Chapter Four
Indian philosophy on the sage and pain
Stoic ethical theory is deficient for two reasons. First, it lacks a convincing process by which a person can realize that her place is to be a part in the larger whole. Secondly, it cannot convince us that a person who made such a realization would be happy. Indian philosophy deals with the same issues as the Stoics and it has a satisfactory answer to both of these questions. First, the Indian philosophers maintain that the best way to shift one’s identification from the personal ego and selfish concerns to something larger is through meditation. For meditation is a process by which a person shifts from identifying herself as her body, emotions or mind and becomes aware of a deeper connection with her soul or God. Secondly, the Indian philosophers maintain that someone is happiest when she is aware of her deeper connection to her soul or God. They maintain that being aware of our part in the larger whole is a source of immense joy and happiness. This happiness is much more satisfying than anything we experience in our normal daily life. So the Indian philosophers, unlike the Stoics, give us a way to achieve awareness of our connection to the larger whole and give us a reason someone would want to achieve this connection with God.
In this chapter I will discuss four of the most important philosophical schools of India: the Upanishads, Yoga, Jainism and Buddhism. These Indian philosophies all maintain that the sage can be perfectly happy no matter what happens to him, even if he is tortured. Two of these Indian philosophies, Jainism and Buddhism, developed in such a way that the sage not only does not mind being tortured, but he even welcomes it. Not only are the Indian philosophers concerned with the same themes as the Greeks, but the evidence shows that Indian philosophy influenced Hellenistic philosophers through Pyrrho’s visit to India. For in India, Pyrrho met Indian ascetics and was inspired by their total imperturbability. While the best evidence shows that Indian philosophy did influence Hellenistic philosophy, it is much more important to my thesis that Indian philosophy answers the questions that Stoic philosophy is unable to answer. I will first consider the theme in the earliest expression of Indian philosophy, the Upanishads. Then I will explore Yoga, Jainism and finally Buddhism.
The Upanishads on the sage and pain
The Upanishads were written about 500 years B.C.E. and they are the foundation of a significant portion of orthodox Hindu philosophy. The Upanishads are not philosophical treatises; they are a pastiche of many conversations and sayings.
The central doctrine of the Upanishads is that there is a Brahman or God. This Brahman, however, is much closer to the God of absolute idealism than the personal God of theism. Most importantly for our concerns, Brahman “does not suffer, he is not injured.”[1] This is because Brahman “transcends hunger and thirst, sorrow and delusion, old age and death.”[2] Brahman does not just transcend suffering; “Brahman is bliss.”[3]
The central idea of the Upanishads is that a person’s inner soul is the same as or one with God or Brahman. The highest realization a person can make is to realize that Brahman or God is “identical with the self.”[4] The person who fully realizes this identity, a released person, would lose her sense of separateness and fully merge with God. “Just as the flowing rivers disappear in the ocean casting off name and shape, even so the knower, freed from name and shape, attains to the divine person.”[5] Not only does one who realizes his true nature become one with God, but “when a seer sees the creator…he attains supreme equality with the lord.”[6] Indeed one who has realized his true nature is Brahman: “He, verily, who knows the Supreme Brahman becomes Brahman himself.”[7]
The all important way to make these realizations is through meditation and performing austerities.[8] Furthermore, realizing oneness with Brahman produces a most blissful experience of “imperishable happiness.”[9] Another description of becoming one with Brahman describes it as the “greatest bliss. On a particle of this very bliss other creatures live.”[10] This bliss is described as many trillion times more satisfying than a good life by society’s standards.[11] Indeed a person who knows this bliss is so fulfilled that she does not have any desire for the normal things of the world such as sons or wealth.[12]
While the Hellenistic philosophers only made the claim that we can be perfectly happy while being tortured, the Indian philosophers are making the much stronger claim that we can become equal with God. Can we really change our awareness and become like God while still in our physical body? The interesting point is that Indian philosophy disagrees on this very point. For there is a major split in the Upanishads and Vedanta philosophy which is based on the Upanishads, about whether it is really possible for a being with a physical body to be equal with God.
The opinion of the most important school, Advaita or non-dualistic Vedanta, is that the sage can become like God in this life as he “becomes one liberated while in life.”[13] “Liberation is not a state of existence to follow on physical death but an all-satisfying present experience. It can be had even in life….It is wrong to think that a jivan-mukta [one who is liberated while still alive] is not wholly perfect. To possess a body does not mean identification with it.”[14] Now as Brahman or God is devoid of all suffering, sickness and troubles, this means that one who has become as Brahman itself should have no troubles or sorrows at all. Although it is not always consistent, the Upanishads generally take this position and maintain that a person who has realized oneness with Brahman “does not suffer, he is not injured.”[15] He who realizes this oneness “does not see death nor illness nor any sorrow.”[16] As one merges with the Brahman or Universal Self, there is a blissful oneness and all suffering ceases: “for what delusion and what sorrow can be to him who has seen the oneness?”[17] The claim is that all sorrow is a product of thinking there is a duality between oneself and God; once this false duality is overcome, then “there can be no sorrow or pain or fear”[18] as one realizes the deeper blissful Oneness that underlies all transient phenomena. This identification with God is so strong that he who is aware of oneness with God “does not die. He is not bewildered. He is not broken. He is not burnt. He is not cut asunder… Having become tranquil, self-controlled, withdrawn from the world and indifferent to it and forbearing, he sees the Self in the self.”[19] Furthermore he is not afraid of any wild animal and “even if cut asunder, he should not get angry, he should not quake. He should be like a rock and even if cut asunder should not get angry, should not quake.”[20]
Not only is the sage not affected if tortured, Jaimini maintains that the released soul has the same nature as Brahman.[21] This means that the “released soul is said to be all-knowing and all-powerful.”[22] Badarayana thinks that the released person can exist with a body or without one according to his desires.[23] In fact, some think the released soul can animate several bodies at the same time, just as the flame of a lamp can light several lamps.[24]
These are amazing claims and not all the Indian philosophers think such things are possible. Audulomi maintains that the soul is absolutely different from Brahman up to time of final release.[25] For this reason, Audulomi denies that any person, even one who is liberated, is all-knowing or all-powerful.[26] Bhaskara does not think that a person can be fully released as long as he has a body: “Salvation can be attained only after the destruction of the earthly body.”[27] This line of thinking is compatible with the position that a released person could still suffer. Thus one passage in the Upanishads claims that the released person, even though supposedly one with Brahman, still suffers. In this passage, the sage Praja-pati says “the incarnate self is held by pleasure and pain. Verily, there is no freedom from pleasure and pain for one who is incarnate. Verily, pleasure and pain do not touch one who is bodiless.”[28]
Later Indian thinkers denied that the released person ever loses his sense of individuality. Thus Ramanuja believes in the eternal distinctiveness of individual souls: “To maintain that the consciousness of the ‘I’ does not persist in the state of the final release is again altogether inappropriate.”[29] Ramanuja even denies that the loss of individuality in union with Brahman is a reasonable goal for a person to strive for. “If on the other hand, he were to realize that the effect of such an activity would be the loss of personal existence, he surely would turn away as soon as somebody began to tell him about ‘release’… No sensible person exerts himself under the influence of the idea that after he himself has perished there will remain some entity termed ‘pure light’!”[30] Nor is Ramanuja the only major Indian Vedanta philosopher to deny the self merges into Brahman. Madhva also denies that there can ever be this merging with God and maintains that there is always a dualism between the self and the Higher Self. “For it cannot be that the pure Lord merges into the Atman [human soul] bound down with qualities.”[31]
The Upanishads generally stress meditation as the way to reach awareness of God. Furthermore they stress the bliss and happiness an individual obtains from gaining this awareness. The philosophical underpinning of the Upanishads is antisocial, however. The Upanishads encourage the individual to become one with God, but it professes little or no concern for the larger society. For this reason in the late 19th century, one Vedanta philosopher, Vivekananda, blamed the Upanishads for stifling India’s progress because it did not sufficiently stress social concern and material progress.[32] The next Indian philosophy I will consider, Yoga, was even more antisocial than the Upanishads until a variant of it became an important socially oriented philosophy.
Yoga on the sage and pain
In Yoga, one does not merge with God; instead one becomes aware of the total independence of one’s soul or purusha. Furthermore, while the Upanishads and the philosophy based on it generally espouses monism, Yoga is dualistic. It maintains there are two totally distinct principles or modes of being in the universe: prakrti and purusha.[33] Prakrti is nature and all the processes of nature. Purusha refers to souls or spirits who always retain their separate individuality in Yoga.
Although there is no real connection between purusha and nature, to people an illusory conjunction seems to occur between the two. This sense of an illusory connection makes people think they are in bondage to nature and because of this people think they experience suffering.[34] A person is liberated or released when she is able to restore the original aloofness of purusha and prakrti.[35] Furthermore, when a person becomes aware of her individual soul behind the personal ego, she stops suffering. For suffering is not due to divine punishment or original sin, but to ignorance and the false identification of one’s Self as one’s natural processes.[36]
The interesting feature of Yoga is that the psychological and mental processes of our mind do not belong to the realm of spirit, but to the realm of nature. For Yoga believes that the states of people’s minds are just subtler levels of the same substance which composes the physical world.[37] As the mind is part of nature, and in order to be released one has to totally separate nature and purusha, one has to stop all the mental processes in order to be liberated.[38] The goal in Yoga is “to bring all mental modifications to a complete suspension, a stop (nirodha).”[39] Consciousness arises because of the seeming correlation of Self and nature, so in order to be released, a person has to separate the two realms which she mistakenly considers connected. For this reason, the yogi withdraws from his physical and social environment, from his own organism and even his own mental processes. By bringing his consciousness inward and meditating, he stops the modifications of his mind and realizes his Self.[40]
The yogi replaces these states of the mind with suprasensory, extrarational meditation.[41] In this state of intense meditation, samadhi, the meditator gains “extreme happiness.”[42] Indeed, “those who have achieved it describe samadhi as the most joyful experience in their lives.”[43] The person who has such awareness “has found joy and Truth, a vision for him supreme. He is therein steady: the greatest pain moves him not.”[44] The meditator no longer suffers because the “causes of suffering have been eliminated once and for all.”[45] The yogi is beyond all pain, so “even the dentist’s drill fails to cause the familiar sensation of pain.”[46] The yogis maintain that they achieve this feat because the yogi “can block out individual sensory inputs at will, or even inhibit all sense activity at once.”[47]
Yogis in samadhi meditation claim they are oblivious to external and internal environmental stimulation and this has been tested scientifically. Yogis in deep meditation have been subjected to very cold water, loud noise, hot rods, vibration and lights in laboratory conditions. Scientific studies show that the yogis can indeed block out sensory input. They “appear to be able to block out afferent impulses from the reticular activating system of the brain from ever reaching the cortex.”[48] Furthermore, this meditation experience is different from mere self-hypnosis. “Davidson and Goleman hypothesize that during intense concentration in meditation, incoming sensory information may be blocked out below the level of the cortex, while in hypnosis the sensory experience of the pain remains the same but the experience of the suffering is reduced.”[49] This scientific testing supports the Indian claim that deep meditation is different from hypnosis which the Indians say is a fortuitous, temporary state of concentration.[50]
There also exist other less rigorous testing of the yogis’ claims. Doctor Therese Brosse in the 1940′s reported observing yogis who survived being buried alive for long periods because they could reduce their respiratory level.[51] Furthermore, there is a report of one doctor witnessing a yogi buried alive in a guarded tomb for forty days,[52] and also reports of yogis surviving being underwater for several hours with no way of breathing.[53]
While there is scientific evidence corraborating the yogis’ ability to totally inhibit sensory experience, the interesting feature of their philosophy is their ultimate goal. For what the yogis advocate is the total cessation of life as we know it. For Yoga maintains that in order to be liberated, one has to totally separate one’s soul from all the processes of nature; this means that the yogi ceases all mental processes and withdraws totally from his body. “The ‘human’ consciousness is eliminated; in other words, it no longer functions, its constituent elements having been reabsorbed into the primordial substance.”[54] On reaching realization, “the yogin in fact ceases to exist as a human being. His body may live on for a period of time, though in a state of catalepsy, and before long goes the way of all finite things.”[55] So once the yogi achieves his goal, he no longer cares for anything in the world and exists totally in another realm.
The Bhagavad Gita on the sage and pain
The yogi seems to be able to do what he claims. Nevertheless, this is a selfish philosophy with absolutely no concern for anyone else. In Hinduism the feeling grew that Yoga was not a socially responsible path and so a desire arose for a more socially responsible way to liberation. The Bhagavad Gita, known as the Gita, laid the foundation of a social yoga that is influential to our day; in fact Gandhi claimed the Gita was the foundation of his work. To begin with, the Gita claimed that the way of action is greater than trying to totally cease activity. “Action is greater than inaction: perform therefore thy task in life.”[56] The Gita advocated combining meditation with doing one’s social duty in a selfless way for the good of other people. “Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. Work not for a reward; but never cease to do thy work. Fixed in yoga, perform actions, having abandoned attachment and having become indifferent to success or failure.”[57] The Gita advocates performing our social duty by making our work into meditation.
This kind of work is obviously beneficial for the social structure as the person continues activity within society rather than meditating alone. Moreover, this activity is beneficial to the individual. For the Gita continually claims that a person working for the good of all finds “everlasting joy” and peace.[58] Not only does someone working for the greater good experience joy and peace, but it is the “infinite joy of union with God.”[59] The person experiences this joy because “their joy is in the good of all.”[60]
Moreover the Gita maintains that when a person works for the good of all, there is “a deliverance from the oppression of pain.”[61] For in doing the work of God and helping one’s fellow man, there “is the pleasure of following that right path which leads to the end of all pain.”[62]
Yoga in its original form emphasized the total independence and release of the individual. The Gita changes this emphasis to being joyful as one did one’s social duty. Nevertheless the Gita does not offer a good basis for social ethics as it supports the caste system as part of the divine order of the world.[63] Unlike Stoicism, Indian philosophy provides an effective way to connect with God- meditation. Furthermore, both the philosophy of the Upanishads and the yoga of the Gita emphasize that God gives something back to a person as a person becomes aware of her deeper connection with God: a deep, satisfying joy and happiness. Thus Indian philosophy gives a reason for someone to want to do their part in the larger whole.
The next two philosophies I will discuss, Jainism and Buddhism continue a similar pattern as Yoga. For Jainism is centered on the individual selfishly reaching liberation while Buddhism starts off being concerned solely about individual liberation but transforms itself into a philosophy concerned for everyone’s liberation.
The Jains on the sage and pain
The Jains are not well known in the West but they are an important force in India where several Indian kings converted to Jainism and the Jains made vegetarianism an Indian cultural tradition.[64] More significantly, the Jains were indirectly influential in the American civil rights movement. For Mahatma Gandhi was born in an area of India where many Jains lived and in his autobiography he mentions that the Jain practice of total non-violence made a tremendous impact on him when he was growing up.[65] The name of the Jains is indicative of their underlying philosophy as the name comes from Jina, or conqueror.[66] The Jain sage conquers the body, pleasure, all personal affections and any other connection with this world. Jainism is known in India for extreme austerities and it not only maintains that the sage is perfectly happy even when tortured, but Jainism goes farther; for a committed Jain deliberately tortures himself in order that he might reach perfect happiness. To understand why Jains welcome torture, one needs to first understand three of their most important metaphysical tenets.
The first Jain tenet is that all things have a soul. The Jains believe that not only do people have souls, but animals also have souls, as do vegetables, and even the water, earth, air and fire elements.[67] Because all things have souls and it is a sin to hurt these souls, Jains believe in absolute non-violence.[68]
The second Jain tenet is that in determining moral culpability, it is not the intention which matters, but the actual deed. The Jains believe that if one unintentionally hurts another being, one is just as guilty as if one had intentionally harmed the being.[69]
The third Jain tenet is their conception of our pure original state and of karma. The Jains maintain that in our original state, we were all naturally pure souls who were literally omniscient because there was nothing to impede our knowledge.[70] Because of the outside force of avidya or ignorance, souls somehow lost their intrinsic pure nature and fell into bondage.[71] The Jains have an unusual process by which we lost this pure state: for every sin we commit such as harming a water soul, our soul is covered by a literally sticky liquid which is called karma by the Jains. Furthermore, the Jains maintain that sins of differing severity cause different colors of this karma to cover a person’s soul.[72] If one wonders how an immaterial substance like the soul can be covered by something material, the Jains weakly respond that it is the same way that a differing substance like heat can affect iron.
The goal in Jain philosophy is to try to return to one’s original pure state by being liberated from the karmic residue which covers one’s soul. To be liberated, one has to first stop sinning so that one does not build up more bad karma.[73] Then one has to meditate and also atone for one’s past misdeeds. If a person can accomplish this difficult task, then she returns to her original state of being a pure soul. In this state she “becomes absolutely happy,”[74] and has “permanent bliss.”[75] Furthermore, such a person does not ever suffer pain,[76] and, to top it off, is also omniscient.[77]
The first thing the Jain must do to liberate herself is to stop committing sinful actions that accumulate karma. As the most important sinful actions are hurting and harming other souls, the Jain monk does not hurt other souls or harm them in any way.[78] As the Jains believe everything is alive, this commitment requires diligence. For this reason one can spot a Jain monk in India as they always carry a broom to sweep their path so that they don’t inadvertently step on any insects. The monk also always “wears a face-cloth, rather like a surgeon’s mask, to ensure that he does no serious injury to the wind-lives in the air he breathes; he will not run or stamp his feet, lest he harm the souls in the earth or stones, or destroy small insects; he refrains from all quick and jerky movements for fear of injuring the souls in the air.”[79] The Jain monks also do not accept any food that implicates them in bad karma, so they will not accept any meat or any food that was cooked especially for them. They do not eat food which was cooked especially for them as they do not want to be implicated in harming the fire souls killed when the fire was burning.[80] Furthermore, in the rainy season it is impossible to walk without hurting insects, and so the monks do not go out of their huts at all.[81] The Jains practice total non-violence, but they do not practice non-violence out of love for other beings. Instead they are non-violent purely out of selfish concern for their own liberation from the karmic residue which clouds their souls.[82]
Not only do the Jain monks have to stop performing harmful actions, they also must meditate.[83] Most unusually for the Indian philosophical systems, the Jains also have to atone for their past sinful actions.[84] To accomplish this atonement, they do penances which take the form of physical austerities.[85] For the Jains think that it is primarily by austerities and voluntarily undertaken physical sufferings that a person cleans away the karmic residue from past bad deeds.[86] “Penance is my fire; life my fireplace; right exertion is my sacrificial ladle; the body the dried cowdung; Karman is my fuel; self-control, right exertion, and tranquillity are the oblations, praised by the sages, which I offer.”[87] These sufferings and austerities include such intense mortification of the body [88] that they are best thought of as self-inflicted torture. The Jains usually describe this process in such phrases as to “neglect the body and abandon the care of it,”[89] “control themselves and subdue the senses,”[90] and the monk “becomes indifferent to happiness and pains.”[91]
The Jains and torture
These tortures take many different forms. One form is standing without moving for a long time. One monk describes the torture this way: “Not changing the position of the body, nor moving about a little, I shall stand there. Abandoning the care of the body, abandoning the care of the hair of the head, beard, and the other parts of the body, of the nails, perfectly motionless, I shall stand there.”[92] Standing is not always painful enough, so in the summertime the monks purposefully sit in the hot desert sun[93] and in the wintertime they will not make a fire, no matter how cold they get.[94] This self-mortification does not just involve being hot or cold, it also involves being indifferent to insects. For the monk, “when crawling animals or such..feed on his flesh and blood, he should neither kill them or rub (the wound). Though these animals destroy the body, he should not stir from his position….he should bear (pains) as if he rejoiced in them.”[95]
Not only must the naked sage endure insects feeding on his bodily parts, he must endure other tortures which are more subtle, but equally cruel in the long run. He cannot rub his eyes or scratch his body,[96] he cannot ever use cold water as there might be water souls in the water he could hurt.[97] The monk is also not allowed medical treatment no matter how sick he gets.[98] Furthermore the monks never bathe or shampoo, nor ever cleanse their teeth.[99] For this reason, “the mendicants, because they never bathe, are covered with uncleanliness; they smell after it, they smell badly, they are disagreeable, they are loathsome.”[100]
The Jains never deny their practices are painful, but they maintain the pain has a purpose. “When a naked, rough, restrained acetic lies on the grass, his body will be hurt. In the sun his pain will grow unsupportable; still a monk, though hurt by the grass, will not use clothes. When by the heat of summer his body sweats and is covered with dirt and dust, a wise monk should not lament his loss of comfort. He should bear (all this), waiting for the destruction of his Karman, (and practicing) the noble excellent Law; he should carry the filth on his body till he expires.”[101]
One way to grasp how far the Jains go in torturing themselves is to look at the life of the most important Jain, the founder of the religion, Mahavira. Mahavira was born around 500 B.C.E. and he was raised as a prince. When he wanted to set out on the ascetic’s path, he did not shave his head like many other Indian ascetics do. Instead he pulled his hair out in five handfuls.[102] It might be thought this extremely painful practice is merely a myth, but it still is practiced by the Jain monks today.[103]
Because Mahavira practiced total detachment from all people, he would not answer them if he was asked a question. So when he walked into a strange village, naked, totally dirty, not responding to villager’s inquiries, he did not always get a good reception: “Many natives attacked him…the dogs bit him, ran at him. Few people kept off the attacking, biting dogs. Striking the monk, they cried ‘Khukukkhu’ and made the dogs bite him.”[104] While other monks used a stick to keep off the attacking dogs, Mahavira did not carry a stick as hitting a dog would be acting cruelly towards it.[105] While he was meditating, Mahavira was not always treated well by the villagers. He “was struck with a stick, the fist, a lance,…throwing him up, they let him fall…abandoning care of his body, the Venerable One humbled himself and bore pain, free from desire.”[106]
For twelve years he lived like this and “with equanimity bore, endured, sustained, and suffered all calamities.”[107] He lived indifferent to pleasure and pain.[108] According to the Jains, he was able to be indifferent to pleasure and pain because nothing is inherently painful or pleasurable.[109] They claim that a monk with true insight has gotten beyond the dualities that bind those still centered on the sensory level. So while most people desire to experience pleasant feelings and desire not to experience unpleasant ones, the monk has gotten beyond this duality. Instead monks “will view as unpleasant anything that furthers the binding tendencies” and he will think of something as pleasant if it helps him to be liberated from bondage to the world.[110]
The Jain monk not only is totally detached from his body, but he has to “cut off all worldly ties.”[111] The monk vows to “renounce all attachments”[112] and that includes attachments to his family, particular friends, and other monks. The Jains even compare a monk thinking of going back to his house and family as being like a dog returning to his vomit.[113] This concern for emotional detachment is taken to its ultimate extreme as the Jain monk gives up love for other beings. The monk needs to give up all his former connections, and is told to “place your affection on nothing; a monk who loves not even those who love him, will be freed from sin and hatred.”[114] It is said that “he who is attached to nothing, is a true monk.”[115] The Jain monk tries to get beyond all affections, even love and strives for total “impartiality towards all beings in the world.”[116] The monk gets rid of all emotional attachment as any kind of love would be an attachment that would keep him from being liberated from this world.[117] The good Jain really is like a stone with no emotions at all and no attachment to other creatures; the Jains really are what Stoicism is often misunderstood as being.
While someone who tortures his body and is totally detached from any love or concern for other people might not seem to have a happy life, the Jains say their goal is happiness. For once one is rid of all past karma, one is “freed from all pains in that same life.”[118] He “will become exempt from pains of the body and mind.”[119] Not only does a liberated person never suffer pain, there is “perfect happiness.”[120] Not only is there happiness, there is “‘eternal wisdom, unlimited insight, everlasting happiness and unbounded powers’….Infinite bliss along with infinite knowledge.”[121]
Most people’s response to the Jains is incredulity that anyone could take their claims seriously. The Jains, who still thrive in India, have an answer, but this answer may seem even more implausible than the rest of their philosophy. For the Jains maintain that the reason non-Jains do not appreciate the truth of their philosophy is that people are devolving. The Jains maintain that our time in history is one of devolution and because we live in a time when people’s moral and physical capabilities are diminishing, we don’t have the insight to understand the Jain philosophy. The Jains claim that because we are devolving, our moral and physical stature is diminishing. As people devolve further and further, people will shrink in size until humans are only a couple of feet tall.[122] Over time, people will also lose their moral sense so that they will commit all kinds of atrocities such as murder, rape, and genocide without realizing these are moral crimes.[123] At the end of this devolutionary process, the Jains think our species will degenerate so much that all humans will be a bunch of midgets fornicating with their mothers and thinking nothing of it.
The Jains’ claims that water droplets have souls, that people become truly happy through torturing themselves and humans are getting smaller are false. Their philosophy that the water droplets and fire sparks have souls is based on an animistic philosophy that it is hard for modern people to take seriously. Nevertheless, while the Jain philosophy may be wildly implausible, at least the Jains’ philosophy is a consistent one. On the other hand, the last Indian philosophy I will consider, Buddhism, is taken very seriously by many contemporary Americans as is proven by the large number of intelligent Americans who have converted to Buddhism. However, Buddhism, or at least early Buddhism, does not have a consistent philosophy.
Buddhism on the sage and pain
Buddhism arose at the same time that Jainism was developing. Indeed Buddhism partially defined itself in opposition to the Jains and considered itself superior to the Jains because they did not believe in mortification of the flesh. Instead the Buddhists followed what they considered the middle way: they totally eschewed sense-pleasures, but they did not torture themselves like the Jains.[124]
The Buddhist sage is always happy and is so imperturbable that he will accept all of life’s vicissitudes, including torture, with equanimity. So if the Buddhist monk is attacked “with the hand, with clods of earth, with sticks and with weapons, he understands thus: ‘It is the nature of this body to be subjected to blows …My body will become tranquil and calm. My mind will become composed and settled.’”[125]
Not only will the Buddhist sage be so imperturbable that he will not be disturbed if he is tortured, but in later Mahayana Buddhism, he will even welcome torture. The Mahayana Buddhists however, welcome torture for quite a different reason than the Jains. For while the Jain sage welcomes torture in order to liberate himself, the Buddhist sage welcomes torture in order to liberate other beings. The Buddhists maintain that because the Buddhist sage- the bodhisattva- is only concerned with liberating other beings, the bodhisattva will always be happy even if she is tortured. For the sage even if “his eye is being torn out, when he is being roasted alive on a spit, or haled off to the execution ground and thrown down headlong, there is the feeling of pleasure, not the feeling of pain, not of indifference.”[126] “So the bodhisattva [the Buddhist sage]… is happy even when subjected to the tortures of hell…. When he is being beaten with canes or whips, when he is thrown into prison, he still feels happy.”[127] Because he is thinking of spreading joy to all beings and helping them reach enlightenment, he is never perturbed by anything. Furthermore he is happy when he suffers for others. For as he suffers for others, he is “not troubled by suffering” because of his “ability to take pleasure in the giving.”[128]
Before we explore Mahayana Buddhism’s concept of the bodhisattva who welcomes torture for the good of others, we have to examine the inconsistency in early Buddhism. For the Buddhists often claim in their early texts that the sage is happy and has gotten beyond all physical suffering, but at other points in their writings they contradict their own claims and relate stories of monks or the Buddha suffering. This contradiction occurs because the Buddhists have two notions which are incompatible. The first notion is karma which maintains one’s present and future is affected by one’s past deeds. The second notion is encapsulated in the Four Noble Truths which in effect claim to erase one’s past and release one from all suffering. The early Buddhists hold both of these doctrines and do not notice they are inconsistent. Later Mahayana Buddhism significantly changes the notion of karma in order to develop the concept of the bodhisattva who is happy while suffering. In this section I will first investigate the inconsistency in early Buddhism and then Mahayana Buddhism’s concept of the bodhisattva.
The most important doctrines of the Buddhist philosophical system are encapsulated in the Four Noble Truths. The first truth is that there is dukkha, which is usually translated as suffering, pain or ill. The second truth is that there is a cause of suffering and this is tanha- craving or desiring. The third truth is that suffering ceases when craving or desiring ceases. The fourth and last Noble Truth is that the way to end suffering is to follow the Eightfold path: right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right meditation.[129] Meditation is the culmination of the Buddhist Eightfold path and is very important for several reasons. First, these truths were not revealed to Buddha by a god or supernatural being; instead he realized their truth in meditation. Secondly, according to Buddha, we all can realize the same truths in meditation. Thirdly, while the normal life of people concerned with sense pleasure is inherently mired in the realm of suffering because everything is impermanent, meditation is different. For during meditation, there is a bliss that transcends anything in the physical world and it brings much more happiness than sensual pleasure.[130] Indeed there is so much happiness, the meditator “soaks, drenches, permeates, and suffuses his body with delightful satisfaction and bliss. There is no place in his body not suffused with delightful satisfaction and bliss.”[131] The sage is happy not only in meditation, but Buddhists also claim that once the sage gets beyond desire and craving, then he will be in nirvana which is peace and happiness. The Buddhists maintain that in nirvana there is “an end of ill and pain.”[132]
Buddhism and suffering
Buddha and later Buddhists clearly maintain that physical suffering and bodily pain is dukkha or suffering.[133] Indeed the First Noble Truth highlights the idea that sickness is suffering or dukkha.[134] So according to Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, as the cause of suffering is craving or desire, once a person has eradicated desire then she should not suffer any more physical pain at all. If the root of suffering is desire, then all suffering or pain should cease once one eliminates craving or desire. Logically Buddhist philosophy has these implications, and Buddha often stresses this very point: “the complete extinction and cessation of this very craving, its abandoning and discarding, the liberation and detachment from it. This, Avuso, is called the cessation of dukkha.”[135] Buddha is clear that his path is for “the complete destruction of (physical) pain and mental distress.”[136]
There is further evidence to support the view that Buddhists did sometimes maintain that the Buddhist sage will never experience any physical pain. In the Pali Canon which chronicles the teachings of Buddha, there are many stories of Buddha or one of the advanced disciples talking to a sick person. In these stories, once the sick person accepts and understands the Buddhist teachings, then the sick person immediately recovers from her sickness. In these stories, it is standard practice for an advanced monk or Buddha to interrogate the sick person about their imperfect realization of the Buddhist truths or what they have done wrong. One story is about a monk named Girimananda who was “sick, suffering, stricken with a sore disease.”[137] Buddha says to his disciples that if the disciples were to preach to Girimananda the main ideas of Buddhism, “there are grounds for supposing that when he hears them that sickness will be allayed there and then.”[138] The monks preached to Girimananda and straightaway on hearing the teachings, Girimananda’s sickness was over. “On his hearing them that sickness of the venerable Girimananda was straightway allayed, and he rose up from that sickness. And in this was that sickness banished from the venerable Girimananda.”[139] This idea that if one has understood the true teachings, one would never be sick was so emphasized that in some traditions of later Buddhism it was considered a slander to think the enlightened Buddha could ever have been sick.[140]
Despite these claims that the enlightened person will never be sick, there is also evidence in the Pali Canon that contradicts this claim. First there are stories of two very advanced monks who have such pain that they committed suicide. The first monk is the venerable Vakkali who was afflicted and struck with a sore disease.[141] The Buddha goes to visit him and asks him how he is doing. Vakkali says he has strong pains and that they are getting worse. Buddha questions Vakkali if he has any doubt about the teachings or remorse about what he has done. Vakkali replies that he has no doubts about the teachings and no remorse. Then Buddha asks Vakkali if he has anything to reproach about his morals and Vakkali replies no. Then the Buddha says: “then, Vakkali, if that is so, you must have some worry, you must have something that you regret.”[142] In the context of a tradition of Buddhist interrogation of sick people, the Buddha conducts this whole interrogation in a way that strongly implies that Vakkali must have some weakness in understanding the Buddhist doctrine that would bring on his illness. Vakkali denies this is the cause of his illness as he agrees with every teaching of the Buddha. That night Vakkali committed suicide and Buddha, while generally against suicide, tells his disciples that the suicide was a good deed and Vakkali is now in the highest state of nirvana.[143] As a monk could only go into nirvana if he was enlightened and fully understood the teachings of Buddha, Buddha is certifying that Vakkali understood and realized the full truth of the Buddhist principles. As he was such an advanced monk, Vakkali should not have experienced any physical suffering because he had eradicated craving.
Nor is this the only story about an advanced monk committing suicide because he was in great pain. There is a similar story about the venerable monk Channa who commits suicide and whom Buddha also certifies as entering nirvana.[144] Both of these monks should have been beyond suffering by Buddha’s formulation of the Four Noble Truths, but they obviously still suffered if they committed suicide because the pain was so unbearable.
If these monks’ illnesses were not evidence enough against Buddha’s basic position as encapsulated in the Four Noble Truths, there is an even more damaging piece of evidence: the sicknesses of Buddha himself. Buddha was considered totally enlightened and he had eradicated all craving and desiring. According to the Four Noble Truths which maintain that suffering would cease once a person stopped craving and which included physical suffering amongst the kinds of suffering, Buddha should never have become sick. Nevertheless, it is commonly accepted in most of the Buddhist traditions that Buddha himself fell ill ten times, including one very painful illness as he was dying.[145] The Maha-parinibbana-sutta describes Buddha’s death this way: “there fell upon him a dire sickness, and sharp pains came upon him, even unto death. But the Blessed One, mindful and self-possessed, bore them without complaint.” [146]
Inconsistency in Buddhism
So according to early Buddhism’s own sacred texts, the most enlightened person can suffer bodily pain and thus suffer dukkha despite the fact that he is enlightened. This is inconsistent with Buddha’s position encapsulated in the Four Noble Truths that the source of suffering is craving and once we eradicate craving, we will have eradicated suffering.
Early Buddhism is inconsistent because it has another strand of thought that is not compatible with the Four Noble Truths. However, this other strand of thought, which involves the notion of karma, does explain how the Buddha can suffer. Karma for Buddhism means that all actions will eventually, in this lifetime or a later one, bring forth appropriate rewards or punishments. So if I killed someone ten lifetimes ago, I may not suffer for it in that lifetime, but my karma will ripen in some later lifetime and will have adverse effects on me. Conversely, if I perform some good action, that will also affect me at a future time. Karma is so important that it influences most of our present life. The notion of karma is one of the key early Buddhist ideas and Buddha continually asserts its truth.[147]
Buddha, nevertheless, does not notice that this notion of karma is not fully compatible with his Four Noble Truths concerning the total elimination of suffering. While the Noble Truths assert that as soon as one has eliminated craving, one should be free from any suffering, the notion of karma allows for the possibility that an enlightened being may have to endure physical suffering. Karma was always attached to the same person and there was no way to get beyond karma as every person must reap what she has sown.[148] So if prior to someone’s enlightenment, a person had bad karma which had not yet come to fruition, then this bad karma could eventually express itself and cause a person to suffer. So even if a person was enlightened by getting beyond all craving and thus had eradicated the root of suffering, she could still suffer because of the effect of her past bad karma. This notion of karma was the traditional way to explain the sufferings of Buddha and others. Karma gave an explanation of why the enlightened Buddha suffered pain ten times in his life: he had remnants of past bad karma which had not yet come to fruition.[149]
The notion of karma is inconsistent with the doctrine that one can eliminate all suffering if one gets beyond craving. The trouble for the Buddhists is that the doctrine expressed in the Four Noble Truths in effect promises to erase one’s bad karma. For the Four Noble Truths state that all suffering will cease if one eradicates craving. This view maintains that one can be liberated from the past in this lifetime by present insight. Karma, on the other hand, has a more oppressive view of the past. For it entails that one can never escape the consequences of one’s past actions, despite one’s present insights.
Buddha and the early Buddhists did not see that the oppressive notion of karma and the liberating doctrine of the Four Noble Truths did not smoothly fit together. Later Mahayana Buddhism solved this problem by changing the notion of karma so radically that the Buddhist sage wants to suffer in order to alleviate other people’s bad karma. This form of Mahayana Buddhism eradicated the individualistic implications of karma and maintained the sage should happily welcome suffering for the good of others. Before we can understand this major change in the notion of karma, we need to understand two individualistic ramifications of karma and how Mahayana Buddhism changed these ideas.
Karma is an individualistic notion in that it has a tendency to emphasize each individual is alone in the attempt to get beyond her karma and the suffering of her life. So it helps focus concern on one’s individual enlightenment and doing what is necessary to get enlightened. Buddhism never became as individualistic as Jainism, but still early Buddhism did have a strong tendency to be concerned only with one’s own liberation. Furthermore, karma is inextricably bound up with the idea that we all have innumerable lifetimes. For karma often does not affect one or come to fruition in this lifetime, as it may be many lifetimes until one’s karma ripens or affects one. As karma emphasized thousands of lifetimes, it was folly to get attached to another person such as one’s father or mother in this lifetime.[150] Just as we do not get attached to strangers we only see on a bus for a little while, karma and reincarnation were often interpreted as meaning that we should not get attached to our family or relatives as they are like strangers we will only be seeing for a short while.
Karma had another individualistic feature. For traditionally karma was interpreted in a way that meant each person must suffer the results of his or her own actions.[151] So if I hurt someone in my past lifetime, that karma will come back to me eventually; there was nothing anyone else could do to alleviate the impact of that karma on me. Karma was always tied to the individual who performed the action and there was no way out of suffering for one’s bad karma. Furthermore there was no way someone else could help you with your bad karma.[152]
Mahayana Buddhism
Mahayana Buddhism developed several hundred years after Buddha’s death and it changed many of the original tenets of Buddhism. Most importantly for our purposes, it transformed this notion of karma to develop a new view of how the Buddhist sage helps other people and deals with pain. First Mahayana Buddhism maintained that early Buddhism was selfish as it encouraged monks to strive for their own individual liberation. Mahayana Buddhism said that the Buddhist sage should strive to enlighten all beings. They said it was selfish to be striving for one’s own individual enlightenment, especially when Buddhism taught there was not such entity as the self. By accenting the central Buddhist notion that there was no self, the later Mahayana Buddhists transformed the notion of the Buddhist sage into a totally altruistic being. This new Buddhist sage, the bodhisattva, was a person who could have entered into nirvana, but instead had refused this enlightenment in order to help all other beings become enlightened. The bodhisattva knows that all other beings are suffering and through compassion for them, refuses enlightenment; instead she vows to remain in the realm of suffering until all beings are enlightened. Because of her compassion for other beings, she actively spends her time trying to save other beings and because of her compassion she experiences pleasure in helping others.[153]
Mahayana Buddhism also changed the second individualistic feature of karma. For previously karma was interpreted to mean each person must suffer the results of her own actions. Mahayana Buddhism changed that individualistic feature of karma into a doctrine where another person could suffer your karma for you.[154] So one person’s bad karma could be lessened if another person suffered it for them. Or alternatively, someone’s bad karma could be diminished if another person shared his or her good karma with them. Later Mahayana Buddhism transformed karma from a doctrine of an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth for each individual person to a doctrine of sharing of karma and a religion of compassion.[155] This concern for others and the loosening of the individualistic notion of karma developed into the concept of the bodhisattva who willingly accepted torture and suffering for the good of other people. In order to help other beings become enlightened, the boddhisattva suffers their bad karma for them and also shares his own good karma with them.
The boddhisattva
The boddhisattva, like the good utilitarian, is concerned for all persons equally. The bodhisattva “must educate his mind that he may feel in each case the same affection for all creatures that naturally centres in his son, or in himself.”[156] There is no privileging of the bodhisattva’s personal sorrows or personal concerns over the concerns of other people. “Another’s sorrow is to be destroyed by me because it is sorrow like my own sorrow…Since a neighbor and I are equal in desiring happiness, what is the unique quality of the ‘self’ which requires an effort for happiness?”[157] This is what the bodhisattva continually says to herself: “All sorrows, without distinction are ownerless; and because of misery they are to be prevented…Not just in myself. Everywhere!”[158]
Nor is this concern for other people a totally altruistic act. For the bodhisattva gets joy and happiness in taking care of others. So “having transformed their mentalities, delighting in the tranquilizing of another’s sorrow… When beings are delivered, it is for them an ocean of joy.”[159]
The Buddhists also give another reason why the bodhisattvas are happy while being concerned for others. For they maintain that the perception of happiness and unhappiness comes purely from our habit of taking situations as positive or negative and not from anything inherent in the external situations. The Buddhist believes we can retrain ourselves to be happy no matter what is happening to us. So if any unhappy feelings arise, by the habit of associating happy things with it, a feeling of happiness will result and we can be happy in all things.[160]
According to the Buddhists, we can get extremely good at finding happiness in all things; so much so that “the Bodhisattva feels in all things pain as pleasant, not painful, nor indifferent. Even when he is undergoing hellish treatment the feeling of pleasure is present. Even when he is suffering a torment in human life, his hands being cut off and feet, and ears, and nose, the feeling of pleasure is present. Even when he is being beaten with rods, or with split rods, or with whips, there is the feeling of pleasure.”[161] Nor is that the only times when he is happy; he is also happy “when he is being fried in oil, pounded like sugar-cane, crushed like reeds, burnt with blazing oil or butter or ghee, the feeling of pleasure is present.”[162] Not only is the feeling of pleasure present, but the bodhisattva also feels love and compassion towards those hurting him and he hopes they will be saved soon and partake of the full bliss of enlightenment.[163] So “when the body is being torn to pieces he diffuses goodwill amongst all beings.”[164]
The boddhisattva not only blesses others and feels pleasure while being tortured, but he wants to be tortured in order to save others. “It is better indeed that I alone be in pain, than that all those creatures fall into the place of misfortune…and I for the good of all creatures would experience all the mass of pain and unhappiness in this my own body.”[165] So if the bodhisattva sees prisoners suffering and being tortured, the bodhisattva should say to the jailers: “I wish to give up my body in exchange for their lives. You may apply these tortures to me….I will endure even incalculable times as much, so that they may be freed.”[166]
Not only should the bodhisattva accept torture from humans in a loving manner, he should also accept painful treatment from animals. For if he is attacked and eaten by wild animals “he should react with the thought: ‘If these wild beasts should devour me, then just that will be my gift to them.”[167]
The Buddhist sage welcomes this supposed suffering as it is a way to bear other peoples’ suffering and help them get enlightened sooner.[168] Because of their concern for others, it is continually emphasized that the bodhisattva experiences the greatest joy from this giving. The bodhisattva “experiences heartfelt joy before giving, during the act of giving, and after it.”[169]
Indian philosophy and meditation
The Upanishads, Yoga, Jainism and Buddhism all maintain that the sage is always happy, even if tortured. Furthermore they all make use of the same method of becoming aware of the deeper spiritual reality: meditation. Meditation is a prominent feature of Indian philosophy and a well-tested method for helping people become less centered on their individual egos and more aware of their connection with a deeper spiritual reality. While modern science has verified the beneficial side effects of meditation,[170] it is not capable of proving that meditation helps people to become less egocentric. Nevertheless, there is a well-tested tradition in Indian philosophy of meditation being an effective process to get beyond egocentricity. Furthermore, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence from contemporary American meditators of meditation being a very effective process to help people become less involved with their selfish concerns.[171]
Stoic ethical theory is a better ethical theory than any Indian philosophy as the Stoics are centered on our social duties in this world instead of reaching enlightenment. Nevertheless, it has to be supplemented by an effective process to make the transition from selfish concern to concern for the good of the whole. Meditation is a well-established method with a long history of being effective in helping a person make the transition from selfish egocentricity to a deeper awareness. It is the perfect process to use within a Stoic ethical framework to help people make the transition from selfish concern to concern for the larger whole. So supplemented by Indian philosophy, Stoicism can offer an effective method to make the transition from selfish concern to concern for the good of all.
Furthermore, Indian philosophy has a very satisfactory answer to why an individual would want to do her part in the larger whole: increased happiness. The Indian philosophers discussed here all agree that a person experiences much deeper joy and bliss when becoming aware of the Self or God. This joy or bliss is much deeper and more satisfying than anything one could experience by trying to merely satisfy one’s personal desires. Indian philosophy gives someone a reason to do the work of God: the joy a person experiences as she subordinates her desires to the will of the God. This joy then provides a reason for the individual to care about doing the work of the whole that the Stoics could never provide.
In Stoic ethical theory, the part, i.e. an individual person, gives everything to the whole without the whole giving anything back to the part. In Indian philosophy, however, the whole gives back to the part and thus it is in the part’s self-interest to become aware of her connection to the whole. So when Stoic ethical theory is supplemented by Indian philosophy, it can offer a very good reason why a person would want to make the transition to concern for the whole: the person is herself happier as the whole or God infuses her with happiness and joy. This joy is not something that a person can experience if she is centered on her selfish concerns and being filled with it is the greatest experience in a person’s life.
Indian influence on Greek philosophy
An ongoing debate within Hellenistic philosophy is whether Pyrrho’s skepticism and the doctrine that the sage is imperturbable is indigenous to Greek philosophical tradition or whether it was substantially influenced by Indian philosophy. The impetus for this discussion is the description of Pyrrho’s life in Diogenes Laertius (IX.61) which describes the influence of the Indian gymnosophists- naked philosophers- on Pyrrho. For Diogenes states that Pyrrho got the idea of agnosticism and the suspension of judgement from his trip to India.
John Burnet was one of the first to advance the position that Pyrrho was strongly influenced by Indian philosophy: “We see that those who knew Pyrrho well describe him as a sort of Buddhist arhat [enlightened monk] and that is doubtless how we should regard him. He is not so much a skeptic as an ascetic and quietist.”[172] Many other Greek scholars have agreed with this position. This is of course based on taking Diogenes Laertius’ biography of Pyrrho as basically accurate. Flintoff in a Phronesis article gives the best defense of Diogenes’ biography of Pyrrho: “In his carefully and precisely documented life of Pyrrho of Elis, a life which is certainly one of the best such in the Lives of the Eminent Philosophers and draws upon an impressive gamut of different and seemingly independent sources (some of them, like Antigonus of Carystus, IX 62), near contemporaries of the subject of the biography,” Diogenes is giving us an accurate account of Pyrrho’s life.[173] While not all scholars agree there is Indian influence on Pyrrho, it is significant that in the debate they do not question the basic biography that Diogenes offers of Pyrrho, they only question whether Indian influence is the best way of explaining Pyrrho’s philosophy and way of life.
Reale advanced the thesis that the doctrine the sage is happy even while being tortured became prominent in Hellenistic philosophy because of the meeting of Pyrrho with Indian philosophers on his trip to India with Alexander the Great. Reale claims that in Pyrrho there is a new type of person entering Greek culture and this new type of person flowers in the Stoics and Epicureans who were influenced by Pyrrho.[174]
Before examining Reale’s thesis, I will relate the information of the general Greek contact with Indian philosophers which is contained in Strabo’s Geography, Plutarch’s Life of Alexander and Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander. Pyrrho traveled with Alexander the Great’s army to India and while he was there he encountered the gymnosophists, or naked philosophers. These naked philosophers, probably Jain monks, taught a doctrine of total indifference to bodily concerns. These monks disregarded their body and would meditate naked all day in the blazing sunshine. Onesicritus, a disciple of Diogenes the Cynic, was also on this trip and he visited the gymnosophists. He saw them on the hot sand, motionless, devoted to endurance. Onesicritus said the sand was so hot that no one could endure walking on it with bare feet. Nevertheless, these naked monks stood or laid motionless on the sand for the whole day.[175] Their primary teaching was that a person ought to remove pleasure and pain from the soul.[176]
One of these monks, Calanus, made a very strong impression on the Greeks. For Alexander the Great wanted some of these Indians monks to travel with him so that he could talk with them. Most of the monks refused, saying that Alexander had nothing that he could offer them.[177] Nevertheless, one monk, Calanus, decided to travel with Alexander the Great and his army. Interestingly, Calanus was teased by the other monks for “specially lacking self-control; they reproached Calanus because he deserted the happiness to be found with them and served a master other than God.”[178]
While he was traveling with Alexander’s army, Calanus realized that he had an incurable stomach ailment and rather than be an invalid, he decided to kill himself.[179] Alexander and the Greeks tried to dissuade him, but Calanus was determined to commit suicide. A big funeral pyre was built and Calanus climbed on it amongst much fanfare in the Greek camp.[180] As he set himself on fire and burnt to death, Calanus was totally imperturbable; the seemingly unbearable pain did not phase him at all.[181] The Greeks were amazed at this total self-control; they were “astonished to see that Calanus did not move any part of his body in the flames.”[182] This showed them how strong and invincible human resolution really was.[183]
Pyrrho saw Calanus burning and was struck by the monk being burnt alive with total imperturbability. To Pyrrho, this demonstrated that external events are not intrinsically painful as the sage can neutralize even the worst suffering. This was proof to Pyrrho that if you were mentally strong enough, nothing external could affect you and thus it was indeed possible for a sage to be totally impervious to pain.[184] Pyrrho saw in this a living demonstration that the sage can be happy even in the midst of the worst torment.[185]
Reale and others maintain that because of seeing Calanus impervious to pain, Pyrrho came back to Greece knowing the practicality of a lifestyle of invulnerability to the external world. This notion of the sage’s invulnerability may have been a theoretical ideal in Greek philosophy before Pyrrho, but now it became practical in a whole new way. According to Reale, Pyrrho envisioned a new type of man for the Greeks.[186] From Pyrrho, this doctrine passed to Epicurus and the Stoics. For the founders of both schools were very much interested in Pyrrho. Nausiphanes was captivated by Pyrrho and when Epicurus met Nausiphanes, Epicurus marvelled at Pyrrho and continually asked Nausiphanes about Pyrrho.[187] Furthermore, the founder of Stoicism was very much influenced by the new type of man that Pyrrho introduced into Greek thought.[188]
Possible Greek sources of Pyrrho’s philosophy
Reale is right and Pyrrho was influenced by the Indian philosophers. The problem though was that Pyrrho did not learn enough from the Indians and this accounts for the inadequacies of Stoic ethical theory. Before I investigate this point, I need to defend Reale’s thesis from the criticism that Pyrrho’s philosophy could have developed from the internal dynamics of Greek philosophy.