europeans to live on the fringes of the known world...
- Calanus of India
- FakirFakirThe fakir or faqir ; ) Derived from faqr is a Muslim Sufi ascetic in Middle East and South Asia. The Faqirs were wandering Dervishes teaching Islam and living on alms....
- Jain monasticism
- SadhuSadhuIn Hinduism, sādhu denotes an ascetic, wandering monk. Although the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus. The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa , the fourth and final aśrama , through meditation and contemplation of brahman...
- Sramana
- YogiYogiA Yogi is a practitioner of Yoga. The word is also used to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of South Asian Religions including Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.-Etymology:...