Among the fragments of early Pyrrhonist texts written by Timon of Phlius, the student of Pyrrho who recorded Pyrrho’s thoughts, is a concise summary of Pyrrhonism, known in the scholarly literature as the “Aristocles Passage.” It comes down to us from the early Christian philosopher, Eusebius, who quoted the Aristotelian philosopher, Aristocles, who was, in turn, quoting Timon quoting Pyrrho summarizing his philosophy.

About a decade ago, Christopher Beckwith, a philologist specializing in the languages of the ancient Silk Road, pointed out in his book, Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia, that part of this summary appears to be a translation into ancient Greek of the Buddhist Three Marks of Existence, giving the first proof that the similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism are not just a coincidence, but that Pyrrho was directly influenced by the Buddhist thought that he encountered during his year and a half stay in Taxila, India. Beckwith gives the details of his analysis in the first chapter of his book, which is available free online.

Following this, John G. Douglas pointed out that elsewhere in the Aristocles Passage there is a section of text that appears to be a translation of the Buddhist Antidotes to the Three Poisons. Douglas’ finding is nearly unknown as he’s sadly been unable to pursue getting it published. At present, the only publication in which it has been mentioned is my book, Pyrrho’s Way: The Ancient Greek Version of Buddhism.

The connection between the two texts requires a bit of unpacking and background knowledge to see it.

First, we must begin with the Buddhist Three Poisons. These are:

• Moha (Sanskrit), moha (Pali): Delusion (also, ignorance, confusion, bewilderment).

• Rāga (Sanskrit), lobha (Pali): Clinging, Attachment, especially with respect to desire for pleasures of the senses.

• Dveṣa (Sanskrit), dosa (Pali): Aversion (also, anger, hatred, hostility)

The three poisons are what give rise to dukkha, the fundamental problem Buddhism aims to address. Dukkha is usually translated as “suffering,” but it also covers the meanings of unsatisfactoriness and instability.

In the Buddhist path to liberation, these three poisons must be treated with their antidotes: the three wholesome mental factors that are the opposites of the three poisons.

• Delusion is treated with amoha (non-delusion) - alternatively, with paññā (wisdom)

• Attachment is treated with alobha (non-attachment) - alternatively, with dāna (generosity)

• Aversion is treated with adveṣa (non-hatred) - alternatively, with mettā (loving-kindness)

In the Aristocles Passage, Pyrrho advises people that if they want to achieve eudaimonia - which the ancient Greeks considered to be the goal of life, and hence the closest concept Pyrrho would have had to the idea of Buddhist liberation, a person should take on three attitudes: be akradantus, aklineis, and adoxastus.

One thing worth pointing out here is that although Pyrrho spent only about a year and a half in India, one advantage he had was that Sanskrit and ancient Greek are cognate languages, although not closely so. Because of this, they share a number of features, one of which is easy to see here. They both negate words by attaching “a” at the beginning. For example, the opposite of moha (delusion) is amoha. Just as the antidotes to the three poisons are negations of those poisons, Pyrrho gives a list of three recommendations that are also negations - three things to avoid.

Adoxastus means to be without opinions. Later Pyrrhonist texts are more specific about what is meant by this. It’s certain kinds of opinions, specifically beliefs about non-empirical matters. In other words, having an opinion that your spouse left their keys on their desk is fine, even if your spouse thinks they left the keys someplace else. A problematic opinion would be something non-empirical, such as the Stoic belief that virtue is the only good. This is an idea that the Stoics hold as an article of faith. It is not provable by empirical or any other means. In Pyrrhonism, belief in such things is considered delusional. The objective of Pyrrhonist practice is to liberate the practitioner from such delusions.

Aklineis means to be without inclinations - without leaning. It’s closely similar to the idea of being without clinging or without attachments, but is based on a slightly different metaphor. I’m inclined to believe (ha ha) that Pyrrho had good reasons for choosing this metaphor. He was familiar with the various spiritual exercises put forward by earlier Greek philosophers, and he identified one as particularly useful for his philosophical objectives. It came from the Sophists. The spiritual exercise is described in later Pyrrhonist texts as a process of developing equally weighted arguments pro and con. Described this way, an ancient Greek would image a balance scale in a state of being without inclination one way or another. A balanced scale has long been used as an image representing Pyrrhonism. A famous example of its use comes from the philosopher Montaigne, who adopted it as his personal logo when he embraced Pyrrhonism.

Akradantus means to be unwavering or unshakable. While adoxastus and aklineis can be easily mapped to their counterparts in the Antidotes to the Three Poisons, akradantus is not obviously a good match for non-hatred. I suggest Pyrrho modified this antidote to better fit the concerns of Greek philosophy.

Any schoolboy in ancient Greece would know the story of the Illiad and know that the story begins with the word “rage.” The Greeks were certainly concerned with the problem of aversion, but for them, aversion was understood to fit into an overarching class of undesirable emotions called pathê - a term translated awkwardly into English as the “passions.” “Passions” is a poor translation because the term has positive connotations, for example, a career that one is passionate about. Pathê is entirely negative. It’s all of the emotions that are bad to have and that cause suffering. The Greeks had a long list of these. It includes emotions such as envy, distress, grief, and depression, as well as anger, rage, hatred, and enmity. The pathê upset the natural balance of the soul and destroy its self-control.

The negation of pathê is apathia, but that word means to be without pathê. It’s not an antidote to pathê. Pyrrho needed a different term to describe an attitude that would serve as an antidote to pathê.

Pyrrho did not think that it was possible to eradicate the pathê. While he was famous for his emotional stability, there are stories about him running in fear of a vicious dog, and of becoming angry in defense of his sister - actions Pyrrho said were justified. Later Pyrrhonists did not aim to eradicate the pathê (unlike the Stoics, who held it as a goal) but to moderate the pathê by smashing delusions that produce extreme pathê.

By the time of Pyrrho, the Greeks already had some well-established ideas on things that were antidotes to the pathê. They were inscribed on the walls of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and held in high honor throughout the Greek-speaking world, with copies of them found inscribed in places as far-flung as present-day Afghanistan. Maxims that are relevant to controlling the pathê include:

• Nothing to excess

• Control yourself

• Control anger

• Exercise prudence

• Exercise nobility of character

• Live without sorrow

• Do away with enmities

• Grieve for no one

Given the Greek view that it is not just aversion that poisons but the pathê, and that the way to address the pathê is through balance and control, akradantus appears to be a good one-word summary for such an attitude.

While one can find scholarly reviews of Greek Buddha that argue that Beckwith is mistaken about the influence of the Buddhist Three Marks of Existence on Pyrrho, the identification of the Buddhist Antidotes to the Three Poisons in the Aristocles Passage further secures the substantial direct Buddhist influence on Pyrrhonism and helps explain how the Greeks came to have a philosophy so similar to Buddhist philosophy.

The relevance of this, however, is more than just historical and philological. Both Pyrrhonism and Buddhism are philosophies of life. They are not meant to be merely understood; they are meant to be practiced as paths of wisdom and liberation.

Pyrrho interpreted Buddhism for Westerners. At a minimum, Pyrrho appears to have modified Buddhism to make it sensible to his fellow Greeks, with positive influences from earlier Greek thinkers, particularly Democritus, Anaxarchus, Xenophanes, Zeno of Elea, Heraclitus, Homer, and Protagoras, as well as a negative influence from Aristotle, who was Pyrrho’s chief philosophical target. These are all thinkers who had no influence on Indian philosophy at that time. (At least that we know of).

Questions relevant to practitioners - be they practitioners of Buddhism or Pyrrhonism - that arise from this analysis include:

Were the ancient Greeks and Pyrrho right about viewing pathê as the appropriate way to think of this poison, rather than the poison being just aversion - a component of pathê? Or perhaps pathê better captures the true intent of what aversion meant in Early Buddhism? There’s already evidence that Pyrrho’s translation of dukkha shows that the meaning of dukkha changed slightly from how it was understood when Pyrrho was in India. Perhaps the meaning of adveṣa used to be a bit broader? Or, perhaps expanding the concept of aversion as a poison to encompass all of the pathê goes too far, and adding other undesirable emotions to aversion muddies the issue and produces distractions?

Might the Pyrrhonist conception of dogma as delusion be a useful refinement or clarification of what the Early Buddhists meant by delusion (moha) - at least for a Greek, and perhaps, subsequent Western audience? Or does it miss the Buddha’s intent? Alternatively, many modern people, particularly Westerners, find that they cannot accept some of the traditional Buddhist metaphysical claims, such as rebirth and the Buddhist theory of karma. Pyrrho couldn’t accept these claims, and he likely thought other Greeks wouldn’t either. These claims are not part of Pyrrhonism. Might the Pyrrhonist approach to Yavanayana Buddhism be a good fit for such spiritual seekers, providing them with a version of Buddhism compatible with their skepticism?