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Gymnosophists (Greek , ''gymnosophistai'', i.e. "naked philosophers" or "naked wise men")〔 is the name given by the Greeks to certain ancient Indian philosophers who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought and also to naked priests from Ethiopia.〔 ==Ancient accounts== The term was used by Plutarch in the 1st century CE, when describing an encounter by Alexander the Great with ten gymnosophists near the banks of the Indus river in India - now in Pakistan. Diogenes Laertius (ix. 61 and 63) refers to them, and reports that Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of pure scepticism, came under the influence of the Gymnosophists while travelling to India with Alexander, and on his return to Elis, imitated their habits of life; however, the extent of their influence is not described. Strabo says that gymnosophists were religious people among the Indians (XVI,I), and otherwise divides Indian philosophers into Brahmins and Sramanas (XV,I,59-60), following the accounts of Megasthenes. He further divides the Sramanas into "Hylobioi" (forest hermits, c.f. Aranyaka) and "Physicians." Philo mentions the Gymnosophists twice in the course of listing foreign ascetics and philosophers who are, in his estimation, "prudent, and just, and virtuous" and therefore truly free: In the 2nd century CE, the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria distinguishes the Gymnosophists, the philosophers of the Indians, from the Sramanas, "the philosophers of the Bactrians": 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gymnosophists」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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