![]() ![]() The results are in my view mixed, some excellent and profound, some silly and self-contradictory. Beckwith takes up the themes just outlined and runs with them – sometimes a very long way. This is the exciting field of investigation into which Christopher Beckwith’s Greek Buddha enters. Pyrrho, it would seem, may have brought the Buddha’s middle way philosophy back to Greece. In such teachings, as in later Madhyamaka, and as in Pyrrho, we see that the path of not holding to views and opinions is said to lead beyond suffering. Such a one, gone to the far shore, does not come back. They do not formulate, they do not prefer:Ī brahman is not reckoned by virtue or vows. Take for example the following verses from the Aṭṭhakavagga of the Sutta-nipāta, regarded as one of the earliest records of the Buddha’s teaching: Nevertheless, modern scholars like Thomas McEvilley and Adrian Kuzminski have found close parallels between Pyrrhonian scepticism and Buddhist Madhyamaka thought, with precedents in earlier Buddhist scriptures. And there is no direct evidence at all for what, if anything, Pyrrho learned in India. Moreover, there is uncertainty about how to interpret these quotes and fragments. Pyrrho himself did not write down his philosophy, and what we know about it consists in fragmentary quotations from the writings of his pupil, Timon, plus various anecdotes and lesser fragments. Unfortunately, answers to such questions are difficult. The questions naturally arise of what Pyrrho might have learned from Indian thinkers, and whether his philosophy was perhaps inspired by Buddhists that he met in ancient Gandhāra. The way to these ideals is said to consist in a form of scepticism about the knowledge gained through sense perception and thought rather than believe we might be able to attain certainty we should refrain from doxai, ‘beliefs’ or ‘opinions’, but maintain equanimity and hence undisturbedness. ![]() When he returned from India, Pyrrho is said to have taught a philosophical ethics, in the sense of how to live the best and happiest kind of life, in terms of the ideals of apatheia, ‘being without passion’, and ataraxia, ‘undisturbedness, calm’. During their Indian sojourn, Pyrrho and his teacher, Anaxarchus, met Indian gymnosophists, ‘naked wise men’, and it is said that Pyrrho’s philosophy developed as a result of such meetings. Christopher Beckwith, Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia, Princeton University Press, 2015.Ĭlassical sources tell us that a young man named Pyrrho travelled with Alexander the Great and his army to north-west India in 324 bce. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |