Consolation and a parable: two contacts between Ancient Greece and Buddhists

Abstract

Ancient Greek and Roman conventional consolations of mourners are not reflected in Buddhist texts. Reason should modify grief, but the Buddha's ‘consolation’ of Visākhā by blaming her ‘affection’ is crude. Kisā Gotamī was consoled by the Buddha's asking her to get mustard seed from homes where no son, etc., had died, a technique employed by Democritus of Abderaj by Demonax, and in the Alexander Romance. The maxim of the Lame and the Blind figures in Indian philosophy, known to Buddhists. It appears in first-century Greek epigrams, and later Jewish texts a propos of resurrection. Movements of detail from West to East and vice versa are thus illustrated. Therefore the evangelists' and Buddhists' ideas could have been exchanged, despite pertinacious denials.