History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c74.t2.63

v5.c74.t2.63

The practice of religious suicide has a very respectable antiquity. In the 4th century B. C. Kalanos, the Indian Gymnosophist from Taxila who had accompanied Alexander from India, burnt himself alive on a funeral pyre at Sousa, when being over 70 years old, he was afflicted with a malady that made life more and more burdensome. *Vide* J W McCrindle's 'Invasion of India by Alexander the Great' (New Edition 1896) pp. 46, 301, 386-392. Strabo informs us of a gymnosophist from India named Zarmanochegas of Broach who accompanied an embassy to Augustus Caesar at Athens and consigned himself to flames (*vide* 'Invasion of India by Alexander' p. 389). Hiouen Thsang (Beal's 'Buddhist Records of the Western World' vol. I. pp. 232-234) refers to suicide at Prayāga. The Jains, while on the one hand they laid the greatest emphasis on 'ahiṁsā' (non-injury), encouraged religious suicide (called 'Sallekhanā') in certain cases¹³⁹⁰.