# What came first, Stoicism or Buddhism? Are they related or were they independently thought of?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 12, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311 "2012-01-12T17:37:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Wikipedia_Cites)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311/1 "2012-01-12T17:37:18Z")
Ok this is one I never understood, this might be pushed into Great Debates, but for now I recently read Buddha’s (attributed?) remarks and then Epictetus’.
Both are very similar. Now of course Epictetus came six hundred years later, but he was writing based on the establish Stoic schools that had existed for centuries as well.
And if Buddha was chronologically ealier, did Stoicism take from Buddha? Or was Stoicism independently developed?
Tell me Zeno didn’t crib Siddhartha’s term paper . . .
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2012, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311/2 "2012-01-15T01:57:09Z")
_Bump_
Epictetus: (55 –135 AD)
Buddha: “most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE,[2] but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE.” according to _cough_ [this website](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha).
Buddha believed that he had discovered a doctrine, rather than invented it. I tend to agree, so it’s not surprising that others would also espouse pieces of it. It’s in the air, or rather it’s embedded in the human condition.
I know little about stoicism, but I don’t believe it to be necessarily influenced by Buddhism, based upon [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus). That said, there’s probably a more informed and factual answer.
* * *
More definitely, the antecedents of Epictetus listed here are all Greek:
> **[Epictetus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epictetus/)**
Furthermore:
> [@Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](#):
>
> Any effort to come to grips with Epictetus’ thought must proceed from an awareness of his chosen objectives. The philosopher we meet in the Discourses seeks above all to foster ethical development in others, keeping his personal intellectual satisfaction strictly subordinate… Those themes he regards as most difficult for students to internalize are hammered again and again; other issues may be treated sporadically as the occasion arises, or omitted altogether, if he regards them as inessential to moral development.
The Buddha’s purpose was to ameliorate suffering. That’s different than the goal indicated here. I’m not questioning a rough similarity though.
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### Author:  [@robinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robinson)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2012, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311/3 "2012-01-15T02:16:41Z")
IMHO, Given the geographic separation, as well as differences cited by Measure for Measure, I would call it parallel evolution.
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### Author:  [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311/4 "2012-01-15T03:44:00Z")
> [@robinson](#):
>
> IMHO, Given the geographic separation, as well as differences cited by Measure for Measure, I would call it parallel evolution.
Geographically they are really not that seperated, trade was established between ancient Greece and India and we have evidence of greek philosophers traveling to India:
[http://ssubbanna.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/05/some-other-ancient-greeks-in-india.htm](http://ssubbanna.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/05/some-other-ancient-greeks-in-india.htm)
Pyrrhon of Elis (365-275 B. C.)
“Pyrrhon was one of the philosophers who traveled with Alexander the Great on his expedition to India . He apparently met some Indian philosophers during his stay in India . His experiences in India may have had some effect on him because on his return to India he preferred to live in solitude and in poverty. Yet, he was highly honored by the Elians and the Athenians, who conferred upon him the rights of citizenship. He did not put his ideas into writing. His ideas have survived only through fragmentary citations in later authors and mainly through the writings of his pupil Timon of Philus.”
The page above has many more examples so direct influence of Buddhism or Vedic ideas on Stoicism is very possible.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2012, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311/5 "2012-01-23T07:10:10Z")
[This book](http://www.sunypress.edu/p-3525-neoplatonism-and-indian-philoso.aspx) discusses: During the last two centuries a remarkable similarity between the philosophical system of Plotinus (205–270 A.D.) and those of various Hindu philosophers in various centuries, including some that lived prior to the Third Century A.D. has been discovered. This book addresses the possibility of any direct influence of Indian thought upon Plotinus and his teacher Ammonius Saccas (185–250 A.D.) or even upon their major source, Plato. Are Platonism and Plotinism, and the thought patterns in Western religion, literature, and art derived from them, to be considered as mere variations on themes found in ancient Hindu philosophy or are they pure evolutionary products of Greek philosophy? That said [this site notes](http://faculty.evansville.edu/tb2/courses/phil211/burnet/intro.htm): No one now will suggest that Greek philosophy came from India, and indeed everything points to the conclusion that Indian philosophy arose under Greek influence. The chronology of Sanskrit literature is an extremely difficult subject; but, so far as we can see, the great Indian systems are later in date than the Greek philosophies they most nearly resemble. Of course the mysticism of the Upanishads and of Buddhism was of native growth; but, though these influenced philosophy in the strict sense profoundly, they were related to it only as Hesiod and the Orphics were related to Greek scientific thought. If I understand it correctly, the first citation conflicts with the 2nd. My tentative hypothesis/WAG is that there is no water-tight evidence of Indian influences on ancient Greek philosophy, though there is room for conjecture and investigation.
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### Author:  [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2012, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311/6 "2012-01-23T07:41:47Z")
Your second quotes claims about chronology doesn’t seem right to me. Buddhist and Vedic philosophy had well established canons by 300 BC, we have evidence of direct contact during that time including visits by scholars, see the page I linked above. Stoicism is mainly after that.
There was even an Indo-Greek Kingdom ruling part of northern india from 180BC to 10AD which is known to have a religion that fused buddhist and hellenistic thought.
> **[Indo-Greek Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Greek_kingdom)**
>
> Sagala
> The Indo-Greek Kingdom, or Graeco-Indian Kingdom, also known historically as the Yavana Kingdom (Yavanarajya), was a Hellenistic-era Greek kingdom covering various parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India. This kingdom was in existence from c. 200 BC to the beginning of the common era.
> During its existence the kingdom was ruled over by 30 successive kings. Menander I, being the most well known amongst the Indo-Greek kings, is often referred to simply as "Menande...
> **[Greco-Buddhism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism)**
>
> Greco-Buddhism, or Graeco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed between the 4th century BC and the 5th century AD in Gandhara, in present-day north-western Pakistan and parts of north-east Afghanistan.
> It was a cultural consequence of a long chain of interactions begun by Greek forays into the Indian subcontinent from the time of Alexander the Great. A few years after Alexander's death, the Easternmost fringes of the empire of his general ...
you don’t think its likely that scholars and nobles from that era, well versed in Buddhism would have travelled back to the Greek world when their Kingdom fell to the Scythians?
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2012, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-stoicism-or-buddhism-are-they-related-or-were-they-independently-thought-of/609311/7 "2012-01-24T07:05:34Z")
Ok, I dug a little deeper. The 2nd citation is about Early Greek Philosophy. They mention Homer and Hesiod, both of whom operated before 600BC. So if that’s the case, there’s no conflict between the 2 citations as they are addressing different eras. And the 2nd citation isn’t especially relevant to the OP. :smack: