On the Morals of the Brahmans

The desire of your mind, Palladius, which, inflamed with an immense love of wisdom, always wishes to learn new things, compels us also to undertake a new and arduous work, namely to review the homeland, custom, and life of the Brachmans. Since I myself have seen neither them nor their places (for they are separated from our Europe by a long stretch of lands), I will attempt to relate to you only those things which I have heard from others, and which I have taken from writers. The Brachmans are called by some gymnosophists, by others philosophers or sages of the Indians (Strabo, book XV of the Geography). They dwell beside the Ganges, the greatest river of all India (Q. Curtius, book VIII). This Ganges is indeed that which the Holy Scriptures call Phison, and is one of the four which are said to flow out of paradise (Genesis 2).

First, then, our brother Musaeus, bishop of Dolena, related to me that some years before he had set out for the Indies, out of desire to see the Brachmans, and traversed almost the whole region of Serica: in which he reports there are trees which produce not only leaves, but also a very fine wool, from which garments are made which are called silken, and that there a certain notable stone column of Alexander is seen there, carved with this inscription: I, Alexander, came this far; and that after traversing very many nations and regions of peoples, he finally came to the province of Ariana, near the river Indus: which, seeing it surrounded by deserts and scorched by heat, because the sun burned everything (whence there was the greatest scarcity of water, and if it was brought from elsewhere, it was seen to boil immediately even in its own vessels), and since he could not endure the heat of the sun and the burning of the places, he was forced immediately to abandon the journey begun, to withdraw his foot, and to return to Europe (Pliny, book VI of Natural History, chapter 25).

He affirms therefore that he saw certain new things, but not the Brachmans themselves. Nevertheless he relates that he heard some things about the Brachmans from a certain Theban scholastic, who, as he says, for this very reason, namely that he might see and speak with the Brachmans themselves, proposed to travel to the Indies, and that at length the wretched man fell into captivity. This man, then, as the bishop related to me, being of a gentler disposition, wearied with the tedium of an art unsuited to him in the office of forensic advocacy, resolved to see India, and to learn the homeland and customs of the Brachmans.

Wherefore, boarding a ship with certain merchants on the Erythraean, or Red Sea, he sailed first the Adulic gulf, and saw the town of the Adulites, then he penetrated the promontory of Aromata, and the emporium of the Troglodytes, from there he also reached the places of the Assumitae, whence, setting sail with favorable winds, though after very many days of sailing, he finally arrived at Muziris, the emporium of all India on this side of the Ganges: where he asserted a certain petty king of the Indians ruled.

Having therefore stayed there for some time, and having carefully observed the quality of the air and the place, and the customs of the men, for several days, it came into his mind to cross over to the island which is called Taprobane: in which those who bear the name of the blessed are said to live to a very long age (for they consider a human life of a hundred years to be modest) on account of the wonderful mildness of the air, and the incomprehensible disposition of divine judgment (Pliny, book VI, chapter 22). This island is governed by four kings or satraps, among whom one is the greatest, to whom the others are subject and whom they obey, as that scholastic related (Ptolemy, book VII of the Geography, chapter 4). He also related, if it is easy to believe, that a thousand islands of the Arabian and Persian sea, which they call Mammolae, obey it.

Here that stone which they call the magnet is found, which is said to draw the nature of iron to itself by its own force. When therefore some ship having iron nails has put in there, it is immediately held fast, and is not permitted to go anywhere, some hidden force of the stone hindering it, wherefore he said that ships there are built with wooden nails. That the island has five rivers, and indeed very great ones, by which the whole is irrigated, and rendered more fertile. Whence also, on account of the very great mildness of the sky, fruits are never lacking to the trees at any time: nay, at the same time, while one branch of the same tree is flowering, another produces fruit, and others show ripe fruits. Moreover this island has dates, nuts which we call Indian, both large and small, yet fragrant, likewise also nuts which we call hazelnuts.

The men of that land are nourished on the food of fruits, rice, and milk; the nobles feed on certain days, even solemn ones, on the flesh of sheep and goats. They say that swine are not found from the Thebaid to the borders of India and Ethiopia, on account of the very great heat. The peoples of the island wear the skins of sheep, worked with no contemptible skill; the sheep too are covered not with wool but with a fleece of bristles, and there is no use there either of wool or of linen, as the scholastic related, and that merchants from the borders of Ethiopia and Persia, and from the places of the Assumitae, gather there for the sake of buying, selling, and exchanging goods: and that pepper is born there, and is gathered in great abundance. But that people itself is quite small and useless, which lives within rocky caves, and is accustomed, taught by the nature of its homeland, to run about over great precipices.

Pepper is gathered with its little branches: he said that the trees themselves are like certain low and small shrubs. For he asserts that they themselves are tiny little men, and have certain large heads with smooth and closely-cropped hair. But the rest of the race of the Ethiopians and Indians bristles with naturally curly hair. At this place (he added) I was suddenly seized and detained by one who had very great power there, who immediately began even to revile me bitterly, because I had dared to touch their homeland and soil. And they heard neither my excuse nor my defense with equanimity, for they could not understand the speech of my tongue, nor did I know the cause of the crime which was charged against me, because I did not know their words; only by nods alone did we seem to understand one another.

I indeed could recognize the meaning of their words from the grim look of their eyes, and from the fierce gnashing of their teeth: but they, from my pallor and fear, suspected that my feelings were rather worthy of pity. Thus, then, having been detained by them, they ordered me to do my former work for six years, with an expense from the palace of their king of only one modius of grain each year. But after six years, while I gradually learned their speech, I was able to learn many things about the neighboring nations and places. At length, by God's favor, I was rescued from captivity in this way: another king, hostile to this aforesaid king, accused him before the greater emperor of that region, because he had reduced a noble man, a Roman citizen, to the most vile captivity and utmost servitude.

When the emperor heard this, he immediately sent an investigator of the case there, and thereafter, the truth of the matter having been ascertained, he immediately ordered that he who seemed convicted of the aforesaid crime be flayed of the whole skin of his body, because he had done injury to a Roman citizen (Pliny, book VI, chapter 22). They are said not only to honor the emperor of the Romans quite intensely, but to fear him incredibly, as one who excels in outstanding intelligence and magnificent virtue, and to fear the Romans because they are so powerful in arms and strength that (if they wished) they could bring about the destruction of their region. He himself, then, who was saying these things, added that the race of the Brachmans renounces worldly things not merely of its own will, but rather as depending on the judgment of God, and sustained by the help of Divinity. For they live naturally naked in the regions bordering the river.

Among them there are no four-footed beasts, no cultivation of the earth, no use of iron, no kind of tool by which any work could be done. But there they have delightful and excellent airs, and most healthfully tempered (Q. Curtius, book VIII). They always worship God, of whom indeed they profess to have a true and distinct knowledge, and to discern the whole reckoning of his providence and divinity. They pray continually, but when praying they do not look toward the eastern part whence the sun rises, but rather gaze at the sky. They eat those things which they are able to find upon the earth in the manner of cattle, that is, the leaves of trees, and wild vegetables. For among them there abounds very much the herb which we call inula, as also among the Persians. Likewise there is there a tree which is named acanthus. They also have certain native trees, bearing I know not what fruits, on which they are always accustomed to feed.

The men dwell across the bank of the river Ganges in the parts toward the Ocean, into which the aforesaid river enters: but the women stay on this side of the Ganges near the inland parts, to whom their husbands are accustomed to cross over in the months of July and August. For these months seem colder to them, because then the sun turns toward us, and its force is raised above the north wind which we call Boreas, at which time the airs are said to be more temperate and more suited to intercourse. When therefore they have spent forty days with their wives, they soon return to their own places. But when a wife of anyone has given birth, and has produced one or another offspring, her husband no longer goes over to her, nor does he any longer lie with his own wife. For with individual sons substituted in the place of their fathers, they abstain from their own wives for the rest of their whole life.

But if it happens that anyone gets a barren wife, the husband goes over to her up to five years, and renders her marital service. But if she has not been made pregnant within that time, she is soon entirely separated from him: on account of which their race is not spread among many peoples, both because of the difficulty of the places, and because of the custom of continence. This, then, is the life and manner of living of the Brachmans. The river itself, moreover, is forded with the greatest difficulty (Q. Curtius, book VIII), both because of the tyrant Ondoniton who infests those places, and also because of fear of a certain animal dwelling in the aforesaid river, which they say is of such size that it can devour a whole elephant. But at that time when the Brachmans are accustomed to cross the river, they assert that by divine judgment the said animal is not seen in the river.

They say also that there are very great dragons there, having seventy cubits in length, whence I remember having seen the skin of one having forty-two feet in width. They also say that there are ants there the size of a man's palm, and scorpions the measure of a human cubit: on account of which monsters the crossing of those places is dangerous. Yet these animals are not born everywhere, but only in those parts which are not inhabited by men. And there are said to be very many herds of elephants there. These are the things which Musaeus affirms he heard about the Brachmans from the Theban scholastic: and now I shall append what I have read in the histories concerning the Life of Alexander, and what I have taken from very many authors bearing on this subject concerning them.

The emperor Alexander, since the empire of Macedonia alone did not suffice him, nor could he be content with so great a father as Philip, said that he himself was the son of Jupiter Ammon. And although the very truth of the matter easily proved his origin, yet by certain false and, as it seemed to him, invincible arguments, he maintained that the nature of his lineage was otherwise.

And so, with the solemn apparatus of war, and with forces of cavalry and infantry made ready, rising up from the region of Macedonia, he traversed nearly the whole world: and before he came into the province of Babylon, he ran across Europe and Asia as though they were small places indeed; at length he came into the parts of our world also, that he might inspect them, and whatever he found conformable to his own sentiments, he himself would say: Wisdom, mother of providence, having with virtue itself, which is the head of all virtues, a certain communion, standing fast in truth alone, nourishing and making every nature, whose gift is the speech of our words, searching out and beholding common notice and knowledge, indeed rendering to the unjust what they deserve, but sparing the just: grant me, I beg, that you be favorable to me, that I may be able through these prayers to reach the things I desire, namely to behold here present the Brachmans, men endowed with goodness and wisdom.

For I have come that I might learn something from Calanus, an inhabitant of these regions, who came to me in haste, at whose persuasion I now desire to learn and see all things more fully. But the Brachmans, on the contrary, said this to Alexander: You have come to us, they say, desiring to know wisdom: we Brachmans, however, gladly welcome at once such a desire. For such a longing is judged to be sovereignty in our life and manners: which now you, the emperor yourself, have wished to learn. For the philosopher does not obey another's dominion, but himself rules: for man has no power over him. But since hitherto you have believed nothing of us (because up to the present time men have spoken ill of us to you), now you have come to us tasting the truth. For Calanus was among us a most wicked man, through whom you Greeks indeed came to know the Brachmans, yet could not know them well.

For he was not one of ours, who fled to riches without any excuse for himself, for whom it was not enough to draw the water of chastity from the river Taberuncus, nor to take the food of pressed milk, by which a mind worthy of God grows—a mind which he always held as an enemy to God, and being wickedly inflamed by it, he burned into wrath, and transferred it from the goods of wisdom to the vices of pleasure. But none of us wallows on burning coals, nor do any pains consume our bodies, but our life is itself a kind of medicine of health. By a natural benefit we are strangers to all riches: for us too, in fair measure, death is the companion at the end of our life. And if at times perchance some mortals, to whom the teaching of false words has come, try to strike us with vain arrows, yet they cannot injure or corrupt our nobility. It is one and the same thing to lie and to believe one who lies.

For he who persuades another of falsehoods harms both that one and himself, because while he believes a lie he cannot easily arrive at the truth itself. But evil accusation is a certain mother of enmities and contests, which begets from itself wrath, from which again quarrels and wars are born. Yet it is no virtue to kill a man: for this, as we know, is the custom of robbers. But we call true virtue this: to fight with naked body against the changes of the winds, to cut off the desires of the belly, and to overcome its various battles by abstinence and patience. Therefore first conquer these enemies of yours, before all others, if you seem to yourself brave, and then you will have no need to engage in outward contests against anyone.

For it is on this account that you stir up wars against those who are outside, that you may supply nourishment and fuel to those you have within: but you see that, while you conquer those with whom you fight outwardly, you are overcome by those whom you know to be within you. Consider, then, how many tyrants dwell in the hearts of fools: eyes, ears, nostrils, belly, the private parts, and the whole human body, and how many desires are born within, to all of which the mortal race succumbs and is enslaved, on account of which all men both slay and are slain.

But we Brachmans, because we overcome all the wars we have within, now rest for the rest safe and secure in the highest peace; we see the woods, and look up at the sky, we always hear the most pleasing voices of eagles and various birds, we cover our bodies under the open air with the leaves of trees, and we feed on their fruits, we drink water, we sing hymns to God, and we long for the life of the age to come, and we hear nothing that could not profit us. With such customs, then, we Brachmans live content, and after a few words exchanged we soon fall silent. But you say indeed what ought to be done, yet you do not do it; you think no one a philosopher unless he knows how to speak: for with you all sense is in the tongue, and your whole wisdom is on the lips of your mouth.

You gather gold and silver, you need very many slaves and great houses: you court honors, and pursue dignities, you eat and drink only so much as pleases to be filled, you likewise always wear soft and delicate garments, and you do things of which you soon repent: you are wont to speak against yourselves as against your own enemies, though you know that you have power over your own tongue. Far better indeed are those who are accustomed to keep silence, for they do not refute themselves by speaking. You receive mutual reward from all, you place gold on your fingers as a glorious ornament, as you think; we see your women too adorned, though you know that this very thing, in which you greatly trust, as far as concerns the true matter, can profit you nothing. For souls are not exalted by gold, nor are bodies nourished by it, but on the contrary both are corrupted by it.

But we, who know the truth and nature itself, if we begin to thirst, will go to the river, and treading gold underfoot, will drink water. For hunger cannot be appeased by gold, nor does thirst know how to be quenched by it. From gold comes no care of wounds, no medicine for sick limbs, no restraint of boundless desire, but rather an exhortation and a greater provocation to some new lust of coveting. And natural thirst indeed, once it has received the water it desired, ceases at once to thirst; likewise natural hunger too, once it has received the food it seeks, is at rest. If, then, in the same way, and by the same nature, the human mind desired gold also, as soon as it had received what it wished to receive, without doubt its desire would also cease: but so far is this from ceasing, that it is ever new, and desires without any intermission, because such a desire does not proceed from the prompting of nature.

Finally, that in which among you men are adorned and glory, among us is despised. Calanus is your friend, but he is despised and trodden down by you. He, then, who among you has been the author of many evils, is honored and cultivated by you: but he who is useless is cast off by us: and those things which we do not seek at all pleased Calanus, on account of the greed he had for money. But he who so wretchedly injured and ruined his own soul was not one of ours, on which account he seemed worthy to be a friend neither of God nor of us, nor did he deserve to have security in this age among the woods, nor could he hope for that glory which is promised in the age to come.

The emperor Alexander, when he came to the woods, could not indeed see Dandamis himself in passing (Plutarch, Life of Alexander): for he lay in the forest, reclining upon the leaves of trees in security and peace, close by a spring, which, as though the incorrupt and untouched breast of mother earth, he was accustomed to draw into his mouth. And Alexander sent to him a certain friend named Onesicritus (Q. Curtius, book IX of the Deeds of Alexander), saying to him: Onesicritus, hasten to bring to me the man Dandamis of whom we have spoken, or report to me the reason why he was unwilling to come, so that I myself may go to see him. To whom he replied: I will do with speed what you command. For just as it is yours to command, so I know it to be mine to obey your commands.

When, therefore, the aforesaid messenger came to Dandamis, he addressed him with these words: The son of the great god Jupiter, the emperor Alexander, who is lord of the human race, has said that you should hasten to come to him, because if you come he will give you very many gifts: but if you refuse to come, he will punish you with death as a despiser. When these words had come to the ears of Dandamis, he did not rise from the leaves upon which he lay propped, but laughing gave this reply, and reclining said: The greatest God knows not how to prepare injury for anyone, but rather bestows again the light of life on those souls whom he has released by their fate. He alone, therefore, is my lord, who forbids murders and who does not stir up wars. But Alexander is not a god, since he too is going to die.

How, then, can he be lord of all, who has not yet crossed the river Tyberoboas, nor set his seat throughout the whole world, who has not passed the zone of Gades, who has not beheld the course of the sun in the middle of the world? Wherefore very many peoples have not yet even been able to know his name. But if the land which he possesses does not contain him, let him cross our river, and he will find such a soil as knows how to sustain men. Whatever Alexander promises me, even if he should provide it, all will be useless to me. For I have leaves for a house, and I feed on the herbs which lie near me, and I drink water: I set at nought other things, whatsoever are gathered with anxious care and perish, and which offer nothing but sadness to those who seek and possess them. Now, therefore, I rest secure, and with closed eyes I guard nothing at all. If I wished to keep gold, I would scatter my sleep.

The earth provides me all things, as a mother's milk to an infant. To whatever place I wish to go, I go; but wherever I do not wish to go, I am compelled by no necessity of care. And if he should wish to cut off my head, he will not be able to take away my soul: he will only lift up the head as it lies, but the soul, departing, will leave its head as a kind of garment, and will render it back to her from whom it had received it, namely the earth. But when I shall have become spirit, I shall ascend to God who enclosed it within this flesh. He, when he did this, wished to try us, that he might see how, having departed from him, we should live in this age. And afterward, when we shall have returned to him, he will demand from us an account of this life.

Standing before him I shall see my own wrong, and I shall behold his judgment upon those who did me wrong; for the sighs and groans of the injured will begin to be the punishments of those who injured them. Let Alexander threaten this to those who desire riches, who fear death, since we despise both. For the Brachmans neither love gold, nor fear death. Go, therefore, and report this to Alexander: Dandamis seeks nothing of yours, but if you believe that anything of his belongings is necessary to you, do not disdain to come to him.

When Alexander heard these things through a messenger, he began to desire all the more to see such a man, and that he, who had conquered many peoples, might himself be conquered by one naked old man. He therefore proceeds with five or ten friends to those forests which we mentioned above, and when he had come near, and had leapt down from the horse on which he was riding, he set aside the crown from his head, and, leaving behind all the swelling of pride that was about him, went in alone to the aforesaid old man, and cast himself at his feet, saying this: Hail, Dandamis, I have come to you, because you were unwilling to come to me. To whom he replied: For what purpose have you come to us? Or what do you desire to carry off from our concerns? What you yourself desire, we cannot have; and what we in turn have, is not necessary for you.

We honor God, and love man; we neglect gold, we despise death: but you fear death, honor gold, hate man, despise God. To whom Alexander said: Teach us something of wisdom: they say you are full of divinity, and that you converse often with God himself; but I wish to know in what respect you say you yourselves are superior to the Greeks, and in what you either see better than other men, or are wiser. But he replied: I, said he, would wish to bring to you the understanding received from God, but you yourself have no place in which to receive such a gift. For your soul has been filled with greedy and immoderate desires, which I now perceive to be contending with me, because I am trying to tear you away from them, although today they grieve exceedingly, because you are not defiled by the death or blood of any nation, and because they still see men dwelling in cities.

You wish to advance even to the Ocean, beyond which you again desire to seize another part of the world: and then you will be afflicted with sadness, when you are unable to have anything left to conquer. How then will you be able to satisfy your desire, when the whole world, though serving you, cannot fill and satisfy your mind? You have been made far smaller than the world, and even if you should wish to conquer all things at once, and to possess everything whatsoever that men hold, it is necessary at last that you have only as much as either you see me holding while lying down, or I see you occupying while sitting. From which, if we pass again to other matters, we are found similar to you in other things as well.

For in the same manner as you, I use all the elements, air, water, and earth, nor do I desire to have anything further, and I justly possess whatever I possess, and even if you alone should hold all the rivers, you would not be able to draw more water from them than I. If then you should learn this wisdom from me, nothing will be lacking to you: and you will have everything, if you desire nothing. For desire is the mother of poverty, which cannot be cured by an evil remedy, that is, by anxious care: which so ever seeks all things, as if it could find nothing; because it does not rest in those things which it has already been able to attain, but is tormented more and more by those things which it perceives it does not yet hold. But you will have the greatest wealth with pleasure, if you are willing to live thus with me: and if you will acquiesce in my words, you will possess my riches.

God is a friend to me among all things, and I speak with him about these very matters; I do not listen to the words of evil men. I have heaven for my roof, the whole earth is my bed. Rivers furnish me drink, the forest supplies my table. I do not feed on the entrails of animals, as lions do, nor do the flesh of quadrupeds or birds putrefy shut up within my breast, nor am I a tomb of the dead, but natural providence pours all fruits into me as a mother pours milk. I myself understand what you seek. You see me as a wise man, and such I have been made, and so I live as I was created, and I recognize what God does, and I know what ought to be done. But you, filled with great vanity, believe that you foretell the future, while yet you do not know how to understand these very things which you see happening day by day as the works of God.

I know all things, both whence, and when, and how they come to be. I foretell rains, droughts, lightnings, storms: and this is what delights and refreshes me, because God has given me a certain fellowship and counsel with his works. To me, as to an angel, he comes, and if ever any emperor has feared anything, then I entreat God to grant him some good, when he comes to me, that he may release him from the fear under which he labors, and that he may inspire in him a certain confidence of mind. Which do you say is more right, to harm men, or to protect and preserve them, and which is more fitting for the sons of God to do, to overturn everything by fighting, or to restore, by making peace, what has been conquered and destroyed? It will not profit you, emperor, the enormous weight of gold, nor the multitude of elephants which you have taken from others: but this my voice, and this my speech, will.

But you, even if you should wish to kill me, I will not fear, for I shall go the more quickly to God, who knows both my cause and my life.

There is nothing that can be hidden from God, whose eyes are all the stars, the sun, and the moon, all of which you cannot escape, nor can you evade His judgment upon you. Do not, therefore, destroy what He has built; do not desire to scatter what He, who made them, wishes to adorn. Do not offer the blood of cities as sacrifice, nor pass over the corpses of dead nations. For you would act far more rightly if you took care of your own life than if you desired another's death, and if, despising the losses you pursue, you chose true gains. Why, while you pursue one soul, do you wish to destroy so many nations at once? Why do you delight in the evils of the whole world? Why do you laugh while others weep? Yet by this very fact, that you wished to remember me who lives here in these solitudes, you have gained something for yourself.

And now you neither fear contests, nor desire to harm anyone, nor exercise your virtue upon the evils of others, as you have always done. Therefore cast off from your body the fleeces of dead sheep, and do not wish to cover yourself with the coverings of dead things; for you will honor yourself more when you make yourself such, because the soul is tempered by living in desert places. Choose, therefore, rather this purpose of our life, whose blessedness you will be able to enjoy more than you do among the Macedonians. For they indeed await you day by day, that they may destroy the remaining cities with you, and plunder whatever they can find of value in them; and I believe that on this very day they grieve and are saddened that they still see certain nations unharmed, seizing the occasion of the authority of your name for their greed and plunder.

What secure life, then, will you be able to obtain in God, and how will you live for yourself, when even now you contemplate seizing much, and desire to slaughter many—some of which you have already done, others you are doing at present, and others you promise you will do? But I, when I have departed from this world, shall see you cast into the air; and then indeed you will proclaim my words, because no multitude of horsemen or footmen will accompany you, and with the greatest sorrow of your mind you will weep, saying: In vain have I wasted the whole life of time past, which I spent in the honors of this world and in wars. From these things you will understand that you have left nothing else for yourself but the memory alone of your evils. For I know what the Divinity holds within itself, though I myself am established among men; and then you will say this to me: You once gave me good counsel, Dandamis.

For then there will come before your sight all the souls whom you have without cause conquered, and how will you be able to excuse yourself before them? Alexander listened to these things willingly and without any anger; for the spirit of God was in Dandamis. But, at the instigation of an evil demon, Alexander was changed from the very outset. Hence he addressed Dandamis with these words: I know that you speak the truth, for, being descended from a divine race, you are established in these places, where now you may live without any trouble, but with the greatest pleasure, and where you enjoy natural riches and secure quiet.

But I live amid various tumults and terrors, and I fear the greater number of those who guard me, and greater fear generally comes to me from friends than from enemies, and I dread more the plots of these than of my enemies daily: and I can neither live without them, nor can I trust myself to them: I live, therefore, in affliction; for I am guarded by the crowding-in of those whom I fear. For whole days I pursue and wear out various nations, but at night sleep disturbs and vexes me, lest some unexpected enemy make an assault upon me: and if I kill those whom I fear, I become sorrowful; if again I wish to be gentle and mild, I am despised. And how I may free myself from such great dangers of affairs I do not know.

For even if I should wish to live in these deserts in which you live, this would be wholly forbidden to me, on account of which I can now excuse myself before God, since He Himself has placed me in this state of life and in this order of men. But do you, in return for these complaints which I have poured out, since you have refreshed me in every way, and freed my senses for a while from conflicts and battles, accept my gifts, and be unwilling to refuse what I offer you, to my disgrace. For you have profited me not a little, since you have made me honor wisdom. When these things were finished, Alexander signaled to his servants to bring forth the gifts he had promised. They soon brought the finest specimens of gold and silver, and various garments, along with oil and loaves of bread. When Dandamis saw these, he laughed, saying: Can you persuade these birds, which live in wooded places, to accept gold and silver, and sing better than they are accustomed?

Since this cannot be done at all, do you wish me to be worse than they? Why should I accept what can neither be eaten nor drunk by me? Why should I accept what would profit me in no way? Or for what reason should I keep what I cannot use, unless perhaps to bind my soul, which is free in all things, with such fetters? Why should I in vain subject its noble freedom to the yoke of most shameful servitude? This I will never do at all. But neither do I wish to buy anything, since I live in solitudes where nothing is sold. God provides gifts for me, that is, the fruits of these places. For God sells nothing to man for gold, but bestows good wisdom freely on him who knows how to receive it. I am clothed with the garment with which my mother's womb brought me forth.

I feed on this air as on food; I gladly see myself thus, since I burden my body with no bonds; and sweeter than all honey to me is the drink of water from the stream, when natural thirst comes. But if you say these loaves have some pleasure, why did you burn them with flames? I do not wish to make the leavings of fire my food; nor do I desire to turn into my food what I have taken from another's mouth. Let the fire, then, which cooked them, consume these loaves itself. But lest you, who honor wisdom, should think some injury is done to you by me, I accept only this oil. When Dandamis had said these things, he rose at once, and, going through the forest and gathering wood, made a great pile of it, which he set on fire, speaking these words: The Brachman, he said, has everything, and is abundantly nourished by all things as he desires.

And when the oil had been poured on, and the pyre had blazed up mightily, he sang such a hymn to God: Immortal God, he said, I give You thanks in all things. When Alexander saw these things, he departed, taking back with him everything he had offered, except the oil, in the greatest astonishment. But Dandamis added this also to his words, saying: Such are we all. But Calanus has been judged by us the worst of men, because he presented himself to your presence, and did not imitate our way of life: and because, since he could not be a lover of God, he fled from us and went over to the Greeks, and, despising our customs, condemned himself to immortal flames. But you say that you are lord of the Macedonians, an evil nation; you revile the Brachmans, and command that they all be slain, believing their lying words, which no good man ought to do.

But we know that we shall render an account of our own life to God when we shall have gone to Him. For we are all His; we despise vain glory, which fools cannot do. How can you pass over to our way of life, you who live so evilly, and who always give oblivion to those things which are good? But we Brachmans, remembering how we were once created, and seeing for what purpose we ought to live, keep an irreproachable course of living; for God has formed each one for the certain end of his purpose, to which he has been assigned. We rejoice in desert places, and sitting in the midst of forests, and we are occupied with our senses only in this, that the talk of men should never be able to separate our souls from such ways of life. Blessed is he who needs nothing, and who does not desire another's glory; and he who wishes to please all must necessarily be the servant of all.

We have no need of cities, in which a multitude of robbers gathers: but God has built for us great houses, and has bestowed on us mountains and forests likewise, from which we take simple fruits, and drink the waters that are the gift of pure nature; and gladly refreshing ourselves after labor, we lie down upon these leaves. How can you rule freeborn men, when you know that you yourselves are in the power of many? For you are slaves to your own souls in all that they desire. For if you wish to have many garments, you must necessarily have not a few flocks of sheep to feed, not a few who shear the sheep, and craftsmen by whom the wool is woven. Why do you excuse yourself for not having soft garments? For equal servitude is proved in lesser and in greater things. For he who marvels at a little gold will also desire much; and he who has been ruler of a small city will also desire to rule a greater one.

Moreover, you are proud even of a small perpetual portion which gleams on your garments; and when your servants have purple garments, you, thinking yourselves something more beautiful, take care that your own garments shine with a different color. But if this is not considered good among you, you are judged poor, since you marvel at small things. You gladly kill the animals which the earth has brought forth, though you yourselves know that these are of the greatest use to you; for some of them are shorn, others milked; with some you till the field, with others you fight; and afterward you rejoice that you have shed their blood, and you render such a reward to those who have been most useful to you: and those whose fleeces clothe you outwardly, their flesh burdens you inwardly, and you begin to be living tombs of dead bodies. Can a mind, then, burdened with things so numerous, so unfitting, so contrary, receive within itself the sense of God?

Let the flesh of the animals you have named, which you kill, lie for a while, and understand what becomes of it. Will you be able to bear their stench without fleeing? What great filth, what great impurities are brought upon human souls and bodies, which, since you cannot yourselves endure them, are shut up within those, and are brought forth by those, by whom such foods are desired. The soul brings forth wrath, these things bring forth vomit together: but the earth brings forth fruits and flowers, which please by sending forth good odors abroad. Such feasts has God planted and provided for us; you have utterly lost your human senses. Your bodies smell foully like wild beasts: for you are receptacles of dead corpses: you have begun to be worse than lions and wolves. For wolves, if they could live on the food of the earth, would surely never feed on flesh. Bulls, horses, stags live on the just fare of herbs, whence they are also strengthened with sturdier limbs and stronger sinews.

Why do you not wish rather to imitate these animals? Why do you not eat the fruits of the wild, and drink water? But for the sake of fire you prepare such feasts for yourselves, which, since you see that the stronger beasts do not have them, are not for that reason pressed by your ambushes; for you seek more citizens, you make the greatest expenses, and you labor greatly in small matters for the sake of a slight pleasure, where there is nothing but the manifest ruin of those things in which the labor was vain. Therefore nothing is more unhappy than your life.

We never drink unwillingly, but we fulfill the necessary duty to thirst from the fountains of nature, which flow always even for us who do not drink; but you, for the sake of your pleasure, and though not hungry, seek continual foods, and by certain arts you prepare for yourselves many and various feasts: you scour the whole sea with nets, you rejoice in the hunting of birds flying in the air, of beasts on the mountains, and, marveling at the speed of your dogs, you find fault with the slowness of the wild creatures, and you call them the inhabitants of evil solitudes.

You devote yourselves, then, to these matters—to track down these creatures, and having tracked them, you hasten to kill them, or you bring them alive, shut up in cages, to the spectacles of the cities: not that you may sow crops, from which you may relieve hunger, nor that you may thereby provide some necessary service to men, but that you may slaughter, with the utmost disgrace, your neighbor, one of your own blood, and the work (which is greater) of God, or that you may violently thrust one bound in chains to the bites of wild beasts. And you gladly watch this very thing, that beasts fight with men, and that they devour a part of your nature and likeness; but afterward you kill those very beasts outright, so that you may call them cruel because they have killed a man: and, what seems still more wicked and worse, gorged with human blood, and not yet satisfied with so many and such great evils, you desire to fill the bellies of the rest of your citizens as well.

In addition to this, you live by such disgraceful and depraved customs, that you even build for yourselves heated houses over your food, by which what has been eaten may be compelled to digest more quickly, to satisfy your gluttony. Moreover, that the intestines of your own body may be distended with excessive fullness of food, you choose more luxurious dishes, and for this you procure skilled craftsmen for seasoning and arranging the dishes. But we pray to God that we may never thirst; for at times we are drawn away from the rule of truth in this manner, that is, when we give the necessary drink to our body, on account of which afterward we lift up our eyes and hands, as some sort of sacrifice, toward the rays of the sun.

But you are even glad whenever you celebrate your banquets beyond measure, and you do not put an end to your feastings until you begin to rage with excessive drunkenness, and until you lose by drinking that very thing in which you seemed to be wise: and you burden the senses of your heart with the excessive weight of wine. I should indeed believe those who are said to be insane to be happier among you. For they are always drunk, though they have not bought wine: but you bear excessive anxiety for the price of wine: and having bought it, you defile yourselves with drunkenness, and beat one another, and at length, returning to sobriety, you can scarcely recognize how you are able to keep your drunkenness in check.

I hear too that, eating very much, you cannot digest it: and when at length you have scarcely withdrawn from the gluttony of the banquet, you vomit forth everything with which you were wont to be filled: and, perverting nature itself in a distorted manner, you evacuate from the same part by which you take in food—walking on your head, not on your feet. O most foolish of men, you fill and distend your bowels with gluttony, so that afterward again by the skill of physicians you may empty your bodies: seeking for yourselves by these means the greatest disgrace and sickness, and you are so mad that you desire to overturn by such treatment that very nature which feels no pleasure at all in it; having as the end of your immoderate gluttony punishment, not health; for insatiable limbs continually arise from diseases, torments accompany them, so that in the end you have nothing of an honest and upright life to show for so many delights.

But I hear you boast that you possess very much; yet, though you give much to others, you provide very little for your own. Wherefore we judge you the more poor, since you do not give even bread itself to your parents, while you desire to have countless riches. You are slaves of the belly, and therefore there is among you a very great crowd of physicians, who empty you with constant purging: and they do this either by fasting or abstinence, or by the art of medicines: so that you, who were accustomed to drain the most wine, suddenly cannot take even a small quantity of water, whenever you are troubled by the necessity of sickness. And just as then you drink much wine beyond nature, so now you desire even a little water, which nature itself demands. But we do not seek wine at all; we have water alone, which we desire, and in which we take the greatest delight, and we wisely tend our thirst.

We do not hasten to rage and go mad, and we pray rather for death than for drunkenness, through which men necessarily perish in both body and senses entirely. For the drunken man seems indeed to live, but as far as wisdom is concerned, he is judged dead; for he has lost that lofty mind which God gave to man. What then of those who think themselves great and glorious, deceived by what false hope and vain allurements, who wound, despoil, and slay one another by turns, when at last they too await the death which is necessarily owed to them? What, finally, shall I say of those men—as if speaking of certain great ones and providers for others—who, like shameless women, are accustomed to go abroad with their limbs drenched in oil and various perfumed unguents, polluting the very purity of the air by their own dissoluteness? What shall I say of your Stoic philosophers, who, though all are held by the love of gold, nevertheless seem to you worthy of admiration or praise?

We hear too that you cut off a certain part of the body from your males, and desire to turn them into the female sex: and that there is among you such a man, who can neither beget as a man, nor bear as a woman, and who lives only for his own disgrace and only for his own injury. Who would not grieve, even in thought, at such a perversion of the human race, and so pitiable a fall? Moved by pity for these, we strive to help you as much as we can: because we abhor pride, and we love and cherish the whole nature of the human race: and, sitting as it were in the lofty place of some magnificent house, naked both in mind and in body, we teach whomever we know to be beholders of the truth. And this is wherein we think ourselves richer than other men. Macedonia does violence to all, though she herself first endured it from others. But all who are turned to worse things are judged base servants.

But of all these evils which we have named, the Brachmans seem to have no experience. For they cannot be conquered or subdued by anyone, because they are held by desire or love of nothing. But if you truly wish to be wise, come to India, dwell naked in the solitudes, casting away all the dignities which you love and by which you seem to be adorned: for otherwise you will not be received by us. And then you will love whatever things you saw a little before and marveled at: nor will anyone fight against you any longer, nor will anyone be able to take anything of yours from you; nor will you be fed by another's gathering, nor by others' sweat; for you will be rich in all things. And since you write that you desire to be of some help to me: we do not envy those who truly imitate a pious God. For we wish the whole human nature everywhere, as far as it can be brought about through us, to become better.