Megasthenes (350 BC-290 BC) traveled to
India before 298 BC and wrote in "Indica" his amazing discoveries
about India that the place had female philosophers and they thrived in vibrant
discussions with male philosophers. The philosophers were Buddhists.
Megasthenes didn't know detail about the society and apparently nothing about
Buddhism.
He misjudged all philosophers as the top
layer of India's caste system. He didn't know the philosophers of Buddhism were
against the caste system. Of course! He didn't even know about Buddhism. In the
very early Buddha teaching and actually even today for ordinary, not even
religious, truth seekers, we know all people are equal including philosophers,
priests, kings, prostitutes, slaves, and all. Don’t you agree? And we also know
Buddhists are to seek truth militantly so I'm saying again and again that I
cannot comprehend why those truth seeking experts for 2000 years never
corrected the prejudice against women in the sutra.
Let us think about the sutra translators
and the culture they lived in such as the ancient India, Korea, and Japan. They
were all males as far as I know. Words got twisted through translations and
became so powerful. But we can change that.
In a way, we are all translators and we are
responsible in spreading our ideas. We need to read the original document although it's difficult and
keep asking why.
Megasthenes was Greek and an ambassador to
India under Syrian king.
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