INDIA AND GREECE.
There is, however, another reason why Apollonius is of importance to us.
He was an enthusiastic admirer of the wisdom of India. Here again a
subject of wide interest opens up. What influences, if any, had
Br[=a]hmanism and Buddhism on Western thought in these early years? It
is strongly asserted by some that they had great influence; it is as
strongly denied by others that they had any influence at all. It is,
therefore, apparent that there is no really indisputable evidence on the
subject.
Just as some would ascribe the constitution of the Essene and Therapeut
communities to Pythagorean influence, so others would ascribe their
origin to Buddhist propaganda; and not only would they trace this
influence in the Essene tenets and practices, but they would even refer
the general teaching of the Christ to a Buddhist source in a Jewish
monotheistic setting. Not only so, but some would have it that two
centuries before the direct general contact of Greece with India,
brought about by the conquests of Alexander, India through Pythagoras
strongly and lastingly influenced all subsequent Greek thought.
The question can certainly not be settled by hasty affirmation or
denial; it requires not only a wide knowledge of general history and a
minute study of scattered and imperfect indications of thought and
practice, but also a fine appreciation of the correct value of indirect
evidence, for of direct testimony there is none of a really decisive
nature. To such high qualifications we can make no pretension, and our
highest ambition is simply to give a few very general indications of the
nature of the subject.
It is plainly asserted by the ancient Greeks that Pythagoras went to
India, but as the statement is made by Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic
writers subsequent to the time of Apollonius, it is objected that the
travels of the Tyanean suggested not only this item in the biography of
the great Samian but several others, or even that Apollonius himself in
his Life of Pythagoras was father of the rumour. The close resemblance,
however, between many of the features of Pythagorean discipline and
doctrine and Indo-Aryan thought and practice, make us hesitate entirely
to reject the possibility of Pythagoras having visited ancient
[=A]ry[=a]varta.
And even if we cannot go so far as to entertain the possibility of
direct personal contact, there has to be taken into consideration the
fact that Pherecydes, the master of Pythagoras, may have been acquainted
with some of the main ideas of Vaidic lore. Pherecydes taught at
Ephesus, but was himself most probably a Persian, and it is quite
credible that a learned Asiatic, teaching a mystic philosophy and basing
his doctrine upon the idea of rebirth, may have had some indirect, if
not direct, knowledge of Indo-Aryan thought.
Persia must have been even at this time in close contact with India, for
about the date of the death of Pythagoras, in the reign of Dareius, son
of Hystaspes, at the end of the sixth and beginning of the fifth century
before our era, we hear of the expedition of the Persian general Scylax
down the Indus, and learn from Herodotus that in this reign India (that
is the Punj[=a]b) formed the twentieth satrapy of the Persian monarchy.
Moreover, Indian troops were among the hosts of Xerxes; they invaded
Thessaly and fought at Platæa.
From the time of Alexander onwards there was direct and constant contact
between [=A]ry[=a]varta and the kingdoms of the successors of the
world-conqueror, and many Greeks wrote about this land of mystery; but
in all that has come down to us we look in vain for anything but the
vaguest indications of what the "philosophers" of India systematically
thought.
That the Br[=a]hmans would at this time have permitted their sacred
books to be read by the Yavanas (Ionians, the general name for Greeks in
Indian records) is contrary to all we know of their history. The Yavanas
were Mlechchhas, outside the pale of the [=A]ryas, and all they could
glean of the jealously guarded Brahm[=a]-vidy[=a] or theosophy must have
depended solely upon outside observation. But the dominant religious
activity at this time in India was Buddhist, and it is to this protest
against the rigid distinctions of caste and race made by Br[=a]hmanical
pride, and to the startling novelty of an enthusiastic religious
propaganda among all classes and races in India, and outside India to
all nations, that we must look for the most direct contact of thought
between India and Greece.
For instance, in the middle of the third century B.C., we know from
Asoka's thirteenth edict, that this Buddhist Emperor of India, the
Constantine of the East, sent missionaries to Antiochus II. of Syria,
Ptolemy II. of Egypt, Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene,
and Alexander II. of Epirus. When, in a land of such imperfect records,
the evidence on the side of India is so clear and indubitable, all the
more extraordinary is it that we have no direct testimony on our side of
so great a missionary activity. Although, then, merely because of the
absence of all direct information from Greek sources, it is very unsafe
to generalize, nevertheless from our general knowledge of the times it
is not illegitimate to conclude that no great public stir could have
been made by these pioneers of the Dharma in the West. In every
probability these Buddhist Bhik[s.]hus produced no effect on the rulers
or on the people. But was their mission entirely abortive; and did
Buddhist missionary enterprise westwards cease with them?
The answer to this question, as it seems to us, is hidden in the
obscurity of the religious communities. We cannot, however, go so far as
to agree with those who would cut the gordian knot by asserting
dogmatically that the ascetic communities in Syria and Egypt were
founded by these Buddhist propagandists. Already even in Greece itself
were not only Pythagorean but even prior to them Orphic communities, for
even on this ground we believe that Pythagoras rather developed what he
found already existing, than that he established something entirely new.
And if they were found in Greece, much more then is it reasonable to
suppose that such communities already existed in Syria, Arabia, and
Egypt, whose populations were given far more to religious exercises than
the sceptical and laughter-loving Greeks.
It is, however, credible that in such communities, if anywhere, Buddhist
propaganda would find an appreciative and attentive audience; but even
so it is remarkable that they have left no distinctly direct trace of
their influence. Nevertheless, both by the sea way and by the great
caravan route there was an ever open line of communication between India
and the Empire of the successors of Alexander; and it is even
permissible to speculate, that if we could recover a catalogue of the
great Alexandrian library, for instance, we should perchance find that
in it Indian MSS. were to be found among the other rolls and parchments
of the scriptures of the nations.
Indeed, there are phrases in the oldest treatises of the Trismegistic
Hermetic literature which can be so closely paralleled with phrases in
the Upani[s.]hads and in the Bhagavad G[=i]t[=a], that one is almost
tempted to believe that the writers had some acquaintance with the
general contents of these Br[=a]hmanical scriptures. The Trismegistic
literature had its genesis in Egypt, and its earliest deposit must be
dated at least in the first century A.D., if it cannot even be pushed
back earlier. Even more striking is the similarity between the lofty
mystic metaphysic of the Gnostic doctor Basilides, who lived at the end
of the first and beginning of the second century A.D., and Ved[=a]ntic
ideas. Moreover, both the Hermetic and the Basilidean schools and their
immediate predecessors were devoted to a stern self-discipline and deep
philosophical study which would make them welcome eagerly any
philosopher or mystic student who might come from the far East.
But even so, we are not of those who by their own self-imposed
limitations of possibility are condemned to find some direct physical
contact to account for a similarity of ideas or even of phrasing.
Granting, for instance, that there is much resemblance between the
teachings of the Dharma of the Buddha and of the Gospel of the Christ,
and that the same spirit of love and gentleness pervades them both,
still there is no necessity to look for the reason of this resemblance
to purely physical transmission. And so for other schools and other
teachers; like conditions will produce similar phenomena; like effort
and like aspiration will produce similar ideas, similar experience, and
similar response. And this we believe to be the case in no general way,
but that it is all very definitely ordered from within by the servants
of the real guardians of things religious in this world.
We are, then, not compelled to lay so much stress on the question of
physical transmission, or to be seeking even to find proof of copying.
The human mind in its various degrees is much the same in all climes and
ages, and its inner experience has a common ground into which seed may
be sown, as it is tilled and cleared of weeds. The good seed comes all
from the same granary, and those who sow it pay no attention to the
man-made outer distinctions of race and creed.
However difficult, therefore, it may be to prove, from unquestionably
historical statements, any direct influence of Indian thought on the
conceptions and practices of some of these religious communities and
philosophic schools of the Græco-Roman Empire, and although in any
particular case similarity of ideas need not necessarily be assigned to
direct physical transmission, nevertheless the highest probability, if
not the greatest assurance, remains that even prior to the days of
Apollonius there was some private knowledge in Greece of the general
ideas of the Ved[=a]nta and Dharma; while in the case of Apollonius
himself, even if we discount nine-tenths of what is related of him, his
one idea seems to have been to spread abroad among the religious
brotherhoods and institutions of the Empire some portion of the wisdom
which he brought back with him from India.
When, then, we find at the end of the first and during the first half
of the second century, among such mystic associations as the Hermetic
and Gnostic schools, ideas which strongly remind us of the theosophy of
the Upani[s.]hads or the reasoned ethics of the Suttas, we have always
to take into consideration not only the high probability of Apollonius
having visited such schools, but also the possibility of his having
discoursed at length therein on the Indian wisdom. Not only so, but the
memory of his influence may have lingered for long in such circles, for
do we not find Plotinus, the coryphæus of Neo-Platonism, as it is
called, so enamoured with what he had heard of the wisdom of India at
Alexandria, that in 242 he started off with the ill-starred expedition
of Gordian to the East in the hope of reaching that land of philosophy?
With the failure of the expedition and assassination of the Emperor,
however, he had to return, for ever disappointed of his hope.
It is not, however, to be thought that Apollonius set out to make a
propaganda of Indian philosophy in the same way that the ordinary
missionary sets forth to preach his conception of the Gospel. By no
means; Apollonius seems to have endeavoured to help his hearers, whoever
they might be, in the way best suited to each of them. He did not begin
by telling them that what they believed was utterly false and
soul-destroying, and that their eternal welfare depended upon their
instantly adopting his own special scheme of salvation; he simply
endeavoured to purge and further explain what they already believed and
practised. That some strong power supported him in his ceaseless
activity, and in his almost world-wide task, is not so difficult of
belief; and it is a question of deep interest for those who strive to
peer through the mists of appearance, to speculate how that not only a
Paul but also an Apollonius was aided and directed in his task from
within.
The day, however, has not yet dawned when it will be possible for the
general mind in the West to approach the question with such freedom from
prejudice, as to bear the thought that, seen from within, not only Paul
but also Apollonius may well have been a "disciple of the Lord" in the
true sense of the words; and that too although on the surface of things
their tasks seem in many ways so dissimilar, and even, to theological
preconceptions, entirely antagonistic.
Fortunately, however, even to-day there is an ever-growing number of
thinking people who will not only not be shocked by such a belief, but
who will receive it with joy as the herald of the dawning of a true sun
of righteousness, which will do more to illumine the manifold ways of
the religion of our common humanity than all the self-righteousness of
any particular body of exclusive religionists.
It is, then, in this atmosphere of charity and tolerance that we would
ask the reader to approach the consideration of Apollonius and his
doings, and not only the life and deeds of an Apollonius, but also of
all those who have striven to help their fellows the world over.