Note 445 — II. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY. (continued 2)

Strabo XV. 1. 59, p. 712. In the MSS it is written Γαρμάνας, but this must be an error either introduced by Strabo’s transcribers or found in the copy of Megasthenes which this author used. This is plain not only from the Indian word itself, but also from the parallel passage in Clement of Alexandria (Strom. i. 15). From the coincidences of language it is clear that Clement also derived his information from Megasthenes, whose name he mentions just below. The fragments of Megasthenes relating to the Indian philosophers will be found in Müller Fragm. Hist. Græc. II. p. 437. They were previously edited by Schwanbeck, Megasthenis Indica (Bonnæ 1846).

For Σαρμᾶναι we also find the form Σαμαναῖοι in other writers; e.g. Clem. Alex. l.c., Bardesanes in Porphyr. de Abstin. iv. 17, Orig. c. Cels. i. 19 (I. p. 342). This divergence is explained by the fact that the Pali word sammana corresponds to the Sanskrit sramana. See Schwanbeck, l.c. p. 17, quoted by Müller p. 437.

It should be borne in mind however, that several eminent Indian scholars believe Megasthenes to have meant not Buddhists but Brahmins by his Σαρμάνας. So for instance Lassen Rhein. Mus. 1833, p. 180 sq., Ind. Alterth. II. p. 700: and Prof. Max Müller (Pref. to Rogers’s Translation of Buddhaghosha’s Parables, London 1870, p. lii) says; ‘That Lassen is right in taking the Σαρμᾶναι, mentioned by Megasthenes, for Brahmanic, not for Buddhist ascetics, might be proved also by their dress. Dresses made of the bark of trees are not Buddhistic.’ If this opinion be correct, the earlier notices of Buddhism in Greek writers entirely disappear, and my position is strengthened. But for the following reasons the other view appears to me more probable: (1) The term sramana is the common term for the Buddhist ascetic, whereas it is very seldom used of the Brahmin.

(2) The Ζάρμανος (another form of sramana), mentioned below p. 156, note 450, appears to have been a Buddhist. This view is taken even by Lassen, Ind. Alterth. III. p. 60.

(3) The distinction of Βραχμᾶνες and Σαρμᾶναι in Megasthenes or the writers following him corresponds to the distinction of Βραχμᾶνες and Σαμαναῖοι in Bardesanes, Origen, and others; and, as Schwanbeck has shown (l.c.), the account of the Σαρμᾶναι in Megasthenes for the most part is a close parallel to the account of the Σαμαναῖοι in Bardesanes (or at least in Porphyry’s report of Bardesanes). It seems more probable therefore that Megasthenes has been guilty of confusion in describing the dress of the Σαρμᾶναι, than that Brahmins are intended by the term.

The Pali form, Σαμαναῖοι, as a designation of the Buddhists, first occurs in Clement of Alexandria or Bardesanes, whichever may be the earlier writer. It is generally ascribed to Alexander Polyhistor, who flourished B.C. 80–60, because his authority is quoted by Cyril of Alexandria (c. Julian. iv. p. 133) in the same context in which the Σαμαναῖοι are mentioned. This inference is drawn by Schwanbeck, Max Müller, Lassen, and others. An examination of Cyril’s language however shows that the statement for which he quotes the authority of Alexander Polyhistor does not extend to the mention of the Samanæi. Indeed all the facts given in this passage of Cyril (including the reference to Polyhistor) are taken from Clement of Alexandria (Strom. i. 15; see the next note), whose account Cyril has abridged. It is possible indeed that Clement himself derived the statement from Polyhistor, but nothing in Clement’s own language points to this.