Comments 1 - 14 of 14 Search these comments
Buddhism had hugh influence on Rome. Before roman empire, bulk of world population and power existed India and china. EU was sparsely populated.
Alexander reached indian border and barely defeated small kingdom on border, beyond boder was king with 6x his army with large elephants so he turned around.
Arrival of alexander united large portion of india.
King chardragupt conquered almost all of it and started looking into buddhism. His grandson Ahoka, defeated few remaining indian kingdoms, but in process he killed many. He felt remorse and started spreading buddhism.
He send monks to rome ,china ,all over. All this before Jesus and Marcus.
Lot of logs show hugh trade between india and rome.
Bulk of buddhism derived from hinduism. Similar to various sects of christanity, hinduism is has many variations.
Buddhism would prevent lot of killing , Catholics vs protestants world war 1,2, muslims vs all other religion, ...
<...
some Buddhist influence could have made it to Rome
Before roman empire, bulk of world population and power existed India and china
If you have 1 hour, read Heraclitus "Fragments". A series of quotes that survived.
indian border and barely defeated small kingdom on border, beyond boder was king with 6x his army with large elephants so he turned around.
" Although victorious, it was also the most costly battle fought by the Macedonians", he barely won that one.
next kingdom to face is nanda, which was 6x larger. Alexander learned that Agrammes had 200,000 infantry; 20,000 cavalry; 3000 elephants; and 2,000 four-horse chariots.[6][12] Diodorus gives the number of elephants as 4,000.[29]
His tired army did not want to face that.
Moving on to the Loeb edition of Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" now, which already strikes me as a much more impressive work. Fun that the Greek is on the left, and the English on the right. Not that I can actually read Greek, but I know the Greek alphabet and can make out some of the words and compare them with the translation. Much of it is similar to Buddhist writing on the transitory nature of life and not being too attached to it. Buddha lived in about 300 BC and Marcus Aurelius from 121 to 180 AD, so it's possible some Buddhist influence could have made it to Rome, but I have no evidence for that.
The core of Western civilization is captured in the old Greek and Roman classics. All the modern bullshit which denigrates Western culture ignores the real wisdom in these books and their applicability to modern problems.