These observations of the Indian Gymnosophist are a reproduction and an application in practice[114] of the memorable declaration of principle enunciated by Sokrates — “That the Gods had no wants: and that the man who had fewest wants, approximated most nearly to the Gods”. This principle is first introduced into Grecian ethics by Sokrates: ascribed to him both by Xenophon and Plato, and seemingly approved by both. In his life, too, Sokrates carried the principle into effect, up to a certain point. Both admirers and opponents attest his poverty, hard fare, coarse clothing, endurance of cold and privation:[115] but he was a family man, with a wife and children to maintain, and he partook occasionally, of indulgences which made him fall short of his own ascetic principle. Plato and Xenophon — both of them well-born Athenians, in circumstances affluent, or at least easy, the latter being a knight, and even highly skilled in horses and horsemanship — contented themselves with preaching on the text, whenever they had to deal with an opponent more self-indulgent than themselves; but made no attempt to carry it into practice.[116] Zeno the Stoic laid down broad principles of self-denial and apathy: but in practice he was unable to conquer the sense of shame, as the Cynics did, and still more the Gymnosophists. Antisthenes, on the other hand, took to heart, both in word and act, the principle of Sokrates: yet even he, as we know from the Xenophontic Symposion, was not altogether constant in rigorous austerity. His successors Diogenes and Krates attained the maximum of perfection ever displayed by the Cynics of free Greece. They stood forth as examples of endurance, abnegation — insensibility to shame and fear — free-spoken censure of others. Even they however were not so recognised by the Indian Gymnosophists; who, having reduced their wants, their fears, and their sensibilities, yet lower, had thus come nearer to that which they called the perfection of Nature, and which Sokrates called the close approach to divinity.[117] When Alexander the Great (in the first year of his reign and prior to any of his Asiatic conquests) visited Diogenes at Corinth, found him lying in the sun, and asked if there was anything which he wanted — Diogenes made the memorable reply — “Only that you and your guards should stand out of my sunshine”. This reply doubtless manifests the self-satisfied independence of the philosopher. Yet it is far less impressive than the fearless reproof which the Indian Gymnosophists administered to Alexander, when they saw him in the Punjab at the head of his victorious army, after exploits, dangers, and fatigues almost superhuman, as conqueror of Persia and acknowledged son of Zeus.[118]
[114] Onesikritus observes, respecting the Indian Gymnosophists, that “they were more striking in act than in discourse” (ἐν ἔργοις γὰρ αὐτοὺς κρείττους ἢ λόγοις εἶναι, Strabo, xv. 713 B); and this is true about the Cynic succession of philosophers, in Greece as well as in Rome. Diogenes Laertius (compare his prooem, s. 19, 20, and vi. 103) ranks the Cynic philosophy as a distinct αἵρεσις: but he tells us that other writers (especially Hippobotus) would not reckon it as an αἵρεσις, but only as an ἔνστασις βίου — practice without theory.
[115] Xenophon, Memor. i. 6, 2-5; Plato, Sympos. 219, 220.
The language of contemporary comic writers, Ameipsias, Eupolis, Aristophanes, &c., about Sokrates — is very much the same as that of Menander a century afterwards about Kratês. Sokrates is depicted as a Cynic in mode of life (Diogen. L. ii. 28; Aristophan. Nubes, 104-362-415).
[116] Zeno, though he received instructions from Kratês, was ἄλλως μὲν εὔτονος πρὸς τὴν φιλοσοφίαν, αἰδήμων δὲ ὡς πρὸς τὴν κυνικὴν ἀναισχυντίαν (Diog. L. vii. 3).
“Disputare cum Socrate licet, dubitare cum Carneade, cum Epicure quiescere, hominis naturam cum Stoicis vincere, cum Cynicis excedere,” &c. This is the distinction which Seneca draws between Stoic and Cynic (De Brevitat. Vitæ, 14, 5). His admiration for the “seminudus” Cynic Demetrius, his contemporary and companion, was extreme (Epist. 62, 2, and Epist. 20, 18).
[117] Xenoph. Memor. i. 6, 10 (the passage is cited in a previous note). The Emperor Julian (Orat. vi. p. 192 Spanh.) says about the Cynics — ἀπάθειαν γὰρ ποιοῦνται τὸ τέλος, τοῦτο δὲ ἴσον ἐστὶ τῷ θεὸν γενέσθαι. Dion Chrysostom (Or. vi. p. 208) says also about Diogenes the Cynic — καὶ μάλιστα ἐμιμεῖτο τῶν θεῶν τὸν βίον.
[118] Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 32, 92, and the Anabasis of Arrian, vii. 1-2-3, where both the reply of Diogenes and that of the Indian Gymnosophists are reported. Dion Chrysostom (Orat. iv. p. 145 seq. Reiske) gives a prolix dialogue between Alexander and Diogenes. His picture of the effect produced by Diogenes upon the different spectators at the Isthmian festival, is striking and probable.
Kalanus, one of the Indian Gymnosophists, was persuaded, by the instances of Alexander, to abandon his Indian mode of life and to come away with the Macedonian army — very much to the disgust of his brethren, who scornfully denounced him as infirm and even as the slave of appetite (ἀκόλαστον, Strabo, xv. 718). He was treated with the greatest consideration and respect by Alexander and his officers; yet when the army came into Persis, he became sick of body and tired of life. He obtained the reluctant consent of Alexander to allow him to die. A funeral pile was erected, upon which he voluntarily burnt himself in presence of the whole army; who witnessed the scene with every demonstration of military honour. See the remarkable description in Arrian, Anab. vii. 3. Cicero calls him “Indus indoctus ac barbarus” (Tusc. Disp. ii. 22, 52); but the impression which he made on Alexander himself, Onesikritus, Lysimachus, and generally upon all who saw him, was that of respectful admiration (Strabo, xv. 715; Arrian, l. c.). One of these Indian sages, who had come into Syria along with the Indian envoys sent by an Indian king to the Roman Emperor Augustus, burnt himself publicly at Athens, with an exulting laugh when he leaped upon the funeral pile (Strabo, xv. 720 A) — κατὰ τὰ πάτρια τῶν Ἰνδῶν ἔθη.
The like act of self-immolation was performed by the Grecian Cynic Peregrinus Proteus, at the Olympic festival in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, 165 A.D. (See Clinton, Fasti Romani.) Lucian, who was present and saw the proceeding, has left an animated description of it, but ridicules it as a piece of silly vanity. Theagenes, the admiring disciple of Peregrinus, and other Cynics, who were present in considerable numbers — and also Lucian himself compare this act to that of the Indian Gymnosophists — οὗτος δὲ τίνος αἰτίας ἕνεκεν ἐμβάλλει φέρων ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὸ πῦρ; νὴ Δί’, ὅπως τὴν καρτερίαν ἐπιδείξηται, καθάπερ οἱ Βραχμᾶνες (Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 25-39, &c.).