Note 113 — Chapter III · * OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
Reading edition
Strabo gives a condensed summary of this report, made by Onesikritus respecting his conversation with the Indian Gymnosophist Mandanis, or Dandamis (Strabo, xv. p. 716 B):— Ταῦτ’ εἰπόντα ἐξερέσθαι (Dandamis asked Onesikritus), εἰ καὶ ἐν τοῖς Ἕλλησι λόγοι τοιοῦτοι λέγοιντο. Εἰπόντος δ’ (Ὀνησικρίτου), ὅτι καὶ Πυθαγόρας τοιαῦτα λέγοι, κελεύοι τε ἐμψύχων ἀπέχεσθαι, καὶ Σωκράτης, καὶ Διογένης, οὗ καὶ αὐτὸς (Onesikritus) ἀκροάσαιτο, ἀποκρίνασθαι (Dandamis), ὅτι τἄλλα μὲν νομίζοι φρονίμως αὐτοῖς δοκεῖν, ἓν δ’ ἁμαρτάνειν — νόμον πρὸ τῆς φύσεως τιθεμένους· οὐ γὰρ ἂν αἰσχύνεσθαι γυμνούς, ὥσπερ αὐτόν, διάγειν, ἀπὸ λιτῶν ζῶντας· καὶ γὰρ οἰκίαν ἀρίστην εἶναι, ἤτις ἂν ἐπισκευῆς ἐλαχίστης δέηται.
About Onesikritus, Diog. Laert. vi. 75-84; Plutarch, Alexand. c. 65; Plutarch, De Fortuna Alexandri, p. 331.
The work of August Gladitsch (Einleitung in das Verständniss der Weltgeschichte, Posen, 1841) contains an instructive comparison between the Gymnosophists and the Cynics, as well as between the Pythagoreans and the Chinese philosophers — between the Eleatic sect and the Hindoo philosophers. The points of analogy, both in doctrine and practice, are very numerous and strikingly brought out, pp. 356-377. I cannot, however, agree in his conclusion, that the doctrines and practice of Antisthenes were borrowed, not from Sokrates with exaggeration, but from the Parmenidean theory, and the Vedanta theory of the Ens Unum, leading to negation and contempt of the phenomenal world.