Buddhist Sets Himself on Fire in Ancient Greece? March 16, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient , trackback
Say it quietly, but there is a strong case to be made that, a score of years before Christ was born, a Buddhist monk came to Greece and set himself on fire in a public display of piety.
Sources
c. 20 BC an Indian embassy made its way into the Mediterranean to pay tribute to Augustus, the greatest of all Roman emperors. This embassy is reported by Augustus himself in Res Gestae and there is no question that it took place: in fact, there may have been several such contacts between Augustus and Indian states and statelets; the Latin word ‘saepe’ or ‘often’ is used by the big A. Two different writers, one practically contemporary (Strabo) and one late but with excellent sources (Cassius Dio) record the arrival of the monk and his act of public conflagration and both tentatively connect the monk and his fiery ways to the embassy. First, is Strabo, the great geographer. Strabo very briefly (xiv, 1) associates the ‘gymnosophist’ with this embassy. Then, in the next book, he dedicates a much longer discussion to the Indian’s motives. Note that Strabo (obit 23 AD) here is relying on the writing of Nicholas of Damascus who had himself met the embassy. Nicholas may even have spoken to Zarmanochegas, the Indian who set himself alight.
and they [the embassy] were accompanied also… by the man who burned himself up at Athens; and that whereas some commit suicide when they suffer adversity, seeking release from the ills at hand, others do so when their lot is happy, as was the case with that man; for… although that man had fared as he wished up to that time, he thought it necessary then to depart this life, lest something untoward might happen to him if he tarried here; and that therefore he leaped upon the pyre with a laugh, his naked body anointed, wearing only a loin-cloth; and that the following words were inscribed on his tomb: ‘Here lies Zarmanochegas, an Indian from Bargosa, who immortalised himself in accordance with the ancestral customs of Indians.’ Xv, 1
The second source is Dio Cassius and Dio, after a dense and rather tedious reflection on near Eastern territorial arrangements under Augustus, throws in a bit of eastern mystery.
For a great many embassies came to him, and the people of India, who had already made overtures, now made a treaty of friendship… One of the Indians, Zarmarus, for some reason wished to die, either because, being of the caste of sages, he was on this account moved by ambition, or, in accordance with the traditional custom of the Indians, because of old age, or because he wished to make a display for the benefit of Augustus and the Athenians (for Augustus had reached Athens); he was therefore initiated into the mysteries of the two goddesses, which were held out of season on account, they say, of Augustus, who also was an initiate, and he then threw himself alive into the fire. 54, 9
Zarmanochegas: the facts
What do we learn about Zarmanochegas. Well, here are a few points.
1) His name might have begun with ‘Z’. Seriously it would be rash to take either Strabo’s Zarmanochegas or Cassius’ Zarmarus as being anywhere near the original Indian form. Of course, this has not stopped scholars guessing. Perhaps ‘śramānācarya’, ‘master of the ascetics’?! Get your Sanskrit dictionaries and have fun.
2) Zarmanochegas came from Bargosa, by general consent Barygaza (modern Bharuch, north-western India), an important itinerary on the trade routes between India and the Empire.
3) He was part of, or had become associated with the embassy to Augustus
4) He is described as a ‘gymnosophist’ (a naked philosopher), a word that any reader of Greek would recognize as the same term used for the Indian wise men met by Alexander.
5) He decided to end his life in fire and did so in Greece. More of this below.
6) He wore, at least at his death, a loin cloth.
7) He was initiated into the cult of the two goddesses, Demeter and Persephone: a thrilling thought that an eastern monk could become a pagan Greek just before his death. Persephone, note, was associated with fire.
A Buddhist?
If we accept, as surely we must, that Zarmanochegas was an Indian with religious proclivities, there are two broad possibilities. He came either from a Hindu or from Buddhist tradition; there is a minority opinion about Jains but this is the wrong part of India, the wrong time and just does not sound very Jain-like.
There is the Hindu tradition of suttee where wives burn themselves up on their husband’s funeral pyre. However, there are very few cases where male Hindus end their lives in flames deliberately.
In Buddhism, on the other hand, holy men did end their lives in fire on some occasions: particularly when physical or mental processes made their ability to follow Buddhist discipline difficult. There are traditions that the Buddha cremated himself; and it goes without saying that this would subsequently become a strong part of Buddhist monasticism – see a famous photograph from 1963 (or actually the snap just before the fire) at the head of this post as a reminder of how this tradition has continued into modern times.
It would be foolish to make too much of Nicholas’s understanding of the motives for Zarmanochegas’ self-immolation (reported in Strabo and certainly filtered through Greek notions of the noble death): ‘although that man had fared as he wished up to that time, he thought it necessary then to depart this life, lest something untoward might happen to him if he tarried here’. Perhaps that vaguely corresponds to the Buddhist tradition of fiery euthanasia reported from contemporary India?
It might be mentioned in passing that fiery deaths were reported from ancient Greece. Herakles, for example, became divine on being burnt alive. The mystic Peregrinus Proteus (obit 160 AD) would meet a similar fate a very long century after Zarmanochegas’s death: Peregrinus burnt himself to ash at the Olympics… Another publicity junky.
Challenge
Any other evidence for Zarmanochegas’ origins? Drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com
Mark L an old friend of this blog, 16 Mar 2018: writes in with such a humiliating correction that I’m putting this up to punish myself; not quite self immolation but… In the original text I wrote ‘c. 20 AD an Indian embassy’ and I’ve corrected this to ’20 BC’. Bad blogger, bad blogger, bad blogger… Please, no one tell my students.
