Wednesday, March 7, 2012

107 The Mugging of the Common Good; Alexander & Dandamis

It might seem meaningless to deal in one bulletin with both the US economy and Alexander the Great's engagement with Indian philosophers. The point is to contrast the mind of Alexander with the leaders we have now.

(1) The Mugging of the Common Good - Robert Borosage
(2) Michael Moore’s new film about American Capitalism
(3) Alexander & Dandamis
(4) Calanus, the Indian sage who accompanied Alexander the Great
(5) Arrian on Alexander and the Indian sages
(6) Strabo on Alexander and the Indian sophists (gymnosophists)

(1) The Mugging of the Common Good - Robert Borosage

From: Sandhya Jain <sandhya206@bol.net.in>  Date: 26.09.2009 02:29 AM

The Mugging of the Common Good-Robert Borosage-26 September 2009

The Mugging of the Common Good

Robert Borosage

26 September 2009

http://www.truthout.org/091509T
http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=832

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
....The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand

- William Butler Yeats

President Obama travelled to Wall Street on the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers that triggered the worst financial debacle since the Great Depression. His purpose was to challenge Wall Street’s barons, telling them:

“We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess ... where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses”

Those days are over, the president said. It’s time for comprehensive legislation. Taxpayers won’t cover your bets or your bonuses. And we know once more the threat that financial holdings can pose to the nation.

The president invoked country and the common good. “Instead of learning the lessons ... of the crisis, [some in the financial industry] are choosing to ignore them. They do so not just at their own peril, but our nation’s.” Obama called on Wall Street to act on its own, to overhaul pay systems, to level with consumers, to join with him in defining reform, but his tone was almost wistful. As he knows all too well, for much of Wall Street, patriotism is for suckers. And in Washington, private interests are rolling over the common good.

In the wake of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, the president has called for fundamental reforms vital to the country’s future. Put aside whether he’s been too bold or too timid, whether he has pushed hard enough or too hard; there isn’t any question he is calling the nation to its senses.

Our health care system is broken and unsustainable. Comprehensive reform is unavoidable. We can’t continue to rely on fossil fuels; sustainable energy is a security imperative, not a choice. We need to shackle Wall Street, to shrink the size and excess profits of finance, and force it away from its addiction to gambling and back to the essential business of investing in the real economy. We have to reduce the crony capitalist subsidies that get squandered on agri-business and Cold War weapons systems and top-end tax cuts, and use that money to invest in education, in a modern infrastructure, in research and development vital to a vibrant, high-road economy.

This really shouldn’t be controversial. Yes, disagreements about how to get this done are to be expected, but the status quo is simply indefensible. Despite all the fantasies of the rabid right, Obama is moderate by temperament, creative at compromise. He is, as one of his White House staff members described him, a “raging minimalist.” He really does believe you put everyone around a table, have a “civil conversation,” find areas of agreement and move forward. He does believe that everyone - from billionaire hedge-fund operators to insurance company CEOs to conservative legislators - will in a crisis put the country first.

But he and his reform program are getting mugged. He’s taken on the most powerful private interests in America - Big Oil, Wall Street, the insurance and drug lobbies - and they are winning. Republicans, despite the shattering of their conservative shibboleths, have chosen, with lockstep unity, obstruction over compromise. And too many Democrats have shown themselves more beholden to the private interests that pay for their campaigns than the public interest the president of their own party invokes.

We are witnessing a harrowing test of our democracy. America is a big, bustling and entrepreneurial country. We pursue our own passions and pursuits, are jealous of our freedoms, and begrudge governmental intrusions. But in a crisis - faced with depression or war, our history tells us many become one. We join together for the common good.

Well, it is hard to imagine a greater crisis than the one this country has faced over the last years. A middle class that has suffered a lost decade. Two wars. The Great Recession. Gilded Age inequality. Catastrophic climate change accelerating faster than most predictions.

Yet, we haven’t come together. Wall Street lobbies against reform. Derivative traders will ante up hundreds of millions to block regulation of credit default swaps. Goldman Sachs is back to computerized gambling and billions in bonuses. The insurance companies are spending over a million-and-a-half dollars a day against comprehensive health-care reform.

The president’s preemptive compromises only feed their appetites. He offers polluters a good portion of the revenue generated by “cap and trade.” They lobby to weaken the cap.

He bails out banks rather than taking them over and reorganizing them. They lobby against his financial reforms. He doesn’t try to push for Medicare for All, accepting the role of employment-based private insurance, and he’s accused of a government takeover of health care.

The tea-baggers were in Washington this past weekend. Despite their racial furies and right-wing fantasies, they shouldn’t be dismissed. Many are working people, losing ground in an economy that isn’t working for them. They are angry at a government that seems to take their taxes to bail out billionaire bankers, while they are left to swim or sink. They have every good reason to believe Washington caters to the wealthy and the connected, and not to them. And it is all too easy to deflect that anger to “them” - illegal immigrants, poor minorities, foreign aid recipients.

This is the test for Democrats. With the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats have to produce. If they are too cautious or too compromised, they will feed what could be an ugly populist backlash.

Take health care reform. Sen. Max Baucus has produced a draft for the Finance Committee, making concessions as far anyone can see not for Republican votes, but for insurance lobby approval. He’s produced that lobby’s dream bill, mandating coverage for everyone without subsidies to make it affordable. His bill would drive people to take the high-deductible, low-coverage plans that are the industry’s cash cows. It is hard to imagine a greater disservice to the country or to the party. Take young Americans who vote Democratic in large numbers, force them to buy health insurance that they don’t want and can’t afford, make them pay for policies that don’t cover their health-care costs - and reap the whirlwind that you deserve.

These next months are the reckoning. The president and the Congress will step up to the reforms the country needs - or they will fail the nation in a time of peril. For citizens, now is the time to get engaged. The only way legislators in both parties will rise above partisan politics and private interests is if their constituents allow them no choice.

Middle-income Americans lost income over the last decade, for the first time since we began keeping records. Financial speculation drove the economy off the cliff. Catastrophic climate change is already melting the ice caps. We cannot afford another lost decade. If reason cannot prevail, angry people will increasingly look for a strong man to get something done. And that could make the tea-baggers look like a tea party – The Campaign for America’s Future

(2) Michael Moore’s new film about American Capitalism

From: Sandhya Jain <sandhya206@bol.net.in> Date: 25.09.2009 10:27 AM

Michael Moore’s Smash and Grab

Mark Weisbrot

25 September 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/09/michael-moore-documentary-capitalism
http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=830

When I first met Michael Moore more than 20 years ago, he was showing a half-finished documentary to a few dozen people in a classroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was funny and poignant and had a powerful message. He had taken a second mortgage on his house - equipment for filmmaking was a lot more expensive back then - and raised some money from like-minded locals for a long-shot venture. We all loved what he showed us, but thought he would be lucky if a few thousand people got to see it.

1. Capitalism: A Love Story
2. Production year: 2009
3. Country: USA
4. Director: Michael Moore
5. Cast: Michael Moore
6. More on this film

But the film, Roger and Me, about the irrationality and human cost of the destruction of America’s auto industry, was a smash hit and Moore was on his way to become America’s most influential documentary film-maker. Twenty years later, he has produced his most radical work, which was greeted with rave enthusiasm when I saw it at the world’s oldest film festival in Venice.

As the old saying goes, you either blame the victim or blame the system. Moore is making an appeal to blame it on the system, big time.

You know this film is going to be subversive when it opens with clips depicting actual bank robbers - caught on security cameras in the midst of their heists - grabbing their loot with Iggy Pop’s cover of Louie Louie (a special version for the film) blasting away in the background. Moral equivalence for the titans of the financial industry, and their political protectors, is just around the corner.

Capitalism: a Love Story doesn’t just go after the seamy side of the American economy, although that is captured neatly in the scenes of “condo vultures” feeding on Florida’s housing bust, alongside the corporations (including Wal-Mart and Amegy Bank) which take out insurance policies on their employees and cash in big when they die young. These ghoulish derivatives go by the charming name of “dead peasants” insurance - which says it all, really.

But Moore has bigger targets in his sights: he is questioning whether the whole incentive structure, moral values and political economy of American capitalism is fit for human beings. Although this will not seem so radical in Europe, where most countries have had governments in the post-second world war era that at least called themselves socialist, or in most of the developing world, where socialist ideas have popular appeal, it’s pretty much unprecedented for something that can reach a mass audience in the US.

But you don’t have to be a revolutionary to appreciate this film. Indeed, it can be seen as a social democratic treatise, with Franklin Roosevelt’s proposed “second bill of rights” - an “economic bill of rights” that included a job with a living wage, housing, medical care, and education - as its reform program. Roosevelt is shown proposing this now forgotten program back in 1944.

As in his previous films, Moore combines the grief and tragedy of the victims - people losing their homes and jobs - with hilarious comedy, cartoonish film clips from the 1950’s, and sober testimony as needed. And there are victories, too - as when workers occupy their factory in Chicago to win the pay that they are owed.

As an economist who operates in the think-tank world, I have to appreciate this work. He gets the economic story right. How is it that Michael Moore’s father could buy a house and raise a family on the income of one auto worker, and still have a pension for his retirement? And yet this is not possible in the vastly more productive economy of today? The answer is not complicated: in the first half of the post-War era, employees shared in the gains from productivity growth; since 1973, most of them have hardly done so at all. (Productivity growth has also slowed.)

Moore also explains the structural changes, such as Ronald Reagan’s rollback of union and labour relations to the 19th century, that helped bring about the most massive upward redistribution of income in US history. (Moore even includes graphs and charts to back up the main points with data.)

From an economic point of view, the only thing missing was a look at the stock market and housing bubbles of the last decade. The current recession, like the last one, was primarily caused by the collapse of a huge asset bubble - an $8 trillion housing bubble in 2006, and a similar size stock market bubble in 2000-2002.

This is something that most of the media has not really understood. Asset bubbles are as old as capitalism, and since this is a movie about capitalism and the current Great Recession, it would have been nice to see some of this in the movie. But I can’t fault Moore too much for not taking on something that most economists and the press missed - and still don’t talk about. It’s a film, not a textbook.

Moore also wins my vote by getting his facts and numbers right. This is worth emphasizing because Moore’s last documentary, Sicko - which was quite careful with the facts - drew attacks from CNN and a smear campaign from the insurance industry. Both attempted - unsuccessfully - to impugn its accuracy. One former vice president of corporate communications for a health insurance company, and the author of several memos attempting to discredit Sicko, recently admitted to Bill Moyers on camera that Moore “hit the nail on the head with his movie.”

The new love story also targets the big boys who made our current Great Recession possible: Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers (the three smugly depicted in that 1999 Time cover of the “committee to Save the world”), and Tim Geithner. Rubin, who came from Goldman Sachs, helped deregulate the financial industry and got rich at Citibank from the results. Larry Summers, who came from academia, also made millions from the deregulated, government-guaranteed casino that he helped fashion when he (like Rubin) was President Clinton’s Treasury secretary. It’s a bipartisan hall of shame, tracking the havoc wreaked by a burgeoning, parasitic, and increasingly politically powerful financial industry, through the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II presidencies.

In a heart-warming contrast to the age of greed, we see Jonas Salk, the man who discovered the vaccine for polio in 1955, saving millions from the crippling and often fatal disease and refusing to get rich off his work by claiming patent rights. He only wanted that it be as available as possible. “Could you patent the sun?” he asks. And the Catholic Bishop of Detroit, when asked what Jesus would think of capitalism, replies that Jesus would not want to participate in such a system.

It’s all part of Moore’s plot to make democratic socialist values as American as apple pie. Which is a tough sell - but if anyone can do it, it’s a boy from America’s heartland, the Midwest, the kind that Garrison Keillor writes about when he says that it’s “the dummies who sit on the dais, and the smart people who sit in the dark near the exits”. As the son of a Flint autoworker, Moore doesn’t forget which side he is on. Twenty years later, he doesn’t seem to have been changed very much by fame and success.

Moore’s last film was a devastating indictment of the US health care system, an excellent introduction to the battle for healthcare reform. This one could be a prelude to the anger and disillusionment that is only beginning to swell.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the official unemployment rate will remain near 10% through next year. If we add in the underemployed (involuntarily part-time), dropouts from the workforce and other uncounted unemployment we are looking at a number nearly twice as high. Even if the economy were to begin its recovery soon, it won’t feel like one for quite some time. This film will have an audience that is ready for it, in the US and elsewhere.

(3) Alexander & Dandamis

Alexander "the Great" had a particular liking for philosophers - in India as much as Greece.

We've heard of Diogenes, the Greek (Cynic) philosopher who asked Alexander not to block the sun.

But there are same famous stories of Alexander's encounters in India.

http://www.kevincarmody.com/vedic/Dandamis.main.html

Dandamis

Introduction

Dandamis was a famous recluse in India in the fourth century B.C. This was at the time of the Macedonian conqueror known to Europeans and their descendants as "Alexander the Great" but to everyone else simply as Alexander. Alexander invaded southwestern Asia and then India, where his army mutinied, and he went back to Persia. However, while he was in India, he developed an interest in that country's culture. Here he had sought after and encountered Dandamis, as recorded by Greek historians and excerpted below.

Dandamis rebukes Alexander

The following is an excerpt from J.W. McCrindle's translation of Greek historians who accompanied Alexander to India. McCrindle uses the word "Bragman" to mean Brahmin.

They (the Bragmanes) subsist upon such fruits as they can find, and on wild herbs, which the earth spontaneously produces, and drink only water. They wander about in the woods, and sleep at night on pallets of the leaves of trees.

"We have … amongst us a sage called Dandamis, whose home is the woods, were he lies on a pallet of leaves, and where he has nigh at hand the fountain of peace, whereof he drinks, sucking, as it were, the pure breast of a mother."

King Alexander, accordingly, when he heard of all this, was desirous of learning the doctrines of the sect, and so he sent for this Dandamis, as being their teacher and president.

Onesikratês was therefore despatched to fetch him, and when he found the great sage he said, "Hail to thee, thou teacher of the Bragmanes. The son of the mighty god Zeus, king Alexander, who is the sovereign lord of all men, asks you to go to him, and if you comply, he will reward you with great and splendid gifts, but if you refuse will cut off your head."

Dandamis, with a complacent smile, heard him to the end, but did not so much as lift up his head from his couch of leaves, and while still retaining his recumbent attitude returned this scornful answer:—

"God, the supreme king, is never the author of insolent wrong, but is the creator of light, of peace, of life, of water, of the body of man, and of souls, and these he receives when death sets them free, being in no way subject to evil desire. He alone is the god of my homage, who abhors slaughter and instigates no wars.

"But Alexander is not God, since he must taste of death, and how can such as he be the world's master, who has not yet reached the further shore of the river Tiberoboas, and has not yet seated himself on a throne of universal dominion? Moreover, Alexander has neither as yet entered living into Hades, nor does he know the course of the sun through the central regions of the earth, while the nations on its boundaries have not so much as heard his name.

"If his present dominions are not capacious enough for his desire, let him cross the Ganges river, and he will find a region able to sustain men if the country on our side be too narrow to hold him.

"Know this, however, that what Alexander offers me, and the gifts he promises, are all things to me utterly useless; but the things which I prize, and find of real use and worth, are these leaves which are my house, these blooming plants which supply me with dainty food, and the water which is my drink, while all other possessions and things, which are amassed with anxious care, are wont to prove ruinous to those who amass them, and cause only sorrow and vexation, with which every poor mortal is fully fraught. But as for me, I lie upon the forest leaves, and, having nothing which requires guarding, close my eyes in tranquil slumber; whereas had I gold to guard, that would banish sleep. The earth supplies me with everything, even as a mother her child with milk. I go wherever I please, and there are no cares with which I am forced to cumber myself, against my will.

"Should Alexander cut off my head, he cannot also destroy my soul. My head alone, now silent, will remain, but the soul will go away to its Master, leaving the body like a torn garment upon the earth, whence also it was taken. I then, becoming spirit, shall ascend to my God, who enclosed us in flesh, and left us upon the earth to prove whether when here below we shall prove obedient to his ordinances, and who also will require of us, when we depart hence to his presence, an account of our life, since he is judge of all proud wrong-doing; for the groans of the oppressed become the punishments of the oppressors.

"Let Alexander, then terrify with these threats those who wish for gold and for wealth, and who dread death, for against us these weapons are both alike powerless, since the Bragmanes neither love gold nor fear death. Go, then, and tell Alexander this: 'Dandamis has no need of aught that is yours, and therefore will not go to you, but if you want anything from Dandamis come you to him.' "

Alexander, on receiving from Onesikratês a report of the interview, felt a stronger desire than ever to see Dandamis, who, though old and naked, was the only antagonist in whom he, the conqueror of many nations, had found more than his match.

—J.W. McCrindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian, Calcutta, Bombay, and London, 1877, online at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/gdc/scd0001/2004/20040416001in/20040416001in.pdf as of 18 March 2008, p. 123–126.

Natural desires

In this passage, Dandamis speaks to Alexander.

"But, thirst being a natural desire, if you drink the water you thirst for, your desire for it ceases. Similarly, if feeling hungry, you receive the food you seek, your hunger comes to an end. If, then, man's appetite for gold were on the same natural level, no doubt his cupidity would cease as soon as he obtained what he wished for. But this is not the case. On the contrary, it always comes back, a passion never satiated, and so man's craving goes on without end, because it does not proceed from an inclination implanted by nature."

—Dandamis, from S. V. Yankowski, The Brahman Episode, p. 21–23, quoted by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/brother/br-radh.htm as of 7 August 2004.

Possessions

In this passage, Dandamis speaks to Alexander.

"I have just as much of the earth as you and every other person; even if you gain all rivers, you cannot drink more than I. Therefore I have no fears, acquire no wounds and destroy no cities. I have just as much earth and water as you; altogether I possess everything. Learn this wisdom from me: wish for nothing, and everything is yours."

—Dandamis, from Jean W. Sedlar, India and the Greek World; A study in the transmission of culture, New Jersey, 1980, Section III, "Classical Notes on India", http://www.adolphus.nl/xcrpts/xcsedlar.html as of 7 August 2004.

The unseen

The following is from an editorial in the Indian Express.

Apparently, when Alexander the Great came to conquer India, he met a sanyasi, who was actually a great sage. The sage's name was 'Dandamis'; at least, that is how Greek historians seem to have pronounced it. Alexander questioned the sage: "Do you believe in God?" The sage remained silent. Alexander said, "I cannot see, so how can I believe? How do you believe without seeing him?" The naked sage laughed. He took Alexander by his hand towards the marketplace. Alexander followed—maybe he was taking him somewhere where he could show him God.

A small boy was flying a kite, and the kite had gone so far away that it was impossible to see it. The sage smiled secretly and stopped there, and the king of the Macedons waited impatiently. The sage asked the little boy, "Where is your kite? Because we cannot see it, and without seeing, how can we believe it is actually in existence? So where is that kite of yours? How do you still believe the kite exists?" The boy laughed merrily and looked pityingly at the sage for asking such an absurd question. He said, "I can feel the pull of it." And the sage said to Alexander, "I can also feel the pull of it."

—Swami Chaitanya Keerti, "Taking God on Trust", at indianexpress.com/india-news/ie20010830/ed3.html as of 18 March 2008.

Brahmins answer Alexander's questions

In the following passage from the historian Plutarch, Alexander has captured ten Brahmins who were associates of Dandamis and asks them questions.

He [Alexander] captured ten of the Gymnosophists [Brahmins] who had done most to get Sabbas [a king] to revolt, and had made the most trouble for the Macedonians.

These philosophers were reputed to be clever and concise in answering questions, and Alexander therefore put difficult questions to them, declaring that he would put to death him who first made an incorrect answer, and then the rest, in an order determined in like manner; and he commanded one of them, the oldest, to be the judge in the contest.

The first one, accordingly, being asked which, in his opinion, were more numerous, the living or the dead, said that the living were, since the dead no longer existed.

The second, being asked whether the earth or the sea produced larger animals, said the earth did, since the sea was but a part of the earth.

The third, being asked what animal was the most cunning, said: "That which up to this time man has not discovered."

The fourth, when asked why he had induced Sabbas to revolt, replied: "Because I wished him either to live nobly or to die nobly."

The fifth, being asked which, in his opinion, was older, day or night, replied: "Day, by one day"; and he added, upon the king expressing amazement, that hard questions must have hard answers.

Passing on, then, to the sixth, Alexander asked how a man could be most loved; "If," said the philosopher, "he is most powerful, and yet does not inspire fear."

Of the three remaining, he who was asked how one might become a god instead of man, replied: "By doing something which a man cannot do"; the one who was asked which was the stronger, life or death, answered: "Life, since it supports so many ills."

And the last, asked how long it were well for a man to live, answered: "Until he does not regard death as better than life."

So, then, turning to the judge, Alexander bade him give his opinion. The judge declared that they had answered one worse than another. "Well, then," said Alexander, "thou shalt die first for giving such a verdict."

"That cannot be, O King," said the judge, "unless thou falsely saidst that thou wouldst put to death first him who answered worst."

[Alexander did not kill any of the Brahmins but instead sent them away with gifts.]

—Plutarch, Alexander, online at http://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/plutarch_alexander.asp as of 18 March 2008.
Copyright © 1998–2009 Kevin Carmody
Last modified 18 August 2008

(4) Calanus, the Indian sage who accompanied Alexander the Great

http://www.livius.org/caa-can/calanus/calanus.html

Calanus

Relief showing a saddhu (Gogdara, Pakistan) {saddhu = holy man = gymnosophist = sage} <http://www.livius.org/a/pakistan/shingerdar/gymnosophist_gogdara.JPG>

Calanus (Indian: Kalyana): Indian sage who accompanied Alexander the Great.

In April 326, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great reached Taxila, the capital of one of the Indian kingdoms in the Punjab (Indian Takshaçila, modern Rawalpindi). Onesicritus of Astypalaea, one of Alexander's officers and biographers, writes that the king sent him to the Indian sages, only to be ridiculed by them and to be thaught cosmology (text). Another biographer of Alexander, Arrian of Nicomedia, states that Alexander personally interviewed the sages, who may have been traditional Brahmans or innovating saddhu's.

 On the appearance of Alexander and his army, these venerable men stamped with their feet and gave no other sign of interest. Alexander asked them through interpreters what they meant by this odd behavior, and they replied: 'King Alexander, every man can possess only so much of the earth' surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, traveling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others. Ah well! You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of this earth as will suffice to bury you.' Alexander expressed his approval of these sage words; but in point of fact his conduct was always the exact opposite of what he then professed to admire.
    [Arrian, Anabasis 7.1.5-2.1;
    tr. Aubrey de Sélincourt]

Alexander invited the sages to join him, but their leader, Dandamis, refused and sharply criticized Calanus, who accepted the invitation. (There is a tradition, going back to the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, that Calanus was in fact forced to join the Macedonian army.)

Calanus must have been one of Alexander's advisers during his Indian campaigns. We do not know what he thought of the anti-Macedonian rebellion that the Brahmans organized in April 325, when Alexander was leaving India.

 In India Calanus had never been ill, but when he was living in Persia all strength ultimately left his body. In spite of his enfeebled state he refused to submit to an invalid regimen, and told Alexander that he was content to die as he was, which would be preferable to enduring the misery of being forced to alter his way of life. Alexander, at some length, tried to talk him out of his obstinacy, but to no purpose. Then, convinced that if he were any further opposed he would find one means or another of making away with himself, he yielded to his request, and gave instructions for the building of a funeral pyre under the supervision of Ptolemy son of Lagus, of the Personal Guard.

Some say Calanus was escorted to the pyre by a solemn procession - horses, men, soldiers in armor and people carrying all kinds of precious oils and spices to throw upon the flames; other accounts mention drinking-cups of silver and gold and kingly robes. He was too ill to walk, and a horse was provided for him; but he was incapable of mounting it, and had to be carried an a litter, upon which he lay with his heard wreathed with garlands in the Indian fashion, and singing Indian songs, which his countrymen declare were hymns of praise to their gods. The horse he was to have ridden was of the royal breed of Nisaia, and before he mounted the pyre he gave it to Lysimachus, one of his pupils in philosophy, and distributed among other pupils and friends the drinking-cups and draperies which Alexander had ordered to be burnt in his honor upon the pyre.

At last he mounted the pyre and with due ceremony laid himself down. All the troops were watching. Alexander could not but feel that there was a sort of indelicacy in witnessing such a spectacle - the man, after all, had been his friend; everyone else, however, felt nothing but astonishment to see Calanus give not the smallest sign of shrinking from the flames. We read in Nearchus' account of this incident that at the moment the fire was kindled there was, by Alexander's orders, an impressive salute: the bugles sounded, the troops with one accord roared out their battle-cry, and the elephants joined in with their shrill war-trumpettings.
    [Arrian, Anabasis 7.3.1-6;
    tr. Aubrey de Sélincourt]

Burning oneself was not common in ancient India. It is only rarely mentioned in Brahman sources. However, it is unclear whether Calanus was a Brahman, and even if he were, it may be pointed out that voluntarily departing from one's life was considered by the Greeks to be the culmination of one's spiritual quest: one had been able to renunciate life itself.

Calanus departed from life with the words 'Alexander, we shall meet again in Babylon'. Nobody understood why he said this, but in the end, the words proved true when Alexander died in Babylon.

His death made a lasting impression. In 165 CE, a Greek philosopher named Peregrinus Proteus, did the same during the Olympic games. Although his contemporary Lucian described him as someone intent on publicity, most people were very impressed by the 'new Calanus', who had shown that death was nothing to be feared.

Literature

 * Brian Bosworth, "Calanus and the Brahman Opposition" in: Wolfgang Will (ed.), Alexander der Grosse. Eine Welteroperung und ihr Hintergrund (1998 Bonn), pp.173-203

(5) Arrian on Alexander and the Indian sages

http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t60.html

Alexander and the Indian sages

In India, Alexander the Great (or his representative Onesicritus) had an interview with the Brahman sages, who lived near Taxila. One of these people, a man named Calanus (Indian Kalyana), followed the conqueror to the west, where he died. The story of the interview and the story of the death of Calanus are described in several sources, such as the Anabasis by the Greek author Arrian of Nicomedia (book seven, sections 1.5-3.6). The translation was made by Aubrey de Sélincourt.

I have always liked the story of the Indian sages, some of whom Alexander chanced to come upon out of doors in a meadow, where they used to meet to discuss philosophy. On the appearance of Alexander and his army, these venerable men stamped with their feet and gave no other sign of interest.

Alexander asked them through interpreters what they meant by this odd behavior, and they replied: 'King Alexander, every man can possess only so much of the earth' surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, traveling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others. Ah well! You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of this earth as will suffice to bury you.'

Alexander expressed his approval of these sage words; but in point of fact his conduct was always the exact opposite of what he then professed to admire. [...] One must admit, than, that Alexander was not wholly a stranger to the loftier flights of philosophy; but the fact remains that he was, to an extraordinary degree, the slave of ambition.

In Taxila, once, he met some members of the Indian sect of Wise Men whose practice it is to go naked, and he so much admired their powers of endurance that the fancy took him to have one of them in his personal train. The oldest man among them, whose name was Dandamis (the others were his pupils), refused either to join Alexander himself or to permit any of his pupils to do so. 'If you, my lord,' he is said to have replied, 'are the son of god, why - so am I. I want nothing from you, for what I have suffices. I perceive, moreover, that the men you lead get no good from their world-wide wandering over land and sea, and that of their many travels there will be no end. I desire nothing that you can give me; I fear no exclusion from any blessings which may perhaps be yours. India, with the fruits of her soil in due season, is enough for me while I live; and when I die, I shall be rid of my poor body - my unseemly housemate.'

These words convinced Alexander that Dandamis was, in a true sense, a free man. So he made no attempt to compel him. On the other hand, another of these Indian teachers, a man named Calanus, did yield to Alexander's persuasion; this man, according to Megasthenes' [1] account, was declared by his fellow teachers to be a slave to fleshly lusts, an accusation due, no doubt, to the fact that he chose to renounce the bliss of their own asceticism and to serve another master instead of god.

I have mentioned this because no history of Alexander would he complete without the story of Calanus. In India Calanus had never been ill, but when he was living in Persia all strength ultimately left his body. In spite of his enfeebled state he refused to submit to an invalid regimen, and told Alexander that he was content to die as he was, which would be preferable to enduring the misery of being forced to alter his way of life. Alexander, at some length, tried to talk him out of his obstinacy, but to no purpose. Then, convinced that if he were any further opposed he would find one means or another of making away with himself, he yielded to his request, and gave instructions for the building of a funeral pyre under the supervision of Ptolemy son of Lagus, of the Personal Guard.

Some say Calanus was escorted to the pyre by a solemn procession - horses, men, soldiers in armor and people carrying all kinds of precious oils and spices to throw upon the flames; other accounts mention drinking-cups of silver and gold and kingly robes. He was too ill to walk, and a horse was provided for him; but he was incapable of mounting it, and had to be carried an a litter, upon which he lay with his heard wreathed with garlands in the Indian fashion, and singing Indian songs, which his countrymen declare were hymns of praise to their gods. The horse he was to have ridden was of the royal breed of Nisaia, and before he mounted the pyre he gave it to Lysimachus, one of his pupils in philosophy, and distributed among other pupils and friends the drinking-cups and draperies which Alexander had ordered to be burnt in his honor upon the pyre.

At last he mounted the pyre and with due ceremony laid himself down. All the troops were watching. Alexander could not but feel that there was a sort of indelicacy in witnessing such a spectacle - the man, after all, had been his friend; everyone else, however, felt nothing but astonishment to see Calanus give not the smallest sign of shrinking from the flames. We read in Nearchus' account of this incident that at the moment the fire was kindled there was, by Alexander's orders, an impressive salute: the bugles sounded, the troops with one accord roared out their battle-cry, and the elephants joined in with their shrill war-trumpettings.

This story and others to a similar effect have been recorded by good authorities; they are not without value to anyone who cares for evidence of the unconquerable resolution of the human spirit in carrying a chosen course of action through to the end.

Note 1:
Megasthenes visited India in the years after Alexander, and wrote a book on the country.

(6) Strabo on Alexander and the Indian sophists (gymnosophists)

http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t69.html

Alexander and the Brahmans

In India, Alexander the Great (or his representative Onesicritus) had an interview with the Brahman sages, who lived near Taxila. One of these people, a man named Calanus (Indian Kalyana), followed the conqueror to the west, where he died. The story of the interview and the story of the death of Calanus are described in several sources, such as Strabo's Geography 15.1.61, 62-64, which was translated by Horace Leonard Jones.

Aristobulus says that he saw two of the sophists [1] at Taxila, both Brahmans; and that the elder had head shaved but that the younger had long hair, and that both were followed by disciples; and that when not otherwise engaged they spent their time in the market-place, being honored as counselors and being authorized to take as as gift any merchandise they wished; and that anyone whom they accosted poured over them sesame oil, in such profusion that it flowed down over their eyes; and that since quantities of honey and sesame were put out for sale, they made cakes of it and subsisted free of charge, and that they came up to the table of Alexander, ate dinner standing, and taught him a lesson in endurance by retiring to a place nearby, where the elder fell to the ground on his back and endured the sun's rays and the rains (for it was now raining, since the spring of the year had begun); and that the younger stood on one leg holding aloft in both hands a log about three cubits in length, and when one leg tired he changed the support to the other and kept this up all day long; and that the younger showed a far greater self-mastery than the elder; for although the younger followed the king a short distance, he soon turned back again towards home, and when the king went after him, the man bade him to come himself if he wanted anything of him; but that the elder accompanied the king to the end, and when he was with him changed his dress and mode of life; and that he said, when reproached by some, that he had completed the forty years of discipline which he had promised to observe; and that Alexander gave his children a present.

[....] Onesicritus says that he himself was sent to converse with these sophists; for Alexander had heard that the people always went naked and devoted themselves to endurance, and that they were held in very great honor, and that they did not visit other people when invited, but bade them to visit them if they wished to participate in anything they did or said; and that therefore, such being the ease, since to Alexander it did not seem fitting either to visit them or to force them against their will to do anything contrary to their ancestral customs, he himself was sent; and that he found fifteen men at a distance of four kilometers from the city, who were in different postures, standing or sitting or lying naked and motionless till evening, and that they then returned to the city; and that it was very hard to endure the sun, which was so hot that at midday no one else could easily endure walking on the ground with bare feet.

Onesicritus says that he conversed with one of these sophists, Calanus, who accompanied the kind the king as far as Persis and died in accordance with the ancestral custom, being placed upon a pyre and burned up [2]. He says that Calanus happened to be lying on stones when he first saw him; that he therefore approached him and greeted him; and told him that he had been sent by the king to learn the wisdom of the sophists and report it to him, and that if there was no objection he was ready to hear his teachings; and that when Calanus saw the mantle and broad-brimmed hat and boots he wore, he laughed at him and said: 'In olden times the world was full of barley-meal and wheaten-meal, as now of dust; and fountains then flowed, some with water, others with milk and likewise with honey, and others with wine, and some with olive oil; but, by reason of his gluttony and luxury, man fell into arrogance beyond bounds. But Zeus, hating this state of things, destroyed everything and appointed for man a life of toil. And when self-control and the other virtues in general reappeared, there came again an abundance of blessings. But the condition of man is already close to satiety and arrogance, and there is danger of destruction of everything in existence.'

And Onesicritus adds that Calanus, after saying this, bade him, if he wished to learn, to take off his clothes, to lie down naked on the same stones, and thus to hear his teachings; and that while he was hesitating what to do, Mandanis, who was the oldest and wisest of the sophists, rebuked Calanus as a man of arrogance, and that too after censuring arrogance himself; and that Mandanis called him and said that he commended the king because, although busied with the government of so great an empire, he was desirous of wisdom; for the king was the only philosopher in arms that he ever saw, and that it was the most useful thing in the world if those men were wise who have the power of persuading the willing, and forcing the unwilling, to learn self-control; but that he might be pardoned if, conversing through three interpreters, who, with the exception of language, knew no more than the masses, he should be unable to set forth anything in his philosophy that would be useful; for that, he added, would be like expecting water to flow pure mud!

Note 1:
A Greek expression to describe all scholars and sages that were no philosophers.

Note 2:
Here you can read the story and a comment.

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