   #copyright

Greco-Buddhism

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Religious movements,
traditions and organizations

   The Buddha, in Greco-Buddhist style, 1st-2nd century CE, Gandhara.
   (Standing Buddha (Tokyo National Museum)).
   Enlarge
   The Buddha, in Greco-Buddhist style, 1st-2nd century CE, Gandhara. (
   Standing Buddha (Tokyo National Museum)).

   Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Graeco-Buddhism, is the cultural
   syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed
   over a period of close to 800 years in Central Asia in the area
   corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th
   century BCE and the 5th century CE. Greco-Buddhism influenced the
   artistic (and, possibly, conceptual) development of Buddhism, and in
   particular Mahayana Buddhism, before it was adopted by Central and
   Northeastern Asia from the 1st century CE, ultimately spreading to
   China, Korea and Japan.

Historical outline

   General area of Greco-Buddhism, and boundaries of the Kushan empire at
   its greatest extent around 150 CE.  It should be possible to replace
   this fair use image with a freely licensed one. If you can, please do
   so as soon as is practical.
   Enlarge
   General area of Greco-Buddhism, and boundaries of the Kushan empire at
   its greatest extent around 150 CE.  It should be possible to replace
   this fair use image with a freely licensed one. If you can, please do
   so as soon as is practical.

   The interaction between Hellenistic Greece and Buddhism started when
   Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor and Central Asia in 334 BCE,
   crossing the Indus and Jhelum rivers, and going as far as the Beas,
   thus establishing direct contact with India, the birthplace of
   Buddhism.

   Alexander founded several cities in his new territories in the areas of
   the Oxus and Bactria, and Greek settlements further extended to the
   Khyber Pass, Gandhara (see Taxila) and the Punjab. These regions
   correspond to a unique geographical passageway between the Himalayas
   and the Hindu Kush mountains, through which most of the interaction
   between India and Central Asia took place, generating intense cultural
   exchange and trade.

   Following Alexander's death on June 10, 323 BCE, the Diadochoi
   (successors) founded their own kingdoms in Asia Minor and Central Asia.
   General Seleucus set up the Seleucid Kingdom, which extended as far as
   India. Later, the Eastern part of the Seleucid Kingdom broke away to
   form the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom ( 3rd–2nd century BCE), followed by the
   Indo-Greek Kingdom ( 2nd–1st century BCE), and later the Kushan Empire
   (1st–3rd century CE).

   The interaction of Greek and Buddhist cultures operated over several
   centuries until it ended in the 5th century CE with the invasions of
   the White Huns, and later the expansion of Islam.

Religious interactions

   The length of the Greek presence in Central Asia and northern India
   provided opportunities for interaction, not only on the artistic, but
   also on the religious plane.

Alexander the Great in Bactria and India (331-325)

   When Alexander conquered the Bactrian and Gandharan regions, these
   areas may already have been under Buddhist influence. According to a
   legend preserved in Pali, the language of the Theravada canon, two
   merchant brothers from Bactria, named Tapassu and Bhallika, visited the
   Buddha and became his disciples. They then returned to Bactria and
   built temples to the Buddha (Foltz).

   In 326 Alexander invaded India. King Ambhi, ruler of Taxila,
   surrendered his city, a notable centre of Buddhist faith, to Alexander.
   Alexander fought an epic battle against Porus, a ruler of a region in
   the Punjab in the Battle of Hydaspes in (326 BC). Alexander continued
   on to conquer all the headwaters of the Indus River.

   Several philosophers, such as Pyrrho, Anaxarchus and Onesicritus, are
   said to have been selected by Alexander to accompany him in his eastern
   campaigns. During the 18 months they were in India, they were able to
   interact with Indian religious men, generally described as
   Gymnosophists ("naked philosophers"). Pyrrho (360-270 BCE), returned to
   Greece and became the first Skeptic and the founder of the school named
   Pyrrhonism. The Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius explained that
   Pyrrhon's equanimity and detachment from the world were acquired in
   India. Few of his sayings are directly known, but they are clearly
   reminiscent of eastern, possibly Buddhist, thought:

          "Nothing really exists, but human life is governed by
          convention"
          "Nothing is in itself more this than that" ( Diogenes Laertius
          IX.61)

   Another of these philosophers, Onesicritus, a Cynic, is said by Strabo
   to have learnt in India the following precepts:

          "That nothing that happens to a man is bad or good, opinions
          being merely dreams"
          "That the best philosophy [is] that which liberates the mind
          from [both] pleasure and grief" (Strabo, XV.I.65)

   These contacts initiated the first direct interactions between Greek
   culture and Indian religions, which were to continue and expand for
   several more centuries.

The Mauryan empire (322–183 BCE)

   The Indian emperor Chandragupta, founder of the Mauryan dynasty,
   re-conquered around 322 BCE the northwest Indian territory that had
   been lost to Alexander the Great. However, contacts were kept with his
   Greek neighbours in the Seleucid Empire, Chandragupta received the
   daughter of the Seleucid king Seleucus I after a peace treaty, and
   several Greeks, such as the historian Megasthenes, resided at the
   Mauryan court.
   Bilingual edict (Greek and Aramaic) by king Ashoka, from Kandahar.
   Kabul Museum.
   Enlarge
   Bilingual edict ( Greek and Aramaic) by king Ashoka, from Kandahar.
   Kabul Museum.

   Chandragupta's grandson Ashoka converted to the Buddhist faith and
   became a great proselytizer in the line of the traditional Pali canon
   of Theravada Buddhism, insisting on non-violence to humans and animals
   ( ahimsa), and general precepts regulating the life of lay people.

   According to the Edicts of Ashoka, set in stone, some of them written
   in Greek, he sent Buddhist emissaries to the Greek lands in Asia and as
   far as the Mediterranean. The edicts name each of the rulers of the
   Hellenic world at the time:

          "The conquest by Dharma has been won here, on the borders, and
          even six hundred yojanas (4,000 miles) away, where the Greek
          king Antiochos (Antiyoga) rules, and beyond there where the four
          kings named Ptolemy (Turamaya), Antigonos (Antikini), Magas
          (Maka) and Alexander (Alikasu[n]dara) rule, likewise in the
          south among the Cholas, the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni."
          ( Rock Edict Nb.13).

   Ashoka also claims he converted to Buddhism Greek populations within
   his realm:

          "Here in the king's domain among the Greeks, the Kambojas, the
          Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the
          Andhras and the Palidas, everywhere people are following
          Beloved-of-the-Gods' instructions in Dharma." Rock Edict Nb13
          (S. Dhammika).

   Finally, some of the emissaries of Ashoka, such as the famous
   Dharmaraksita, are described in Pali sources as leading Greek (" Yona")
   Buddhist monks, active in Buddhist proselytism (the Mahavamsa, XII).

   See also: Greco-Buddhist monasticism.

The Greek presence in Bactria (325 to 125 BCE)

   Alexander had established in Bactria several cities ( Ai-Khanoum,
   Begram) and an administration that were to last more than two centuries
   under the Seleucids and the Greco-Bactrians, all the time in direct
   contact with Indian territory. The Greeks sent ambassadors to the court
   of the Mauryan empire, such as the historian Megasthenes under
   Chandragupta Maurya, and later Deimakos under his son Bindusara, who
   reported extensively on the civilization of the Indians. Megasthenes
   sent detailed reports on Indian religions, which were circulated and
   quoted throughout the Classical world for centuries:

          "Megasthenes makes a different division of the philosophers,
          saying that they are of two kinds, one of which he calls the
          Brachmanes, and the other the Sarmanes..." Strabo XV. 1. 58-60

   The Greco-Bactrians maintained a strong Hellenistic culture at the door
   of India during the rule of the Mauryan empire in India, as exemplified
   by the archaeological site of Ai-Khanoum. When the Mauryan empire was
   toppled by the Sungas around 180 BCE, the Greco-Bactrians expanded into
   India, where they established the Indo-Greek kingdom, under which
   Buddhism was able to flourish.

The Indo-Greek kingdom and Buddhism (180 BCE –10 CE)

   The Greco-Bactrians conquered parts of northern India from 180 BCE,
   whence they are known as the Indo-Greeks. They controlled various areas
   of the northern Indian territory until 10 CE.

   Buddhism prospered under the Indo-Greek kings, and it has been
   suggested that their invasion of India was intended to protect the
   Buddhist faith from the religious persecutions of the new Indian
   dynasty of the Sungas (185–73 BCE) which had overthrown the Mauryans.

Coinage

   Silver coin depicting the Greek king Demetrius I of Bactria wearing an
   elephant scalp, symbol of his conquest of India in 180 BCE.
   Enlarge
   Silver coin depicting the Greek king Demetrius I of Bactria wearing an
   elephant scalp, symbol of his conquest of India in 180 BCE.
   Silver drachm of the Greek "Saviour King" Menander (r.160–135 BCE)
   Enlarge
   Silver drachm of the Greek "Saviour King" Menander (r.160–135 BCE)

   The coins of the Indo-Greek king Menander (reigned 160 to 135 BCE),
   found from Afghanistan to central India, bear the inscription "Saviour
   King Menander" in Greek on the front. Several Indo-Greek kings after
   Menander, such as Zoilos I, Strato I, Heliokles II, Theophilos,
   Peukolaos, Menander II and Archebios display on their coins the title
   of "Maharajasa Dharmika" (lit. "King of the Dharma") in the Prakrit
   language and in the Kharoshthi script.

   Some of the coins of Menander I and Menander II incorporate the
   Buddhist symbol of the eight-spoked wheel, associated with the Greek
   symbols of victory, either the palm of victory, or the victory wreath
   handed over by the goddess Nike. According to the Milinda Pañha, at the
   end of his reign Menander I became a Buddhist arhat, a fact also echoed
   by Plutarch, who explains that his relics were shared and enshrined.

   The ubiquitous symbol of the elephant in Indo-Greek coinage may also
   have been associated with Buddhism, as suggested by the parallel
   between coins of Antialcidas and Menander II, where the elephant in the
   coins of Antialcidas holds the same relationship to Zeus and Nike as
   the Buddhist wheel on the coins of Menander II. When the zoroastrian
   Indo-Parthians invaded northern India in the 1st century CE, they
   adopted a large part of the symbolism of Indo-Greek coinage, but
   refrained from ever using the elephant, suggesting that its meaning was
   not merely geographical.

   Finally, after the reign of Menander I, several Indo-Greek rulers, such
   as Amyntas, King Nicias, Peukolaos, Hermaeus, Hippostratos and Menander
   II, depicted themselves or their Greek deities forming with the right
   hand a benediction gesture identical to the Buddhist vitarka mudra
   (thumb and index joined together, with other fingers extended), which
   in Buddhism signifies the transmission of Buddha's teaching.

Cities

   According to Ptolemy, Greek cities were founded by the Greco-Bactrians
   in northern Pakistan. Menander established his capital in Sagala,
   today's Sialkot in Punjab, one of the centers of the blossoming
   Buddhist culture ( Milinda Panha, Chap. I). A large Greek city built by
   Demetrius and rebuilt by Menander has been excavated at the
   archaeological site of Sirkap near Taxila, where Buddhist stupas were
   standing side-by-side with Hindu and Greek temples, indicating
   religious tolerance and syncretism.

Scriptures

   Evidence of direct religious interaction between Greek and Buddhist
   thought during the period include the Milinda Panha, a Buddhist
   discourse in the platonic style, held between king Menander and the
   Buddhist monk Nagasena.

   Also the Mahavamsa (Chap. XXIX) records that during Menander's reign,
   "a Greek (" Yona") Buddhist head monk" named Mahadharmaraksita
   (literally translated as 'Great Teacher/Preserver of the Dharma') led
   30,000 Buddhist monks from "the Greek city of Alexandria" (possibly
   Alexandria-of-the-Caucasus, around 150km north of today's Kabul in
   Afghanistan), to Sri Lanka for the dedication of a stupa, indicating
   that Buddhism flourished in Menander's territory and that Greeks took a
   very active part in it.

   Several Buddhist dedications by Greeks in India are recorded, such as
   that of the Greek meridarch (civil governor of a province) named
   Theodorus, describing in Kharoshthi how he enshrined relics of the
   Buddha. The inscriptions were found on a vase inside a stupa, dated to
   the reign of Menander or one his successors in the 1st century BCE
   (Tarn, p391):

          "Theudorena meridarkhena pratithavida ime sarira sakamunisa
          bhagavato bahu-jana-stitiye":
          "The meridarch Theodorus has enshrined relics of Lord
          Shakyamuni, for the welfare of the mass of the people"
          (Swāt relic vase inscription of the Meridarkh Theodoros)

   This inscription represents one of the first known mention of the
   Buddha as a deity, using the Indian bhakti word Bhagavat ("Lord",
   "All-embracing personal deity"), suggesting the emergence of Mahayana
   doctrines in Buddhism.

   Finally, Buddhist tradition recognizes Menander as one of the great
   benefactors of the faith, together with Asoka and Kanishka.

   Buddhist manuscripts in cursive Greek have been found in Afghanistan,
   praising various Buddhas and including mentions of the Mahayana
   Lokesvara-raja Buddha (λωγοασφαροραζοβοδδο). These manuscripts have
   been dated later than the 2nd century CE. (Nicholas Sims-Williams, "A
   Bactrian Buddhist Manuscript").

   Some elements of the Mahayana movement may have begun around the 1st
   century BCE in northwestern India, at the time and place of these
   interactions. According to most scholars, the main sutras of Mahayana
   were written after 100 BCE, when sectarian conflicts arose among Nikaya
   Buddhist sects regarding the humanity or super-humanity of the Buddha
   and questions of metaphysical essentialism, on which Greek thought may
   have had some influence: "It may have been a Greek-influenced and
   Greek-carried form of Buddhism that passed north and east along the
   Silk Road" (McEvilly, "The shape of ancient thought").

The Kushan empire (1st–3rd century CE)

   The Kushans, one of the five tribes of the Yuezhi confederation settled
   in Bactria since around 125 BCE when they displaced the
   Greco-Bactrians, invaded the northern parts of Pakistan and India from
   around 1 CE.

   By that time they had already been in contact with Greek culture and
   the Indo-Greek kingdoms for more than a century. They used the Greek
   script to write their language, as exemplified by their coins and their
   adoption of the Greek alphabet. The absorption of Greek historical and
   mythological culture is suggested by Kushan sculptures representing
   Dionysiac scenes or even the story of the Trojan horse and it is
   probable that Greek communities remained under Kushan rule.
   Hellenistic culture in the Indian subcontinent: Greek clothes,
   amphoras, wine and music (Detail from Chakhil-i-Ghoundi stupa, Hadda,
   Gandhara, 1st century CE).
   Enlarge
   Hellenistic culture in the Indian subcontinent: Greek clothes,
   amphoras, wine and music (Detail from Chakhil-i-Ghoundi stupa, Hadda,
   Gandhara, 1st century CE).

   The Kushan king Kanishka, who honored Zoroastrian, Greek and Brahmanic
   deities as well as the Buddha and was famous for his religious
   syncretism, convened the Fourth Buddhist Council around 100 CE in
   Kashmir in order to redact the Sarvastivadin canon. Some of Kanishka's
   coins bear the earliest representations of the Buddha on a coin (around
   120 CE), in Hellenistic style and with the word "Boddo" in Greek script
   .
   The "Kanishka casket", (British Museum, drawing).
   Enlarge
   The " Kanishka casket", ( British Museum, drawing).

   Kanishka also had the original Gandhari vernacular, or Prakrit,
   Mahayana Buddhist texts translated into the high literary language of
   Sanskrit, "a turning point in the evolution of the Buddhist literary
   canon" (Foltz, Religions on the Silk Road)

   The " Kanishka casket", dated to the first year of Kanishka's reign in
   127 CE, was signed by a Greek artist named Agesilas, who oversaw work
   at Kanishka's stupas (caitya), confirming the direct involvement of
   Greeks with Buddhist realizations at such a late date.

   The new syncretic form of Buddhism expanded fully into Eastern Asia
   soon after these events. The Kushan monk Lokaksema visited the Han
   Chinese court at Loyang in 178 CE, and worked there for ten years to
   make the first known translations of Mahayana texts into Chinese. The
   new faith later spread into Korea and Japan, and was itself at the
   origin of Zen.

Artistic influences

   Numerous works of Greco-Buddhist art display the intermixing of Greek
   and Buddhist influences, around such creation centers as Gandhara. The
   subject matter of Gandharan art was definitely Buddhist, while most
   motifs were of Western Asiatic or Hellenistic origin.

The anthropomorphic representation of the Buddha

   An aniconic representation of Mara's assault on the Buddha, 2nd century
   CE, Amaravati, India.
   Enlarge
   An aniconic representation of Mara's assault on the Buddha, 2nd century
   CE, Amaravati, India.

   Although there is still some debate, the first anthropomorphic
   representations of the Buddha himself are often considered a result of
   the Greco-Buddhist interaction. Before this innovation, Buddhist art
   was " aniconic": the Buddha was only represented through his symbols
   (an empty throne, the Bodhi tree, the Buddha's footprints, the prayer
   wheel).

   This reluctance towards anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha,
   and the sophisticated development of aniconic symbols to avoid it (even
   in narrative scenes where other human figures would appear), seem to be
   connected to one of the Buddha’s sayings, reported in the Digha Nikaya,
   that discouraged representations of himself after the extinction of his
   body.

   Probably not feeling bound by these restrictions, and because of "their
   cult of form, the Greeks were the first to attempt a sculptural
   representation of the Buddha" (Linssen, " Zen Living"). In many parts
   of the Ancient World, the Greeks did develop syncretic divinities, that
   could become a common religious focus for populations with different
   traditions: a well-known example is the syncretic God Sarapis,
   introduced by Ptolemy I in Egypt, which combined aspects of Greek and
   Egyptian Gods. In India as well, it was only natural for the Greeks to
   create a single common divinity by combining the image of a Greek
   God-King (The Sun-God Apollo, or possibly the deified founder of the
   Indo-Greek Kingdom, Demetrius), with the traditional attributes of the
   Buddha.
   Standing Buddha, ancient region of Gandhara, northern Pakistan, 1st
   century CE.
   Enlarge
   Standing Buddha, ancient region of Gandhara, northern Pakistan, 1st
   century CE.

   Many of the stylistic elements in the representations of the Buddha
   point to Greek influence: the Greco-Roman toga-like wavy robe covering
   both shoulders (more exactly, its lighter version, the Greek himation),
   the contrapposto stance of the upright figures (see: 1st–2nd century
   Gandhara standing Buddhas), the stylicized Mediterranean curly hair and
   top-knot apparently derived from the style of the Belvedere Apollo (330
   BCE), and the measured quality of the faces, all rendered with strong
   artistic realism (See: Greek art). A large quantity of sculptures
   combining Buddhist and purely Hellenistic styles and iconography were
   excavated at the Gandharan site of Hadda. The 'curly hair' of Buddha is
   described in the famous list of 32 external characteristics of a Great
   Being (mahapurusa) that we find all along the Buddhist sutras. The
   curly hair, with the curls turning to the right is first described in
   the Pali canon of the Smaller Vehicle of Buddhism; we find the same
   description in e.g. the "Dasasahasrika Prajnaparamita".

   Greek artists were most probably the authors of these early
   representations of the Buddha, in particular the standing statues,
   which display "a realistic treatment of the folds and on some even a
   hint of modelled volume that characterizes the best Greek work. This is
   Classical or Hellenistic Greek, not archaizing Greek transmitted by
   Persia or Bactria, nor distinctively Roman" (Boardman).

   The Greek stylistic influence on the representation of the Buddha,
   through its idealistic realism, also permitted a very accessible,
   understandable and attractive visualization of the ultimate state of
   enlightenment described by Buddhism, allowing it reach a wider
   audience: "One of the distinguishing features of the Gandharan school
   of art that emerged in north-west India is that it has been clearly
   influenced by the naturalism of the Classical Greek style. Thus, while
   these images still convey the inner peace that results from putting the
   Buddha's doctrine into practice, they also give us an impression of
   people who walked and talked, etc. and slept much as we do. I feel this
   is very important. These figures are inspiring because they do not only
   depict the goal, but also the sense that people like us can achieve it
   if we try" (The Dalai Lama, foreword to "Echoes of Alexander the
   Great", 2000).

   During the following centuries, this anthropomorphic representation of
   the Buddha defined the canon of Buddhist art, but progressively evolved
   to incorporate more Indian and Asian elements.

A Hellenized Buddhist pantheon

   Herculean depiction of Vajrapani (right), as the protector of the
   Buddha, 2nd century CE Gandhara, British Museum.
   Enlarge
   Herculean depiction of Vajrapani (right), as the protector of the
   Buddha, 2nd century CE Gandhara, British Museum.

   Several other Buddhist deities may have been influenced by Greek gods.
   For example, Herakles with a lion-skin (the protector deity of
   Demetrius I) "served as an artistic model for Vajrapani, a protector of
   the Buddha" (Foltz, "Religions and the Silk Road") (See). In Japan,
   this expression further translated into the wrath-filled and muscular
   Niō guardian gods of the Buddha, standing today at the entrance of many
   Buddhist temples.

   According to Katsumi Tanabe, professor at Chūō University, Japan (in
   "Alexander the Great. East-West cultural contact from Greece to
   Japan"), besides Vajrapani, Greek influence also appears in several
   other gods of the Mahayana pantheon, such as the Japanese Wind God
   Fujin inspired from the Greek Boreas through the Greco-Buddhist Wardo,
   or the mother deity Hariti inspired by Tyche.

   In addition, forms such as garland-bearing cherubs, vine scrolls, and
   such semi-human creatures as the centaur and triton, are part of the
   repertory of Hellenistic art introduced by Greco-Roman artists in the
   service of the Kushan court.

   See also: Buddhist art

Greco-Buddhism and the rise of the Mahayana

   The geographical, cultural and historical context of the rise of
   Mahayana Buddhism during the 1st century BCE in northwestern India, all
   point to intense multi-cultural influences: "Key formative influences
   on the early development of the Mahayana and Pure Land movements, which
   became so much part of East Asian civilization, are to be sought in
   Buddhism's earlier encounters along the Silk Road" (Foltz, Religions on
   the Silk Road). As Mahayana Buddhism emerged, it received "influences
   from popular Hindu devotional cults ( bhakti), Persian and Greco-Roman
   theologies which filtered into India from the northwest" (Tom
   Lowenstein, p63).

Conceptual influences

   Mahayana is an inclusive faith characterized by the adoption of new
   texts, in addition to the traditional Pali canon, and a shift in the
   understanding of Buddhism. It goes beyond the traditional Theravada
   ideal of the release from suffering ( dukkha) and personal
   enlightenment of the arhats, to elevate the Buddha to a God-like
   status, and to create a pantheon of quasi-divine Bodhisattvas devoting
   themselves to personal excellence, ultimate knowledge and the salvation
   of humanity. These concepts, together with the sophisticated
   philosophical system of the Mahayana faith, may have been influenced by
   the interaction of Greek and Buddhist thought:

The Buddha as an idealized man-god

   The Buddha was elevated to a man-god status, represented in idealized
   human form: "One might regard the classical influence as including the
   general idea of representing a man-god in this purely human form, which
   was of course well familiar in the West, and it is very likely that the
   example of westerners' treatment of their gods was indeed an important
   factor in the innovation... The Buddha, the man-god, is in many ways
   far more like a Greek god than any other eastern deity, no less for the
   narrative cycle of his story and appearance of his standing figure than
   for his humanity" (Boardman, "The Diffusion of Classical Art in
   Antiquity" ).

   The supra-mundane understanding of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas may have
   been a consequence of the Greek’s tendency to deify their rulers in the
   wake of Alexander’s reign: "The god- king concept brought by Alexander
   (...) may have fed into the developing bodhisattva concept, which
   involved the portrayal of the Buddha in Gandharan art with the face of
   the sun god, Apollo" (McEvilley, "The Shape of Ancient Thought").

The Bodhisattva as a Universal ideal of excellence

   Portraits from the site of Hadda, 3rd century CE.
   Enlarge
   Portraits from the site of Hadda, 3rd century CE.

   Lamotte (1954) controversially suggests (though countered by Conze
   (1973) and others) that Greek influence was present in the definition
   of the Bodhisattva ideal in the oldest Mahayana text, the "Perfection
   of Wisdom" or prajñā pāramitā literature, that developed between the
   1st century BCE and the 1st century CE. These texts in particular
   redefine Buddhism around the universal Bodhisattva ideal, and its six
   central virtues of generosity, morality, patience, effort, meditation
   and, first and foremost, wisdom.

Philosophical influences

   The close association between Greeks and Buddhism probably led to
   exchanges on the philosophical plane as well. Many of the early
   Mahayana theories of reality and knowledge can be related to Greek
   philosophical schools of thought. Mahayana Buddhism has been described
   as the “form of Buddhism which (regardless of how Hinduized its later
   forms became) seems to have originated in the Greco-Buddhist
   communities of India, through a conflation of the Greek Democritean-
   Sophistic- Skeptical tradition with the rudimentary and unformalized
   empirical and skeptical elements already present in early Buddhism”
   (McEvilly, "The Shape of Ancient Thought", p503).
     * In the Prajnaparamita, the rejection of the reality of passing
       phenomena as “empty, false and fleeting” can also be found in Greek
       Pyrrhonism.
     * The perception of ultimate reality was, for the Cynics as well as
       for the Madyamikas and Zen teachers after them, only accessible
       through a non-conceptual and non-verbal approach (Greek
       "Phronesis"), which alone allowed to get rid of ordinary
       conceptions.
     * The mental attitude of equanimity and dispassionate outlook in
       front of events was also characteristic of the Cynics and Stoics,
       who called it "Apatheia"
     * Nagarjuna's dialectic developed in the Madhyamika can be paralleled
       to the Greek dialectical tradition.

Cynicism, Madhyamika and Zen

   Numerous parallels exist between the Greek philosophy of the Cynics
   and, several centuries later, the Buddhist philosophy of the Madhyamika
   and Zen. The Cynics denied the relevancy of human conventions and
   opinions (described as typhos, literally "smoke" or "mist", a metaphor
   for "illusion" or "error"), including verbal expressions, in favour of
   the raw experience of reality. They stressed the independence from
   externals to achieve happiness ("Happiness is not pleasure, for which
   we need external, but virtue, which is complete without external" 3rd
   epistole of Crates). Similarly the Prajnaparamita, precursor of the
   Madhyamika, explained that all things are like foam, or bubbles,
   "empty, false, and fleeting", and that "only the negation of all views
   can lead to enlightenment" (Nāgārjuna, MK XIII.8). In order to evade
   the world of illusion, the Cynics recommended the discipline and
   struggle ("askēsis kai machē") of philosophy, the practice of
   "autarkia" (self-rule), and a lifestyle examplified by Diogenes, which,
   like Buddhist monks, renounced earthly possessions. These conceptions,
   in combination with the idea of "philanthropia" (universal loving
   kindness, of which Crates, the student of Diogenes, was the best
   proponent), are strikingly reminiscent of Buddhist Prajna (wisdom) and
   Karuna (compassion).

Greco-Persian cosmological influences

   A popular figure in Greco-Buddhist art, the future Buddha Maitreya, has
   sometimes been linked to the Iranian yazata ( Zoroastrian divinity)
   Miθra who was also adopted as a figure in a Greco-Roman syncretistic
   cult under the name of Mithras. Maitreya is the fifth Buddha of the
   present world-age, who will appear at some undefined future epoch.
   According to Foltz, he "echoes the qualities of the Zoroastrian
   Saoshyant and the Christian Messiah" (Foltz). However, in character and
   function, Maitreya does not much resemble either Mitra, Miθra or
   Mithras; his name is more obviously derived from the Sanskrit maitrī
   "kindliness", equivalent to Pali mettā; the Pali (and probably older)
   form of his name, Metteyya, does not closely resemble the name Miθra.

   The Buddha Amitābha (literally meaning “infinite radiance”) with his
   paradisiacal " Pure Land" in the West, according to Foltz, "seems to be
   understood as the Iranian god of light, equated with the sun". This
   view is however not in accordance with the view taken of Amitābha by
   present-day Pure Land Buddhists, in which Amitābha is neither "equated
   with the sun" nor, strictly speaking, a god.

Gandharan proselytism

   Buddhist monks from the region of Gandhara, where Greco-Buddhism was
   most influential, played a key role in the development and the
   transmission of Buddhist ideas in the direction of northern Asia.
   Blue-eyed Central Asian Buddhist monk, with an East-Asian colleague,
   Tarim Basin, 9th-10th century.
   Enlarge
   Blue-eyed Central Asian Buddhist monk, with an East-Asian colleague,
   Tarim Basin, 9th-10th century.
     * Kushan monks, such as Lokaksema (c. 178 CE), travelled to the
       Chinese capital of Loyang, where they became the first translators
       of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. Central Asian and
       East Asian Buddhist monks appear to have maintained strong
       exchanges until around the 10th century, as indicated by frescos
       from the Tarim Basin.
     * Two half-brothers from Gandhara, Asanga and Vasubandhu (4th
       century), created the Yogacara or "Mind-only" school of Mahayana
       Buddhism, which through one of its major texts, the Lankavatara
       Sutra, became a founding block of Mahayana, and particularly Zen,
       philosophy.
     * In 485 CE, according to the Chinese historic treatise Liang Shu,
       five monks from Gandhara travelled to the country of Fusang ("The
       country of the extreme East" beyond the sea, probably eastern
       Japan, although some historians suggest the American Continent),
       where they introduced Buddhism:

          " Fusang is located to the east of China, 20,000 li (1,500
          kilometers) east of the state of Da Han (itself east of the
          state of Wa in modern Kyūshū, Japan). (...) In former times, the
          people of Fusang knew nothing of the Buddhist religion, but in
          the second year of Da Ming of the Song dynasty (485 CE), five
          monks from Kipin ( Kabul region of Gandhara) travelled by ship
          to Fusang. They propagated Buddhist doctrine, circulated
          scriptures and drawings, and advised the people to relinquish
          worldly attachments. As a results the customs of Fusang changed"
          (Ch:"扶桑在大漢國東二萬餘里,地在中國之東(...)其俗舊無佛法,宋大明二年,罽賓國嘗有比丘五人游行至其國,流通佛法,經像,
          教令出家,風 俗遂改.", Liang Shu, 7th century CE).

     * Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, is described as a Central Asian
       Buddhist monk in the first Chinese references to him (Yan Xuan-Zhi,
       547 CE), although later Chinese traditions describe him as coming
       from South India.

Intellectual influences in Asia

   Through art and religion, the influence of Greco-Buddhism on the
   cultural make-up of East Asian countries, especially China, Korea and
   Japan, may have extended further into the intellectual area.

   At the same time as Greco-Buddhist art and Mahayana schools of thought
   such as Dhyana were transmitted to East Asia, central concepts of
   Hellenic culture such as virtue, excellence or quality may have been
   adopted by the cultures of Korea and Japan after a long diffusion among
   the Hellenized cities of Central Asia, to become a key part of their
   warrior and work ethics.

Greco-Buddhism and the West

   In the direction of the West, the Greco-Buddhist syncretism may also
   have had some formative influence on the religions of the Mediterranean
   Basin.

Exchanges

   Intense westward physical exchange at that time along the Silk Road is
   confirmed by the Roman craze for silk from the 1st century BCE to the
   point that the Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the
   wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds. This is attested by at
   least three significant authors:
     * Strabo (64/ 63 BCE–c. 24 CE).
     * Seneca the Younger (c. 3 BCE–65 CE).
     * Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE).

   The aforementioned Strabo and Plutarch (c. 45–125 CE) wrote about king
   Menander, confirming that information was circulating throughout the
   Hellenistic world.

Religious influences

Christianity and Buddhism

   Although the philosophical systems of Buddhism and Christianity have
   evolved in rather different ways, the moral precepts advocated by
   Buddhism from the time of Ashoka through his edicts do have some
   similarities with the Christian moral precepts developed more than two
   centuries later: respect for life, respect for the weak, rejection of
   violence, pardon to sinners, tolerance.
   Known representations of the Buddha on Kanishka's coinage (circa 150
   CE).
   Enlarge
   Known representations of the Buddha on Kanishka's coinage (circa 150
   CE).

   One theory is that these similarities may indicate the propagation of
   Buddhist ideals into the Western World, with the Greeks acting as
   intermediaries and religious syncretists. For example, the "miracle" of
   walking on water, which is frequently attributed to Jesus in the New
   Testament, is first found in Buddhist literature in the oldest Pali
   Canon Digha Nikaya 11, in the Kevatta Sutta. This is not found in any
   other literature in the world except 500 years later in the Christian
   New Testament.

          "Scholars have often considered the possibility that Buddhism
          influenced the early development of Christianity. They have
          drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives,
          doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus" (Bentley, "Old
          World Encounters").

   The story of the birth of the Buddha was well known in the West, and
   possibly influenced the story of the birth of Jesus: Saint Jerome (4th
   century CE) mentions the birth of the Buddha, who he says "was born
   from the side of a virgin". Also a fragment of Archelaos of Carrha (278
   CE) mentions the Buddha's virgin-birth.

   Early 3rd-4th century Christian writers such as Hippolytus and
   Epiphanius write about a Scythianus, who visited India around 50 AD
   from where he brought "the doctrine of the Two Principles". According
   to these writers, Scythianus' pupil Terebinthus presented himself as a
   "Buddha" ("he called himself Buddas" Cyril of Jerusalem ). Terebinthus
   went to Palestine and Judaea where he met the Apostles ("becoming known
   and condemned" Isaia), and ultimately settled in Babylon, where he
   transmitted his teachings to Mani, thereby creating the foundation of
   what could be called Persian syncretic Buddhism, Manicheism. One of the
   greatest thinkers and saints of western Christianity, Augustine of
   Hippo was originally a Manichean.

   In the 2nd century CE, the Christian dogmatist Clement of Alexandria
   recognized Bactrian Buddhists (Sramanas) and Indian Gymnosophists for
   their influence on Greek thought:

          "Thus philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in
          antiquity among the barbarians, shedding its light over the
          nations. And afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks
          were the prophets of the Egyptians; and the Chaldeans among the
          Assyrians; and the Druids among the Gauls; and the Sramanas
          among the Bactrians ("Σαρμαναίοι Βάκτρων"); and the philosophers
          of the Celts; and the Magi of the Persians, who foretold the
          Saviour's birth, and came into the land of Judaea guided by a
          star. The Indian gymnosophists are also in the number, and the
          other barbarian philosophers. And of these there are two
          classes, some of them called Sramanas ("Σαρμάναι"), and others
          Brahmins ("Βραφμαναι")." (Clement of Alexandria "The Stromata,
          or Miscellanies" ).

   The main Greek cities of the Middle-East happen to have played a key
   role in the development of Christianity, such as Antioch and especially
   Alexandria, and “it was later in this very place that some of the most
   active centers of Christianity were established” (Robert Linssen, “Zen
   living”).
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
