The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s7.204

c10.s7.204

But the real strength of Greece lay not in science but in philosophy, and here Greek and Indian met on equal terms. That is the meeting we would know about; and there is not a word that can be said.¹ The Greeks in India may not have been the most likely soil to develop philosophers, though one cannot imagine a Hellenistic kingdom without them; but communication with the West was free enough, and there was the Stoic school at Seleuceia (p. 42), which doubtless held to the Stoic tradition that they must do more than sit and wait for men to come to them: they must go to men. We may, if we will, let fancy play round some meeting of Stoic and Buddhist, and seek to interpret for ourselves how far each would understand the other’s point of view. But it is only fancy; we *know* nothing—nothing but a little Greek ivory pendant from Taxila, which bears on each of its two faces the head of a philosopher.²