Stephen wrote: One wonders how many of these emissary missionaries went to Alexandria and what happened to them. Did they stay and try to make converts as the edict implies or did they give up and return back to India soon after?

Rene: Aland writes that "from Hellenistic sources we know nothing of these early Buddhist missions to the West. If indeed they did reach their destinations, an intriguing possibility, we can only assume that their visits were not of sufficient interest or importance to be recorded among those high circles, the records of which are most likely to have come down to us."

Ptolemy II, the contemporary of Asoka, was a very enterprising and curious king. He made Alexandria the world center of book (papyrus) production, and expanded the Museum and Library. All sorts of scholars flocked to the city and received patronage in his and later times. This Ptolemy's rule has been called the height of Hellenism. He organized banking and "oversaw an enormous increase in the volume of trade, both within Egypt and abroad" (from the Encyclopedia Britannica). Alexandria, of course, was the hub of shipments from the East of luxury goods to the Mediterranean world. It was connected by a canal to the Red Sea. At this website http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/timelines/topics/canals.htm we learn that:

The easternmost of the seven arms of the Nile used to flow into the Red Sea, east through the depression of Wadi Tumilat into the area taken up nowadays by the Bitter Lakes and from there south to the Red Sea. This gave the early Egyptians a direct naval link to East Africa, Arabia and possibly even India. The Tumilat canal seems to have become repeatedly obstructed and reconnected.
The first documents concerning a direct link between the Nile and the Red Sea date to the late Old Kingdom. Diodorus (1st century BCE) describes the canal as having been re-excavated and being very active in the time of Ptolemy and it remained a major traffic artery for two centuries more. In the reign of Cleopatra, parts of the canal were blocked by sand and only the Roman emperor Trajan cleaned it out again and it was called "Trajan's river". Hadrian as well invested in its rebuilding and upkeep.

Rene: Aland in his article "Buddhism in the West: 300BC-AD400" writes that diplomatic missions from India and Ceylon were at the courts of ten Roman Emperors, and that "Indians were in Arabia and Africa... Numismatic evidence from India itself indicates the existence over the first four Christian centuries of an extensive trade with the Roman Empire. And the first-century work *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea* gives us a clear picture of the products and the ports which were crucial to this commercial enterprise." Elsewhere he writes: "Almost certainly there were Indians in Alexandria during this time. This is suggested by a number of references from this period. For example, in an anonymous papyrus containing the script for a somewhat second-rate stage production, we have a group of Indian-speaking barvarians cast as the villains of the piece. Moreover, in the second- or third-century work of Xenophon of Ephesus, the Ephesiaka, we read of an Indian merchant who travels home with the monsoon from a Red Sea port. And John Chrysostom, somewhat later, informs us that among the audience in his address to the Alexandrians there were Bactrians, Schthians and some Indians. In the light of these, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Indians, amongst whom there may have been Buddhists, were a sufficiently familiar feature of Alexandrian life for Clement to have received his information about the Buddha from them."

Clement of Alexandria writes of the "Samanaeans among the Bactrians" (Str. 1.71.3-4), and also of the "Indians who obey the precepts of the Buddha," as Stephen pointed out in his email. Aland notes that Clement thinks these are separate groups-he does not identify the Samanaeans with the followers of Buddha in India (p.238). By "Bactria," Clement and Bardesanes have in mind the land of the Kushan dynasty in present Afghanistan and NW India, which became a center of Buddhism in I CE. Before that time, from what I gather from encyclopedias (perhaps Stephen or others on the list are knowledgeable in this), there were the Tocharians (Chinese "Yueh-chih"), and before that, the Greek Seleucids. The Greeks became tributaries of the Tochari around 130 BCE. This ties in with John's query:

John: Thank you for this very informative summary of connections. I was, however, surprised not to see any mention of the supposed link between the Greek king Menander and King Milinda of the Milindapa~nha. Any thoughts?

Rene: That's a good point. I was more-or-less limiting myself to influences from East --> West. The Milindapa~nha (Ml), though it's has an important place in Buddhism, was unknown in the West, as far as I can tell. It would have been an ideal text for Asoka's missionaries to take, though it wasn't yet written. According to von Hinuber ("Pali Literature") Milinda was King Menandros, a historical figure of II BCE. The earliest portion of the "Questions" dates no earlier than I BCE, and much of it is I CE. I can think of no better "conversation-starter" ("argument-starter"?) than for a bhikkhu to take Ml to Athens and engage with the philosophers... But then, who could have translated it?? : )

Now, King Melinda (82-3) was a "Yona born in 'Kalasi in Alasanda.'" The last sounds tantalizingly close to "Alexandria" http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe35/sbe3511.htm ... I have notes about this somewhere, but as this post is quite long, will continue at another time.

With metta,

Rene


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