The Ancient Greeks Who Converted to Buddhism

this is an ancient Buddhist inscription etched on a rock in eastern Afghanistan it reads Namo obodo Namo oo Namo oo for centuries Buddhists have recited some variation of this formula as an expression of Buddhist devotion taking Refuge or paying homage to the three jewels of Buddhism I take refuge in the Buddha I take refuge in the Dharma or his teachings I take refuge in the S the Buddhist Community but for all you linguists in the audience you'll notice that this is not written in a Buddhist devotional language like Sanskrit or poly this is a rough

transliteration of Sanskrit into Greek well technically Greco Bactrian a helenistic script directly based on the Greek alphabet it's a little tough to see the Greek letters here because it's incursive and it's carved on a rock but you might recognize for example the letter Omega right here so how is it that a Greco Bactrian speaking Buddhist inscribed a heniz version of a Sanskrit Mantra here in Afghanistan well we owe a lot of this cultural mingling to this guy Alexander the Great the king of Macedon who conquered a massive Empire stretching from Greece across Central Asia all

the way to the indis river heniz the populations along the way introducing the Greek language Greek philosophy and Greek Urban living but the cultural exchange didn't just go one way the Buddha had died around 100 to 150 years before Alexander arrived on the scene and around this time the relatively new religion of Buddhism was starting to make inroads in this same region resulting in a unique cultural synthesis sometimes called Greco Buddhism so what do we know about the ancient Greeks who converted to Buddhism cultural exchange between the Greek Mediterranean world and what's now Afghanistan Pakistan

and Northwest India stretches as far back as the 500s bcee the Greek historian Herodotus mentions a Greek Explorer named skyx who went on an expedition for the Persian ruler Darius I sailing down the indis across the Arabian Sea to the Suz and archaeologists have also found a bunch of Greek coins circulating in the region as well so trade between these two regions was already Ono well before Alexander arrived on the scene but arrive he did and in his wake came waves of Greek speaking immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean populating dozens of new Greek style cities

with familiar sounding names if you've ever studied Greek or Roman history cities like Antioch and of course Alexandria there are so many alexandrias here some Scholars think the archaeological site I condum in Afghanistan was one of those alexandrias Alexandria on the oxis a city founded by Alexander's General ccas on the oxis river which runs through Central Asia now this identification is debated but whatever this city was originally called historians call icum an outpost of helenismo code it had all the essentials for sophisticated Greek living a theater gymnasium and Greek column everywhere and it wasn't just

the architecture archaeologists have also found evidence of Greek religion and Greek philosophy here as well the gymnasium was dedicated to the God Hermes and the hero Hercules archaeologists have found a Papyrus fragment of Greek philosophy here and a local politician even inscribed a few maxims from the Oracle of Deli on his tomb as one historian yorgos halia says we're clearly not talking about trading posts or military garrisons here we're talking about vibrant Greek cities that formed powerful henis kingdoms first you have the sald Empire which dominated the region until the ruler diodotus I decided to

shake things up and secede forming his own independent Kingdom that historians call the Greco bactrians fast forward to the 2 Century bcee the Greco bactrians invaded what's now Southern Afghanistan Pakistan and Northwest India establishing dynasties that historians call the indog greek kingdoms these were kingdoms with diverse populations descendants of Greek speaking people from the Mediterranean integrating with Indians Persians and other Central Asian people groups Greeks were taking Indian names and Indians were taking Greek names and with all of this cultural exchange sure enough we start to see religious exchange as well we see a fascinating

example of possible Buddhist and Greek Crossover with the philosopher Piro of Ellis Piro traveled with Alexander to India as part of Alexander's Entourage and yes Alexander traveled with a bunch of philosophers while at War because who doesn't need some existential debate while on the battlefield Greek sour report that Alexander and his mobile philosophy Department spent a lot of time interacting with Indian philosophers and this was deliberate Alexander's philosophers sought out audiences with them some of whom were probably Buddhists Piro himself spent months and possibly years in Northwest India as well as the city of taxila

in Pakistan and according to the Greek biographer diogenes larus it was here that he met with the gymnos sists of India the so-called naked wise men and this led him to adopt a most noble philosophy now we don't know who these naked sages were presumably some sort of Indian athetic group and it's possible they were not even Buddhists but a lot of Scholars think they were and in any case Piro returned home to develop a pretty Buddhist sounding philosophy to finish that quote from diogenes this led him to adopt a most noble philosophy taking the

form of agnosticism and suspension of judgment he denied that anything was honorable or dishonorable just or unjust and so universally he held that there is nothing really existent in other words P was suggesting a radical disengagement from the judgments and dualities that plague our perceptions one of piro's students Timone adds more layers in a surviving fragment perro declared that things are equally undifferentiated unmeasurable and undecidable for this reason neither our Sensations nor our opinions tell us the truth or falsehoods therefore for this reason we should not put our trust in them one bit but we

should be unop opinionated uncommitted and unwavering many have noted that this sounds like a radical form of skepticism PIR was basically saying that we can't trust our senses and reasoning and so we shouldn't trust dogmatic opinions about the nature of reality but Scholars have noted that his ideas don't just sound like generic philosophical skepticism but specifically ideas found in early Buddhist thought especially ideas found in the mam School traditionally founded by the Buddhist philosopher narina the medam school developed philosophies about the nature of reality particularly the concept of shunyata or emptiness meaning that all phenomena

are devoid or empty of intrinsic existence which sounds a lot like piro's belief that there's nothing really existent moreover both manam and paronian thought employed The Logical tool known as the tetralemma when evaluating a truth claim it's called a tetralemma instead of a dilemma because it has four parts proposition can be true not true both true and not true or neither true nor not true the tetralemma is very popular in Indian philosophy so its appearance in piro's philosophy is notable paronian texts also say that the ultimate goal of this suspension of judgment is to attain

aoia a state of serene Tranquility which some have compared to the Buddhist concept of Awakening by not adhering to rigid beliefs and acknowledging the uncertainty and contradictions and all truth claims one can remain undisturbed by the world's variability these connections LED n himself to call Piro a Buddhist for Greece now to be clear this connection has has not been definitively proven and critics of the theory have pointed out that the mamica school emerged a few hundred years after Piro but many scholars think that there are too many connections with early Buddhist philosophy to be a

coincidence in the centuries after Alexander the Great Buddhism expanded into these regions With a Little Help from one of the most famous Buddhist Emperors of all time Emperor Ashoka of the Moran Dynasty who governed almost the entire Indian subcontinent from around 268 to 232 BCE like many Larger than Life historical figures later generations crafted all sorts of fantastic legends about him and for the longest time that's really all we knew about him as a historical figure until 1837 that's when the brahi script was deciphered and suddenly historians realized they had near direct access to Asoka

himself by translating the edicts of Ashoka in one inscription he declares it is known to you how great is my reverence and faith in the Buddha the Dharma and the S notice here that formulation of the three jewels as it turns out Ashoka was less about the Conquering and more about the converting well at least initially Ashoka may have had a dramatic conversion experience himself and a few times in his edicts he references being overcome with remorse for having ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of people in his conquests one edict reads from that

time onwards compassion and sadness overcame him and he was heavily distressed by the ways he had acted after turning to Buddhism he apparently sponsored missionary efforts across his kingdom and abroad even sending missionaries as far away as the Mediterranean the conquest by Dharma this has been won repeatedly by Ashoka both here and among all borderers and he goes on to Nam drop helenistic Kings like Antiochus II of Syria and tmy II of Egypt if he's not exaggerating this means that Buddhist missionaries were mingling with Egyptians and Greeks by the 3rd Century bcee in the same

edict he then says that the Greeks closer to home were also being converted likewise here in the king's territory among the Greeks everywhere people are conforming to ashoka's instruction in dark these edicts were multilingual with Aramaic and Greek translations side by side and historians think that these edicts were made specifically to introduce Buddhist ethics among the helenic people of Asia and we see hints of Buddhism being repackaged for a greek-speaking audience in another inscription the concept of Dharma was translated with the Greek word Yia Yia like Dharma is a semantically rich word that we could

translate as piety reverence towards the gods or filial respect ashoka's Greek translators appar ly chose this as the best way to translate the Buddha's message Ashoka called his efforts a Dharma conquest and even references a special rank within his government called Dharma Commissioners presumably some sort of government official who traveled around helping to establish Buddhism in major towns and cities and his efforts apparently worked one edict references those who are devoted to Dharma among the Greeks and Persians Greeks were starting to convert to Buddhism Chief among them was King menander the most famous Greek who

converted to Buddhism at least according to the historian Olga kubaka well It's Tricky CU it's possible that there were two King Manders King menander the first who ruled an indog Greek Kingdom from 165 to 130 bcee and a later King menander II who may have been his grandson but in any case a king menander is the main character in an early Buddhist text the Melinda panha or Melinda's questions this text possibly dates as far back as 10000 BCE and it's a philosophical dialogue between King Melinda identified usually as king menander the first and a Buddhist

monk named Nagina in the text Mander plays the skeptic grilling nagasena with a bunch of questions about Buddhism but Nagina expertly answers each and every question and finally Mander decides to convert while the text probably describes a legendary encounter other evidence supports the broad outlines of the story that an indog Greek king named Mander converted to Buddhism for example check out the so-called Shin cat reliquary this was a Roundstone container discovered in Northern Pakistan and is said to have originally held a casket inside it with some ashes an inscription on the lid of the Box

references the reign of Maharaja manra the great king Mander it goes on to describe that it holds the bodily relics of the Lord the shakya sage the Buddha himself now this inscription is not much to go off of and it doesn't definitively prove that menander was a practicing Buddhist himself but it does suggest he's more than just a fan and maybe even a patron of Buddhism menander may have commissioned reliquaries like this and endowed buildings called stupas to house them perhaps to gain public favor moral Authority or enhance his own legitimacy as a ruler most

Scholars identify this menander as mander the whose Fame even stretched back to the Mediterranean World Plutarch writes that mander the first died in a military camp and his ashes were equally distributed among several cities and stored in what he calls memorials which Scholars think is a reference to stupas if Plutarch is right this may lend credibility to the idea that menander the first had converted and may have even achieved an exalted status as an awakened being with his Buddhist subjects venerating his relics so it looks like by the reign of menander the Buddhism was already

becoming established in the indog Greek Elite circles menander's son stro issued coins like this one where he's labeled as dhaca follower of the Dharma and over the centuries we start to see evidence for religious syncretism or hybridization check out this coin of Mander II which shows the god Zeus enthroned next to the goddess Nike and right here the Dharma chakra the eight spoked wheel of Dharma that represents the Buddhist teachings the historian yorgos hulas who I mentioned earlier has argued that indog Greek religious attitudes may have helped this syncretism he says for the most part

the indog Greeks were followers of several helenistic and foreign Cults so adopting the hero cult image of the Buddha would have been embraced without much difficulty along with all the ritual practices that go along with everyday Buddhism reciting prayers propitiating deities venerating relics and so on Greco Buddhism also sometimes refers to an artistic movement though modern historians criticize the terminology see Scholars have long noticed that ancient Buddhist artwork from Gonda now Northwest Pakistan and Northeastern Afghanistan seems to be influenced by Greek artistic methods or even crafted by Greek artists for example Buddhist sculptures like these

portray the Buddha or the bodhisatta mraa with real to life features wearing a robe resembling drapery seen in Greek sculptures back in the early 20th century the French scholar Alfred fuche coined the phrase Greco Buddhism to refer to these sculptures saying all these technical details indicate in a striking manner the hand of an artist from some Greek Studio basically fuche was arguing that only Greeks could produce such masterpieces this of course is not true local artists definitely could make these and so historians have since debated how to characterize this art the historian Olga kubaka argues

that we can't exclude the idea that Greek artists manufactured them but we also can't assess their role accurately others argue that these sculptures and others like them actually date to a century or or more after the indog Greek kingdoms fell so it's more likely that these Works stemmed from later interactions with the Roman Empire with local artists imitating imported Roman art or Roman artists moving to Gonda to create prestigious commissions for local wealthy connoisseurs regardless it's clear that Buddhist art from this time borrowed Greco Roman imagery like figures resembling Hercules and the goddess tii these

two appear in the artwork of the kusan Dynasty and the iconography appears to have been borrowed to represent local deities or bodhisattvas the bodhisatwa vajrapani for example is frequently depicted as a Hercules like figure vajrapani is recognized as a protector and companion of the Buddha and these artists apparently were familiar with Hercules as a powerful hero and used these attributes to communicate vran's own qualities as a guardian likewise local goddesses like ardoo and hariti are sometimes portrayed with the attributes of the Greek goddess taii holding a big Cornucopia or a ship Rudder examples like this

are often labeled as syncretism commonly understood as the blending or mixing of different religious Traditions but I think syncretism is often oversimplified the term itself implies two distinct monolithic entities helenistic culture on one side and Buddhism on the other side merging like a ven diagram but in real world scenarios ideas practices and artistic expressions from different cultures often combine and influence each other in complex and asymmetrical ways scholars in recent years describe syncretism more as a process of indigenization or localization when individuals in a local culture actively see to make sense of another culture in

their own terms and idioms the Greek translator who decided to translate ashoka's Dharma with the Greek word Yia was engaging in syncretism trying to make sense of a different Concept in their own terms quite literally their own Greek term compare this to the inscription from the beginning of this video whoever carved this inscription decided not to fully translate the original Mantra into Greco Bactrian words but still used Greco Bactrian letters so the Mantra could be read and pronounced the pronunciation and legibility mattered more than the meaning like how Christians today might sing Hallelujah without knowing

the word's original Hebrew meaning Greco Buddhism thus illustrates the often deliberate and selective adaptation that occurs when different cultures meet so for the past few months I've been hyping the video series archaeology quest which follows our hosts Lorraine and Stephanie as they learn how to survive in the Paleolithic Era learning how to forage how to make stone tools and how to start a fire and they finally reached the episode that we've all been waiting for or at least what I've been waiting for the spear episode I'm not alone in thinking the spear is the coolest

weapon right you just can't mess with that elegant Simplicity in this episode Stephanie and Lorraine sit down with Dr Michelle beber of Kent State University just scrolling on her faculty page here she's an expert in artifact replication studies meaning that she's an expert in recreating ancient tools like Spears in my line of work you come across a lot of people with Cool Jobs and this is one of the coolest she walks us through how to make and use Ancient Spears as well as ancient launching tools called otles so if you're a fan of learning about

ancient humans from Top experts in their fields you should really check out archaeology Quest an exclusive series on nebula nebula is a subscription supported video platform that is founded owned and run by creators I'm a nebula Creator myself here's my page on screen and it's by far the most Creator friendly platform out there you can really see the awesome things that can happen when the creators are in charge and because we're directly backed by you the viewers we have the revenue to support original programming stuff like archaeology Quest but also Abigail Thorn's upcoming short film

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