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Gymnosophists is the name (meaning "naked philosophers") given by the Greeks to certain ancient Indian philosophers who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought (sadhus or yogis).
Diogenes Laertius (ix. 61 and 63) refers to them, and asserts that Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of pure scepticism, came under their influence, and on his return to Elis imitated their habits of life; however, the extent of their influence is not described. Alexander the Great is supposed to have met and conversed with gymnosophists in his incursion into India *.
Strabo says that gymnosophists were religious people among the Indians (XVI,I), and otherwise divides Indian philosophers into Brahmans and Sramanas (XV,I,59-60), following the accounts of Megasthenes. He further divides the Sramanas into "Hylobioi" (forest hermits, c.f. Aranyaka) and "Physicians".
- "Of the Sarmanes, the most honourable, he says, are the Hylobii, who live in the forests, and subsist on leaves and wild fruits: they are clothed with garments made of the bark of trees, and abstain from commerce with women and from wine." (Strabo XV,I,60)
- "Of the Sarmanes (...) second in honour to the Hylobii, are the physicians, for they apply philosophy to the study of the nature of man. They are of frugal habits, but do not live in the fields, and subsist upon rice and meal, which every one gives when asked, and receive them hospitably. (...) Both this and the other class of persons practise fortitude, as well in supporting active toil as in enduring suffering, so that they will continue a whole day in the same posture, without motion." (Strabo XV,I,60)
In the 2nd century CE, the Christian dogmatist Clement of Alexandria distinguishes the Gymnosophists, the philosophers of the Indians, from the Sramanas, "the philosophers of the Bactrians and Kelts":
- "Philosophy, then, with all its blessed advantages to man, flourished long ages ago among the barbarians, diffusing its light among the gentiles, and eventually penetrated into Greece. Its hierophants were the prophets among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans among the Assyrians, the Druids among the Galatians, the Sramanas of the Bactrians, and the philosophers of the Celts, the Magi among the Persians, who, as you know, announced beforehand the birth of the Saviour, being led by a star till they arrived in the land of Judaea, and among the Indians the Gymnosophists, and other philosophers of barbarous nations." (Clem. Alex. Stromata 1.15.71 (ed. Colon. 1688 p. 305, A, B)).
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"Gymnosophists"