[Buddha-l] Re: Natural lucidity for Socrates

[Joy Vriens]

"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." 

Lovely, I first though you were trying to pull my leg and served me the quote of a Cynic, after having substituted Cynic by Jain.

http://www.livius.org/caa-can/calanus/calanus.html
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t60.html
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t60.html

What becomes clear to me out of all this is that  "philosophers in arms" like Alexander consider other philosophers like court jesters. They amuse them, but they would never follow their advice. like our own current philosopher in arms George Walker. Word must have got round that Alexander loved to be treated roughly by "philosophers". Perhaps Diogenes, after having heard the anecdote with Calanus, was inspired to give a similar treatment to Alexander. Or perhaps it is a simple cultural transposition of the same anecdote. What also becomes clear is that Alexander would have answered the question "Is Buddhism/Jainism a philosophy or a religion" without hesitating by philosophy.     

<<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)?>>

Yes, but I find Zhuangzi more credible than the at first sight more selfrighteous Calanus.