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Updated: July 3, 2025
As Priests were famous among the Egyptians; Magi among the Chaldeans, and Gymnosophists among the Indians; so Musicians flourished among the Grecians: and therefore EPAMINONDAS was accounted more unlearned than THEMISTOCLES, because he had no skill in music.
India and the Gymnosophists. India is a populous country of enormous extent. It lies far to the east of us, close to the point where ocean turns back upon himself and the sun rises, on that verge where meet the last of lands and the first stars of heaven.
For my part," quoth Frank, in his fanciful way, "without believing in that Popish Purgatory, I cannot help holding with Plato, that such heroical souls, who have wanted but little of true greatness, are hereafter by some strait discipline brought to a better mind; perhaps, as many ancients have held with the Indian Gymnosophists, by transmigration into the bodies of those animals whom they have resembled in their passions; and indeed, if Sir Thomas Stukely's soul should now animate the body of a lion, all I can say is that he would be a very valiant and royal lion; and also doubtless become in due time heartily ashamed and penitent for having been nothing better than a lion."
Not content with these sciences, he next approached the Chaldaeans and the Brahmins, a race of wise men who live in India. Among these Brahmins he sought out the gymnosophists. The Chaldaeans taught him the lore of the stars, the fixed orbits of the wandering lords of heaven, and the influence of each on the births of men.
They seem to be the gymnosophists, or naked philosophers, described by Clitarchos as living in India at the time of the expedition of Alexander, and their history crops out in various accounts that of Clement of Alexandria, then of the Chinese Fu-Hian in the fourth and fifth centuries, and of the celebrated Chinese Hiouen-Tsang in the seventh century, at which last period they appear to have been the prevailing sect in India, and to have increased in favor until in the twelfth century the Rajpoots, who had become converts to Jainism, were schismatized into Brahmanism and deprived the naked philosophers of their prestige.
Gymnosophists go into a wood, with all nature seething around them, with romance on every side; it would be much more to the purpose if they took up their abode in a dull country town, where they should see just so much of humanity as to keep them from desiring more, and only the stale externals of man's life.
Josephus shows what a marked influence on suicides the invasion of the Romans among the Hebrews had. In Africa, as in India, there were Gymnosophists. In Egypt Sesostris, the grandest king of the country, having lost his eyesight in his old age, calmly and deliberately killed himself.
Hitherto it has been importing Greek thought into Egypt and Syria, even to the furthest boundaries of Persia; and the whole East has become Greek: but it has received little in return. The Indian Gymnosophists, or Brahmins, had little or no effect on Greek philosophy, except in the case of Pyrrho: the Persian Dualism still less.
As it was manifestly shown unto us in the Queen of Sheba, who came from the utmost borders of the East and Persian Sea, to see the order of Solomon's house and to hear his wisdom; in Anacharsis, who came out of Scythia, even unto Athens, to see Solon; in Pythagoras, who travelled far to visit the memphitical vaticinators; in Plato, who went a great way off to see the magicians of Egypt, and Architus of Tarentum; in Apollonius Tyaneus, who went as far as unto Mount Caucasus, passed along the Scythians, the Massagetes, the Indians, and sailed over the great river Phison, even to the Brachmans to see Hiarchus; as likewise unto Babylon, Chaldea, Media, Assyria, Parthia, Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia, Palestina, and Alexandria, even unto Aethiopia, to see the Gymnosophists.
This assertion of the Egyptians is confirmed by some of the Greek writers. But we know of no one, except Aristocrates, son of Hipparchus, and a Spartan, who has affirmed that he went to Libya and Spain, and in his Indian excursions conversed with the Gymnosophists. The Lacedæmonians found the want of Lycurgus when absent, and sent many embassies to entreat him to return.
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