LEARN FROM YOURSELF THE ANSWER TO THAT:
Alexander the Great Goes to India and Meets the Naked Philosophers (ca. 326 BCE)
One of the earliest Westerners to make the long jaunt to India, way back in 326 BCE, was the Macedonian general Alexander (356-323 BCE). Depending on which historian you’re reading, Alexander was either a far-sighted visionary trying to unite the world in one, big, huggy family (with him as the Dad), a bloodthirsty megalomaniac, or Jekyll-and-Hyde-like, alternately one then the other. At the height of his power, he was wealthy beyond Bill Gates’ wildest dreams and lorded over something like two million square miles (six times the current size of the US)–an impressive number to be sure, though a distant second to another Indian nemesis, Genghis Khan, who, 1500 years later, sat on more than four million square miles. Still, not bad for someone barely 30, though of course all this loot and land was grabbed at the cost of untold destruction, misery, and death.
Most would-be conquerors of India were looking only to cash in, but in the words of British historian John Keay, Alex’s motive was nothing other than “sheer bloody immortality.” Certainly memorable was his army’s eight-year, 11,000-mile trudge from Greece to the outskirts of India, which meandered through Turkey, Syria and Palestine, parts of North Africa, Persia, and Afghanistan. Keay notes that his greatest accomplishment was not so much invading India, but just “getting there.”
With a tag like “the Great,” it’s no surprise that Alex’s reputation preceded him. He was known to let people who meekly surrendered off the hook, while he mercilessly crushed any opposition. Consequently as he approached the Indian border, many (though not all) of the rulers in his path simply handed him the keys to the city without a fuss. One king waved the white flag with the following message:
To what purpose should we make war upon one another, if the design of your coming into these parts be not to rob us of our water or our necessary food, which are the only things that wise men are indispensably obliged to fight for? As for other riches and possessions, as they are accounted in the eye of the world, if I am better provided of them than you, I am ready to let you share with me; but if fortune has been more liberal to you than me, I have no objection to be obliged to you.
But the Greeks’ relatively smooth ride suddenly got bumpy at the Jhelum river (then known as the Hydaspes), a tributary of the Indus in modern-day Pakistan. A seven-foot-tall king by the name of Porus decided not to roll over, and massed an army of perhaps 20,000 to stop Alexander’s advance. But in the end, despite their fierce resistance, the Indians were no match for Alexander’s superior forces and tactics. Though the welcome mat was bloodied, the door to India was now wide open, and Alexander headed for the Ganges. His final goal, once India was under his thumb, was to reach the all-encompassing Ocean at the end of the world. This, he devoutly believed, would give him dominion over Asia, though as we know today, Alexander’s grasp of geography was more than a little shaky.
But his men had a different plan. As they crossed into India they heard rumors of a vast continent stretching before them, populated with powerful kingdoms in no mood to be messed with. Most everybody–except Alexander–decided they’d had enough and only wanted to go on back home to Babylon. Not accustomed to hearing the word “No,” Alexander threw a fit. He first tried to revive his soldiers’ flagging spirits with a win-one-for-the-Gipper harangue; when that didn’t work, he retreated to his tent for a three-day sulk, which didn’t change anybody’s mind either. And so Alexander reluctantly gave in, and the army turned south for the sea and passage back to Persia.
Along the way, the Greeks reportedly had an otherworldly encounter with a group of men wearing only their birthday suits, who they aptly named the gymnosophists, literally “naked philosophers.” Nobody today knows exactly who these guys were, maybe Yogin or Jain ascetics, but whoever they were, they certainly impressed the Greeks, not only with their nudity and other strange (to the Greeks) behavior, but with their perspicacity.
There are at least four surviving versions of what happened when Alexander’s West came face-to-face with India’s East. All were written between 400 to 800 years after the event, so any historical fact is leavened with a generous helping of the author’s hyper-active imagination. In fact, though each reports on an exchange between Alexander and the ascetics, modern historians pretty much agree that such a meeting never took–and couldn’t have taken–place. For one thing it’s not likely the most powerful human on the face of the Earth would stoop to the ascetics’ level; for another, it’s just as unlikely that the ascetics would bother with Alexander.
All the same, it’s almost certain that one of the Greeks spoke with at least one ascetic (no doubt through an interpreter or two). The usual suspect is Onesikritos, the chief pilot of Alexander’s fleet and a student of the Cynic philosopher Diogenes. Onesikritos wrote a fawning biography of his boss, which survives today only in bits and pieces. In it he recounts his meeting with about 15 ascetics, who he found sitting, standing, or lying unmoving in weird positions (maybe asanas?). Like Alexander’s other biographers, Onesikritos isn’t so much interested in what the Indians are doing as in using them to grind an axe, as illustrations to either support or criticize a particular Greek philosophy or behavior. He approved of the ascetics not because of their search for self-liberation, but because there were prime examples of the recommended Cynic mode of life ... [which] had nothing at all to do with the pursuit of holiness. Cynics investigated human life in order to identify the sources of happiness, which they believed required freeing oneself from dependence upon external events or goods. For this reason they concluded that the happy man was the one who restricted his wants to the barest necessities and suppressed all desires. The Cynics despised popular opinion and everything it valued: i.e. wealth, fame, learning, even ordinary bodily comfort. Quite aside from whatever the Indian ascetics may have told Onesikritos, their life-style in its externals conformed well to the Cynic ideal.
In other words, Onesikritos saw what he wanted, needed, and hoped to see, interpreting–or maybe mis-interpreting–this experience through his own Western filter, much like many of us still do today.
It’s probable that Onesikritos’s story is the basis for the later Alexander versions, the latter simply replacing the former in the re-tellings. My favorite one, which actually shines a harsh and unflattering light on our hero, comes near the end of the anonymous Greek Alexander Romance, a novel-length tale of uncertain date. Here a “romance” isn’t one of our modern bodice-rippers, but a long prose narrative of a heroic adventure, often with fantastic characters or events.
The ascetics in this tale don’t seem especially ascetical, except for being naked: they live simply but quite comfortably with their wives and children in an Eden-like forest, the streams running with water as “bright as milk,” the trees “beautiful to look at” and heavy with “all kinds of fruit.” Alexander greets them peaceably and poses a series of questions. They answer each in turn rather cryptically but tamely enough until Alexander asks, “Which is the wickedest of all creatures?” The ascetics pounce on that one: “Man,” they reply without hesitation. Alexander bites and asks why. “Learn from yourself the answer to that,” is their audacious and–considering who they’re talking to–dangerous come-back. “You are a wild beast, and see how many other wild beasts you have with you, to help you tear away the lives of other beasts.” Alexander takes this verbal roughing-up in stride, and even seems to egg the gymnosophists on. “What is kingship?” he asks, setting himself up again, and again the reply doesn’t pull any punches: “Unjust power used to the disadvantage of others, insolence supported by opportunity.”
Maybe thinking he’s heard enough, Alexander asks to interview the ascetics’ “king.” And so the lord of two million square miles, worshiped by many of his subjects as a god, is conducted to Dandamis, who’s enthroned on a pile of leaves eating a melon. Still unclear on the concept, Alexander first wonders if Dandamis has any property. Sure, the latter replies casually, “the earth, the fruit trees, the daylight, the sun, the moon, the chorus of stars, and water.” What more could you ask for?
What happens next is both amusing and sad. Alexander just can’t seem to grasp what the ascetics are all about: he magnanimously offers to give them anything they want. “At once they all burst out,” the Romance narrator tells us, “‘Give us immortality.’” Taken aback, Alexander sheepishly replies, “That is a power I do not have. I too am mortal.” But the ascetics aren’t quite finished. “Since you are a mortal,” they logically point out to Alexander, “why do you make so many wars? When you have seized everything, where will you take it? Surely you will only have to leave it behind for others.” Alexander lamely excuses his war-making as “ordained by Providence above,” so even though he’d like to retire to some cozy Babylonian cottage on the banks of the Euphrates, the “master of my soul does not allow me.” And anyway he concludes, oozing with self-justification, “Everyone takes from everyone, and leaves what he has taken to others: no possession is permanent.”
As he’s leaving Alexander still wants to give Dandamis some gifts. But the old ascetic just laughs at the proffered gold, bread, wine, and olive oil. “These things are useless to us,” he says, but just to be nice he accepts the oil. Then, as Alexander watches, Dandamis builds a huge pile of wood, lights it, and pours the oil into the fire.
One of the earliest Westerners to make the long jaunt to India, way back in 326 BCE, was the Macedonian general Alexander (356-323 BCE). Depending on which historian you’re reading, Alexander was either a far-sighted visionary trying to unite the world in one, big, huggy family (with him as the Dad), a bloodthirsty megalomaniac, or Jekyll-and-Hyde-like, alternately one then the other. At the height of his power, he was wealthy beyond Bill Gates’ wildest dreams and lorded over something like two million square miles (six times the current size of the US)–an impressive number to be sure, though a distant second to another Indian nemesis, Genghis Khan, who, 1500 years later, sat on more than four million square miles. Still, not bad for someone barely 30, though of course all this loot and land was grabbed at the cost of untold destruction, misery, and death.
Most would-be conquerors of India were looking only to cash in, but in the words of British historian John Keay, Alex’s motive was nothing other than “sheer bloody immortality.” Certainly memorable was his army’s eight-year, 11,000-mile trudge from Greece to the outskirts of India, which meandered through Turkey, Syria and Palestine, parts of North Africa, Persia, and Afghanistan. Keay notes that his greatest accomplishment was not so much invading India, but just “getting there.”
With a tag like “the Great,” it’s no surprise that Alex’s reputation preceded him. He was known to let people who meekly surrendered off the hook, while he mercilessly crushed any opposition. Consequently as he approached the Indian border, many (though not all) of the rulers in his path simply handed him the keys to the city without a fuss. One king waved the white flag with the following message:
To what purpose should we make war upon one another, if the design of your coming into these parts be not to rob us of our water or our necessary food, which are the only things that wise men are indispensably obliged to fight for? As for other riches and possessions, as they are accounted in the eye of the world, if I am better provided of them than you, I am ready to let you share with me; but if fortune has been more liberal to you than me, I have no objection to be obliged to you.
But the Greeks’ relatively smooth ride suddenly got bumpy at the Jhelum river (then known as the Hydaspes), a tributary of the Indus in modern-day Pakistan. A seven-foot-tall king by the name of Porus decided not to roll over, and massed an army of perhaps 20,000 to stop Alexander’s advance. But in the end, despite their fierce resistance, the Indians were no match for Alexander’s superior forces and tactics. Though the welcome mat was bloodied, the door to India was now wide open, and Alexander headed for the Ganges. His final goal, once India was under his thumb, was to reach the all-encompassing Ocean at the end of the world. This, he devoutly believed, would give him dominion over Asia, though as we know today, Alexander’s grasp of geography was more than a little shaky.
But his men had a different plan. As they crossed into India they heard rumors of a vast continent stretching before them, populated with powerful kingdoms in no mood to be messed with. Most everybody–except Alexander–decided they’d had enough and only wanted to go on back home to Babylon. Not accustomed to hearing the word “No,” Alexander threw a fit. He first tried to revive his soldiers’ flagging spirits with a win-one-for-the-Gipper harangue; when that didn’t work, he retreated to his tent for a three-day sulk, which didn’t change anybody’s mind either. And so Alexander reluctantly gave in, and the army turned south for the sea and passage back to Persia.
Along the way, the Greeks reportedly had an otherworldly encounter with a group of men wearing only their birthday suits, who they aptly named the gymnosophists, literally “naked philosophers.” Nobody today knows exactly who these guys were, maybe Yogin or Jain ascetics, but whoever they were, they certainly impressed the Greeks, not only with their nudity and other strange (to the Greeks) behavior, but with their perspicacity.
There are at least four surviving versions of what happened when Alexander’s West came face-to-face with India’s East. All were written between 400 to 800 years after the event, so any historical fact is leavened with a generous helping of the author’s hyper-active imagination. In fact, though each reports on an exchange between Alexander and the ascetics, modern historians pretty much agree that such a meeting never took–and couldn’t have taken–place. For one thing it’s not likely the most powerful human on the face of the Earth would stoop to the ascetics’ level; for another, it’s just as unlikely that the ascetics would bother with Alexander.
All the same, it’s almost certain that one of the Greeks spoke with at least one ascetic (no doubt through an interpreter or two). The usual suspect is Onesikritos, the chief pilot of Alexander’s fleet and a student of the Cynic philosopher Diogenes. Onesikritos wrote a fawning biography of his boss, which survives today only in bits and pieces. In it he recounts his meeting with about 15 ascetics, who he found sitting, standing, or lying unmoving in weird positions (maybe asanas?). Like Alexander’s other biographers, Onesikritos isn’t so much interested in what the Indians are doing as in using them to grind an axe, as illustrations to either support or criticize a particular Greek philosophy or behavior. He approved of the ascetics not because of their search for self-liberation, but because there were prime examples of the recommended Cynic mode of life ... [which] had nothing at all to do with the pursuit of holiness. Cynics investigated human life in order to identify the sources of happiness, which they believed required freeing oneself from dependence upon external events or goods. For this reason they concluded that the happy man was the one who restricted his wants to the barest necessities and suppressed all desires. The Cynics despised popular opinion and everything it valued: i.e. wealth, fame, learning, even ordinary bodily comfort. Quite aside from whatever the Indian ascetics may have told Onesikritos, their life-style in its externals conformed well to the Cynic ideal.
In other words, Onesikritos saw what he wanted, needed, and hoped to see, interpreting–or maybe mis-interpreting–this experience through his own Western filter, much like many of us still do today.
It’s probable that Onesikritos’s story is the basis for the later Alexander versions, the latter simply replacing the former in the re-tellings. My favorite one, which actually shines a harsh and unflattering light on our hero, comes near the end of the anonymous Greek Alexander Romance, a novel-length tale of uncertain date. Here a “romance” isn’t one of our modern bodice-rippers, but a long prose narrative of a heroic adventure, often with fantastic characters or events.
The ascetics in this tale don’t seem especially ascetical, except for being naked: they live simply but quite comfortably with their wives and children in an Eden-like forest, the streams running with water as “bright as milk,” the trees “beautiful to look at” and heavy with “all kinds of fruit.” Alexander greets them peaceably and poses a series of questions. They answer each in turn rather cryptically but tamely enough until Alexander asks, “Which is the wickedest of all creatures?” The ascetics pounce on that one: “Man,” they reply without hesitation. Alexander bites and asks why. “Learn from yourself the answer to that,” is their audacious and–considering who they’re talking to–dangerous come-back. “You are a wild beast, and see how many other wild beasts you have with you, to help you tear away the lives of other beasts.” Alexander takes this verbal roughing-up in stride, and even seems to egg the gymnosophists on. “What is kingship?” he asks, setting himself up again, and again the reply doesn’t pull any punches: “Unjust power used to the disadvantage of others, insolence supported by opportunity.”
Maybe thinking he’s heard enough, Alexander asks to interview the ascetics’ “king.” And so the lord of two million square miles, worshiped by many of his subjects as a god, is conducted to Dandamis, who’s enthroned on a pile of leaves eating a melon. Still unclear on the concept, Alexander first wonders if Dandamis has any property. Sure, the latter replies casually, “the earth, the fruit trees, the daylight, the sun, the moon, the chorus of stars, and water.” What more could you ask for?
What happens next is both amusing and sad. Alexander just can’t seem to grasp what the ascetics are all about: he magnanimously offers to give them anything they want. “At once they all burst out,” the Romance narrator tells us, “‘Give us immortality.’” Taken aback, Alexander sheepishly replies, “That is a power I do not have. I too am mortal.” But the ascetics aren’t quite finished. “Since you are a mortal,” they logically point out to Alexander, “why do you make so many wars? When you have seized everything, where will you take it? Surely you will only have to leave it behind for others.” Alexander lamely excuses his war-making as “ordained by Providence above,” so even though he’d like to retire to some cozy Babylonian cottage on the banks of the Euphrates, the “master of my soul does not allow me.” And anyway he concludes, oozing with self-justification, “Everyone takes from everyone, and leaves what he has taken to others: no possession is permanent.”
As he’s leaving Alexander still wants to give Dandamis some gifts. But the old ascetic just laughs at the proffered gold, bread, wine, and olive oil. “These things are useless to us,” he says, but just to be nice he accepts the oil. Then, as Alexander watches, Dandamis builds a huge pile of wood, lights it, and pours the oil into the fire.
