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O. Bopearachchi, Review of C.I. Beckwith, Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia, Princeton University Press, Princeton/Oxford 2015, in Ancient West & East, vol. 15, 2016, pp. 341-2.
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Sino-Platonic Papers #350, 2024
Abstract: At the ancient site of Tapa Shotor, near Hadda in Afghanistan, two niches (V2 and V3) were found that included sculptures depicting Alexander and Herakles standing next to the Buddha. The sculptures were destroyed by the Taliban in 1992. These two niches and their contents are investigated in this paper in their historical context, and the reasons the two iconically Greek figures of Alexander and Herakles came to be adopted by local populations, in traditions that continue even up to today, are extensively explored. Were they placed in Buddhist sites merely as "foreign figures adapted to local Buddhist beliefs," as some have claimed? Or were they reflective of a more deeply rooted inclusion? This article investigates the two figures and their impact on the region—and beyond, as their influence spread through eastern Asia. Rule of the region by Indo-Greeks and Greco-Bactrians lasted more than three hundred years, and this was followed by the rule of the Kushana kingdom, in which these people were still very active. Thus, Greeks and their culture were no longer foreign in Central Asia. IndoGreek references in Buddhism, or “Helleno-Buddhist Universalism,” continued still longer, being adopted by a warlike aristocracy of Greek, Parthian, Saka, and Yuezhi origins, who included traditional Indo-Greek combat sports and other military arts in their education system. This discussion raises deeper questions concerning our received conceptual structures of what constitutes a civilization, suggesting that, rather than defining it solely in a national-historical perspective, we must consider the human beings involved and the often-intermixed character of their traditions.
Brill Publishers, 2014
Ancient Philosophy, 2011
The Silk Road: Interwoven History, Vol. 2 Buddhism, 2022
This chapter deals with Bactria (centered on the north of present-day Afghanistan), Gandhāra (present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan), and India to discuss the conversion of some of the Greeks to Buddhism. The colonizers brought their own belief system centered around Greek mythology and its pantheon to Central Asia and India, where many long-established indigenous religions such as Zoroastrianism, Gnostic religions, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism existed. Greek conversion to Buddhism reveals important aspects of the process of cultural assimilation of the Greeks who settled in Central and South Asia, as well as of the Hellenization of some Indians and Bactrians, who accepted and adopted Greek identity and culture.
Imagining the Divine:: Exploring Art in Religions of Late Antiquity Across Eurasia, 2021
Journal of Religious History, 1987
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The book emphasizes the sea as a vital connector for trade and colonization, influencing Greek mythology extensively, particularly in the tales of Perseus, Theseus, and Jason.
Beckwith argues that Pyrrho's philosophical teachings share similarities with Early Buddhism and that his journey to India influenced philosophical developments that persist today.
The review highlights Beckwith's lack of critical examination of Buddhist sources and reliance on speculative connections, particularly regarding historical assertions about Pyrrho.
Beckwith posits that Megasthenes had knowledge of Buddhism in India, with implications suggesting early exchanges between Greek and Buddhist philosophies, yet lacks substantial evidence.
The book does not adequately address works by key scholars, such as André Bareau and Gregory Schopen, leading to potentially distorted interpretations of their findings.
Conatus
This article discusses the influence of Indian Buddhism on Greek Skepticism and their philosophical method of stress management through the Greek philosopher Pyrrho of Elis. That influence was the subject of two books with similar titles mentioning the “Greek Buddha,” as Pyrrho was called by Nietzsche. Both books, one written in Greek from a layman’s perspective approximately 40 years ago and one written in English from a scholarly perspective approximately 6 years ago, discussed the similarities of the Eastern and Western traditions in terms of the goal of serenity, ataraxia. The book published in 1984 was the first one in Greece to link Greek Hellenistic Philosophy to Oriental Wisdom and especially to the early Philosophy of Buddhism. Both traditions offer a practical way of philosophical management of everyday stress and suffering through the mentality of suspension of judgement and non-attachment to certainties.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2016
There is a quiet revolution afoot in our understanding of Early Buddhism, Pyrrhonism, and the Greek, Indian, and Central Asian cultural world of Hellenistic antiquity. The implications for the history of philosophy and religion are potentially profound. Christopher Beckwith's recent remarkable and provocative book, Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism, is the latest work breaking important new ground in this area. 1 It offers no less than a wholesale geographical and chronological restructuring of traditional Buddhism, upsetting decades of scholarship. Along the way, Beckwith advances the following audacious claims: 1. That the Buddha was a Scythian, not an Indian. 2. That he lived much later than commonly thought, most likely well into the 5th century BCE. 3. That the earliest datable form of Buddhism anywhere is the ancient Greek school of Pyrrhonism, founded by Pyrrho of Ellis in the late fourth century BCE, based on his experiences with Buddhists in central Asia, where he accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns. 4. That what we would recognize as "normative" Buddhism-that is, Buddhism as we know it-can only be attested in the first century CE, long after the Buddha's lifetime.
Philosophy East & West, 2010
Review Essay
2022
Prospectus for a new book by Mario Poceski, fortcoming from Reaktion Books
Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, 2015
This work is a revisionist reading on the impact of the historical meeting of Alexandrian philosophers with Indian ascetics in Gandhāra during the far eastern campaigns of Alexandros of Macedonia (356–323 BCE). A comparative re-examination of Greek and Indian sources yields new evidence that situates the religious identity of the Indian gymnosophist Kalanos in early ascetic traditions of Buddhism in NW India that upheld the practice of ritual suicide by immolation on specific occasions during the later part of the fourth century BCE. It supports previous research on the Hellenistic period that philosophically links Pyrrhon of Elis (c.360–c.270 BCE) with Indian Buddhism through his encounters with Kalanos and on the basis of shared soteriological conceptions and practices.
Osmund Bopearachchi