| This work is primarily a comparative study of the common strains of philosophical thought in Greece and India during the Hellenistic age. It is an attempt to view the kaleidoscopic terrain of those traditions in order to gain an understanding to questions such as: What are the parallels in Greek and Indic thought during which led to the cultural synthesis of Greco-Buddhism? Why was it this particular Indian religion that enjoyed patronage throughout the Indo-Greek world? How and in what ways did these philosophies approach the universal religio-philosophical questions of identity, suffering, and liberation?;The contention of this thesis is that in adopting Buddhism, the Greeks weren't adopting a completely 'foreign' religion-philosophical development was, in both contexts, a response to the common trend of the process of movement from tribal to city life that necessitated an individualized vehicle for transformation. And within this archetypal formula, corresponding themes and functions of both bodies of thought culminated in an affinity between the Greek and Buddhist communities in northwestern India during that time period. |
