The Self-immolation of Kalanos and other Luminous Encounters Among Greeks and Indian Buddhists in the Hellenistic World

Abstract

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.