[Buddha-l] Re: Natural lucidity for Socrates

[Dan Lusthaus]

Re: Re: [Buddha-l] Re: Natural lucidity for SocratesIncidentally, in a piece in the New Republic (Oct 6, 2003, pp. 28-35) by Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winner in Economics from Trinity College, Cambridge, entitled "Democracy and it Global Roots: Why democratization is not the same as Westernization", on p. 30 he refers to the Alexander story, identifying the Indians queried by Alexander as Jains. He writes:

"When Alexander asked a group of Jain philosophers in India why they were paying so little attention the great conqueror, he got the following reply, which directly questioned the legitimacy of inequality: 'King Alexander, every man can possess only so much of the earth's surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, traveling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others!... Soon you will be dead, nd then you will own just as much of the earth as will suffice to bury you."

If we want to keep the parlor game going, we might accuse these Jains of having poached the idea that we only need as much ground as we are standing on from Zhuangzi, who says the same thing. Or maybe Zhuangzi got it from them (or Alexander)?

Dan Lusthaus
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/private/buddha-l/attachments/20060910/75350283/attachment.htm