Historical Context of Early Asceticism

Ascetics have impressed foreign visitors to India from an early time onward. The Greek Megasthenes, who spent time in eastern India around the year 300 BCE, described ascetics that remained motionless for a whole day in one single position. More than a thousand years later, Arab travellers marvelled at men in India who remained motionless for years on end. After almost another millennium, in the seventeenth century CE, the Frenchman François Bernier saw ascetics who remained standing seven days and nights, without sitting or lying down, leaning against ropes while asleep. Today Indian ascetics still impress foreigners, but the latter no longer have to leave their armchairs and can observe the sādhus, yogis, or fakirs on their television or computer screens. This chapter will briefly present what we know about asceticism in early India. It will present the evidence schematically, because this is the only way in which an understanding of complicated historical processes can be conveyed.