Beckwith wants to dispense with the “folklore” that has infected the literature of Early Buddhism and Pyrrhonism. He makes several bold and provocative claims. At the time of the Buddha the word śramaṇa only referred to Buddhists. Early Buddhists were not monks living in vihāra, practising the vinaya as a saṇgha. Upaniṣadic Brahmanism is younger than Buddhism and was influenced by it. Greek histories of Early Buddhism are more reliable than Indian sources, written centuries later. Aśoka did not inscribe all the rock and pillar inscriptions. And Lao Tsu may have been another name of the Buddha.
Beckwith's method brings together linguistics, archaeology and close textual analysis. There is something exemplary about this range. There is no question that this particular subject requires such range and boldness, what ever one thinks of his conclusions.
The material is sometimes rather disconnected. He begins with a prologue about Anarcharsis and the Buddha, in which he introduces his reasons for rejecting the claims of canonical textual traditions to be authentic. Next comes a chapter on Pyrrho and early Buddhism. Then a chapter on the terms śramaṇa and brāhmaṇa in the Greek texts and an attempt to make sense of who they might be. The next chapter argues that Lao Tsu may have been the Buddha. Oddly it is combined with an examination of the inscriptions of “Aśoka”. Finally, there is an attempt to get at what the Buddha, Pyrrho (and Hume) were attacking. Then comes an “epilogue” on early Buddhism and its reaction to Zoroastrianism, then “appendices” on the Greek sources of Pyrrho's thought, on objections scholars have made to Pyrrho having learnt from the Indians, and finally a detailed assessment of the validity of the inscriptions attributed to Aśoka. If that seems like a lot, it is. It is very difficult for the reader to make sense of the book as a whole. The material in the appendices should be integrated into the main discussion. As it stands, they are more like a collection of unfinished notes.
Each of Beckwith's claims requires, as he admits, more thorough consideration than it receives in this book. His “discovery” of the Buddhist trilaksaṇa in the Aristocles passage, in which Timon describes Pyrrho's teachings, is impressive. Though whether he is right to be so emphatic in making his unargued distinction between “Early” and “Normative” Buddhism (the latter is the familiar Buddhism of the Four Noble Truths, etc.) is unclear. Rather more flimsy, though brilliantly suggestive, is his derivation of Gautama from Lao Dan (i.e. Lao Tsu) and dao from dharma.
Reading the book, it is good to bear in mind the unspoken chronology. The story is generally as follows: in Persia, unreformed Mazdaism was in competition with reformed Zoroastrianism, and after Darius' invasions brought these religions into Central Asia and India, the Buddha opposed both. Siddharta Gautama was probably from Central Asia, and not, as the myths suggest, from the Gangetic plain. Early Buddhism can therefore best be reconstructed from the writings of scholars who accompanied or followed Alexander to India, as in the Pyrrho fragments, the Alexander historians, and Megasthenes (whose description of sects Beckwith examines in detail). The Buddha must have taught in India after Darius' invasion of Gandhāra and Sindh, he argues, and died before Pyrrho and Alexander arrived. These revised dates and the Buddha being a foreigner in India, he says, explain the early arrival of Buddhism in Gandhāra and Bactria and the difficulty of establishing that the Buddha was from Magadha. The earliest occurrence of “Śākamuni” is in Gandhari Prakrit texts from the first century ce, not in the Pali canon.
On the early Indian inscriptions, he argues that Devānāmpriya could be Amitrochates/Bindusara, Candragupta's son. Brahmanism later adopted some of the Zoroastrian doctrines (e.g. heaven and hell). When Megasthenes reported, some, but not all, Buddhists were starting to teach karma and rebirth, and Pure Land was becoming recognizably Buddhist. (He suggests it was originally influenced by Central Asian monotheism). Later “Aśoka” inscriptions either affect to be by Aśoka but could not be, or possibly there is another Aśoka, but some are definitely spurious. Beckwith urges Indologists to acknowledge the blatant forgeries among the inscriptions and sort this out once and for all.
The Lumbini story is, as Bareau has shown, a late fabrication. The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path are later formulations, from “Normative” Buddhism. Unreformed Mazdaism was in competition with reformed Zoroastrianism. Some Zoroastrian and Mazdean doctrines were adopted directly by Brahmanism, others later from Normative Buddhism. At first Buddhism was very opposed to it. But it seems in popular strands to have adopted good and bad karma and rebirth.
Beckwith argues that the Greek monoglot theory deserves to be put to rest, in particular the Inspector Clouseau-like invasion of these lands by Alexander. The theory that everything came from Greece, which he rather unfairly attributes to McEvilley, is not valid either. The ancient sources say philosophia's origin was the barbaroi, especially the Central Asians.
Beckwith discusses the correct meaning of adoxastous. It is not free of “opinions” but “beliefs”. The result, what is left (periesesthai), is ataraxia, like a shadow. What Pyrrho means is the circularity of induction and deduction, and Beckwith argues that it makes sense as it is. One of the strengths of the book is its interpretation that the implications of Pyrrho's arguments are logical. His discussion of how this influenced Hume, and what this might mean for our ideas of perfection and beauty, contributes to our understanding of Pyrrhonism to a degree, but it feels like a different book.
One would have to commend the author's audacity. This revision of the history of Early Buddhism is likely to offend those who, as he puts it, have to guard their views with imprecations in ancient tongues.
Nevertheless, the book offers a new and refreshing approach. It repeatedly calls for more work in various fields, and it should be hoped that scholars do not shy away from taking up the many challenges it raises.
