page_title: Gymnosophists
section_title: Ancient accounts
hierarchical_section_title: Gymnosophists / Ancient accounts
caption_attribution_description: English: Extent of the empire of Alexander the Great Ελληνικά: Έκταση αυτοκρατορίας Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου Español: Extensión del imperio de Alejandro Magno Français&#160;: Etendue de l'empire d'Alexandre le Grand Հայերեն: Ալեքսանդր Մակեդոնացու կայսրության քարտեզը Македонски: Карта на древното Македонско Царство Polski: Mapa Imperium Aleksandra Macedońskiego Русский: Карта империи Александра Македонского Türkçe: Büyük İskender'in genişlettiği imparatorluğu
context_page_description: Gymnosophists is the name 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. They were noted to have been vegetarian by several Greek authors. There were also gymnosophists in upper Egypt who were called Ethiopean Gymnosophists by Apollonius of Tyana.
  In Greek literature they are mentioned in association with the Persian magi, the Chaldaeans of the Assyrians or the Babylonians, the druids of the Celts, and the priests of Egypt, etc. Some sources claim that famous figures such as Lycurgus and Democritus may have met them. They are mentioned by authors such as Philo, Lucian, Clement of Alexandria, Philostratus, and Heliodorus of Emesa. These reports are thought to have served as models to Cynics as well as Christian ascetics. Many authors have discussed the purported questions by Alexander the Great and answers by the Gymnosophists.
context_section_description: The term gymnosophist was used by Plutarch  (c. CE 46 – CE 120) in the 1st century CE, when describing an encounter by Alexander the Great with ten gymnosophists near the banks of the Indus river in what is now Pakistan.
  He (Alexander) captured ten of the gymnosophists who had done most to get Sabbas 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 die nobly  or live." 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 dissatisfaction, that unusual questions must have unusual 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." These philosophers, then, he dismissed with gifts...
  — Plutarch, Life of Alexander, "The parallel lives", 64-65.
  Diogenes Laërtius (fl. 3rd century AD) refers to them, and reports that Pyrrho of Ellis was influenced by the gymnosophists while in India with Alexander the Great, and on his return to Ellis, imitated their habits of life and caused him to found the Hellenistic philosophy of Pyrrhonism.
  Strabo (64 or 63 BC – c. AD 24) says that gymnosophists were religious people among the Indians (XVI,I), and otherwise divides Indian philosophers into Brahmins and Śramaṇas, 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
  Philo Judaeus (c. 20 BCE – c. 50 CE), also called  mentions the gymnosophists twice in the course of listing foreign ascetics and philosophers who are, in his estimation, "prudent, and just, and virtuous" and therefore truly free:
  And among the Indians there is the class 
caption: Map of Alexander the Great's empire and his route to India
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