‘Western Civilization’ as supposed or if to be understood to exist, has its origins strongly influenced by Jains through the absorption of Jainism in ancient Greece, as with having ancient Greece being considered as the microcosm of the supposed “Western civilization”.
Jain were named as ‘Gymnosophists’ by Greeks and they influenced Greeks from around 650 B.C.
Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Plato preached diluted Jainism. Stoicism and Hellenistic philosophy is diluted, incomplete and led astray form of Jainism. Socrates was vegetarian.
Pythagoras of Pythagoras theorem was a Jain convert and he practiced Jainism around 550 B.C including being vegetarian. Pythagoras theorem itself is supposed to have come from India and may not be the original discovery of Pythagoras. In fact, until the mid-1800s, people who didn’t eat meat were often called “Pythagoreans” after the famous Greek mathematician. Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE) is the most famous early advocate of Vegetarianism in Greece. His reasons weren’t just about health; they were deeply spiritual: Ahimsa (Non-violence): He taught that slaughtering animals “hardened” the human heart and led to war and murder. Transmigration of Souls: He believed in reincarnation—that a human soul could be reborn as an animal. Therefore, eating a cow was potentially eating a deceased relative.
The idea of Ages in Greek philosophy ( Iron Ages…..Bronze Ages… ) comes from the original Jain philosophy of Yugas (Eras of Time). Ancient Greece also influenced ancient Rome, and the Jain philosophy of Ages found it’s way – The “Four Ages” is an account described in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” It tells the story of the creation and history of the world, as well as the four ages of mankind — the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.
Much of the earliest Mathematic and scientific breakthrough in ancient India came through Jains which also go transmitted to ancient Greece.
A percentage of Greek population practiced vegetarianism. In ancient Greece, being a “vegetarian” was not the norm, but it was a well-established and highly debated lifestyle choice. Beyond Pythagoras, several other major thinkers promoted meat-free living: The Orphics: A religious sect that lived an “Orphic life,” which involved strict purity rituals, including total abstinence from meat and eggs. Porphyry: Wrote On Abstinence from Animal Food, arguing that meat-eating was a luxury that clouded the mind and tethered the soul to the material world (Reference to tamasic ayurvedic term). Plutarch: Wrote On the Eating of Flesh, arguing that the human body—lacking claws, sharp teeth, or high-acid stomachs—was naturally designed for plants, not carcasses.
Jains have influenced Greeks since 650 B.C, and then again later in a 2nd phase with the invasion of Alexander to India in 330 B.C and with the stationing of Greeks in India, the philosophy of Jainism and Buddhism (Diluted and derived from Jainism) flowed back to Greece, and contributed to the so called and to be believed of existing – Western civilization. He had encountered Jains in the Indus river base as recorded in Greek history, and had taken one Jain monk named Calanes with him back to Greece to spread Jain philosophy.
Christianization of Greece –
Incoming Christianity destroyed the philosophical richness of Greece which was shaped by Jains as the era (yuga) shifted.
Christianly entered Greece in 1st century.
Early Christians in Greece destroyed many statues, believing they were inhabited by demons. Some statues were defaced or repurposed with Christian symbols, such as crosses
The Decaying time cycle faced by Greeks –
Jainism had a presence extending to middle east in the ancient world and its diluted, derived and later version of Buddhism had to a much greater area. The idea of end of times, finds it way originally from Jainism, into even Zoroastrianism and Abrahamic faiths; most likely from Buddhism–> Zoroastrianism + Abrahamic faiths. End of time (epoch) is a part of cyclical eras of Jainism.
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