Originally posted by Byrd
Oh yes... Pythagoras did go to Egypt.
...but he didn't go to India or anywhere near India.
www.arcytech.org/java/pythagoras/history.html
He did, according to the following sources:
www.wisdomworld.org...
ml
sarvadharma.org...
www.geocities.com...
www.themathlab.com...
www.hinduismtoday.com...
www.anselm.edu...
It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe
Observing and studying in this way, Pythagoras traveled for many years. Some say he got as far as India and was deeply influenced, for he took up Oriental dress, including a turban. And certain of his mystical ideas, such as number magic and reincarnation, were typical of the Fast.
Some writers think that he did. Others accept that he studied and absorbed in some form the Vedic philosophy of ancient India; certainly it was known in Persia at this time. And there was probably direct contact between India and Greece before the time of Alexander. Vitsaxis G. Vassilis, in his book Plato and the Upanishads, argues that exponents of literature, science, philosophy and religion traveled regularly between the two countries. He points to accounts by Eusebius and Aristoxenes, of the visits of Indian sages to Athens and their meetings with Greek philosophers. And reference to the visit of Indians to Athens is found in the fragment of Aristotle preserved in the writings of Diogenes Laertius who was also one of Pytha-
goras' biographers.
Ludwig von Schröder German philosopher, author of the book Pythagoras und die Inder (Pythagoras and the Indians), published in 1884, he argued that Pythagoras had been influenced by the Samkhya school of thought, the most prominent branch of the Indic philosophy next to Vedanta.
It is most probably true, considering the Greeks and Indians had contacts, and some of Pythagoras's beliefs were influenced by the vedas, such as the belief of reincarnation and the soul relealizing the supreme soul(para brahman) and his teaching vegeterianism. He probably learnt his theorem from there as well as it was well known in India or from Egypt. In fact, I would not be surprised if the Greek theory of atoms was from India either. Again, the idea of atoms was a universal belief in India long before it emerged in Greece.
The fact that a pure sheet of zinc was found in Greece, and considering only Indians were producing zinc at the time, woud show just how much trade of knowledge and materials was going on between Greece and India.




