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Amyntas I of Macedon

Amyntas I (Ἀμύντας) was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia from at least 512/511 until his death in 498/497 BC. Although there were a number of rulers before him, Amyntas is the first king of Macedonia for which we have any reliable historical information. During Amyntas' reign, Macedonia became a vassal state of the Achaemenid Empire in 510 BC.

Background
Amyntas was a member of the Argead dynasty and the son of King Alcetas. According to Herodotus, Amyntas was the sixth king of Macedonia. He had two children with an unnamed spouse: Alexander I and Gygaea.

Relationship with the Persian Empire
In 513 BC, Persian forces led by Darius I crossed the Bosporus in a successful expedition against the Scythians, securing a frontier on the Danube in the process. Darius then returned to Sardis in Asia Minor and ordered his cousin Megabazus to conquer the rest of Thrace. Megabazus marched westward into the Strymon Basin in 512 or 511 BC, subjugating a number of tribes along the way, including the Paeonions, whom he had deported to Asia. Amyntas may have taken advantage of this power vacuum by crossing the Axios River and seizing their former territory around Amphaxitis.

In keeping with Persian practice, Megabazus dispatched seven envoys around 510 BC to meet Amyntas, most likely at the palace in Aegae, to demand "earth and water." Although the exact meaning of this request remains unclear, it appears that Amyntas met Megabazus' demands and invited the envoys to a feast. The Persians, according to Herodotus, requested the company of women after dinner, which Amyntas agreed to despite Macedonian customs. The women, identified as "concubines and wedded wives," sat across the table at first, but moved next to the envoys at their insistence. Flushed with wine, they began to fondle the women, but Amyntas remained silent out of fear of Persian power.

Alexander, enraged by their actions, asked his father to leave and let him handle the situation. Amyntas advised caution, but eventually left, and Alexander sent the women away as well, assuring his guests that they were only washing themselves. In their place, "beardless men" disguised as women and armed with daggers returned to the party and murdered all seven envoys. The Persians began looking for the missing embassy, but Alexander covered it up by marrying his sister Gygaea to the general Bubares and paying him a large bribe.

Modern historians are generally skeptical of the veracity of this story. It could have been fabricated by Herodotus to illustrate Alexander's cunning personality, or he could have simply repeated what he heard while visiting Macedonia. Furthermore, Amyntas, no matter how weak or foolish, is unlikely to have entrusted such a delicate diplomatic situation to his young son. Gygaea's marriage to Bubares is recognized as historical; Amyntas most likely arranged it himself or Alexander handled it after his father's death.

Historian Eugene Borza argued that by rejecting the murder of the Persian ambassadors, there is no longer any evidence that Macedonia was a vassal-state during Amyntas' reign. In accordance with this argument, Mardonius, not Megabazus, would actually subjugate the Macedonians in 492 BC. Nicholas Hammond, on the other hand, asserted that Macedonia remained a loyal subject as part of the satrapy of Skudra until the Persian defeat at Platea in 479 BC.

Amyntas and Athens
Amyntas was the first Macedonian ruler to have diplomatic relations with other states. In particular, he entered into an alliance with Hippias of Athens, and when Hippias was driven out of Athens he offered him the territory of Anthemus on the Thermaic Gulf with the object of taking advantage of the feuds between the Greeks. Hippias refused the offer and also rejected the offer of Iolcus, as Amyntas probably did not control Anthemus at that time, but was merely suggesting a plan of joint occupation to Hippias.

Family tree
Modern historians disagree on a number of details concerning the genealogy of the Argead dynasty. Robin Lane Fox, for example, refutes Nicholas Hammond's claim that Ptolemy of Aloros was Amyntas II's son, arguing that Ptolemy was neither his son nor an Argead. Consequently, the chart below does not account for every chronological, genealogical, and dynastic complexity. Instead, it represents one common reconstruction of the early Argeads advanced by historians such as Hammond, Elizabeth D. Carney, and Joseph Roisman.

Individuals with disputed parentage or Argead ancestry are italicized.

 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (1) Amyntas I ((r. c. 513 – 497 BC))
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (2) Alexander I ((r. 497 – 454 BC))
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (3) Perdiccas II ((r. 454 – 413/2 BC))
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (4) Archelaus ((r. 413/2 – 400/399 BC))
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (5) Orestes ((r. 400/399 – 398/7 BC))
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] Argaeus II ((r. 388/7 – 387/6 BC))
 * Pausanias
 * unnamed daughter[[Image:Marriage symbol (fixed width).svg|15px]] Derdas of Elimea
 * unnamed daughter[[Image:Marriage symbol (fixed width).svg|15px]] Amyntas II
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (6) Aeropus II ((r. 398/7 – 394/3 BC))
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (8) Pausanias ((r. 394/3 – 393/2 BC))
 * unnamed son
 * Menelaus
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (7) Amyntas II ((r. undefined – undefined))
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (11) Ptolemy of Aloros ((r. 368 – 365 BC))
 * Amyntas
 * Arrhidaeus
 * [[Image:Simple gold crown.svg|15px]] (9) Amyntas III ((r. 393/2 – 370 BC))
 * From whom Philip II and Alexander III is descended.
 * Philip
 * Amyntas
 * Agerrus
 * Alcetas
 * Alexander
 * Agelaus
 * Arepyros
 * Stratonice [[Image:Marriage symbol (fixed width).svg|15px]] Seuthes I
 * Gygaea [[Image:Marriage symbol (fixed width).svg|15px]] Bubares
 * Amyntas

title: Amyntas I of Macedon


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Amyntas III of Macedon

Amyntas III (Ἀμύντας) was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia from 393/2 to 388/7 BC and again from 387/6 to 370 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty through his father Arrhidaeus, a son of Amyntas, one of the sons of Alexander I. His most famous son is Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.

Family
Polygamy was used by Macedonian kings both before and after Amyntas to secure marriage alliances and produce enough heirs to offset losses from intra-dynastic conflict. Consequently, Amyntas took two wives: Eurydice and Gygaea. He first married Eurydice, daughter of Sirras and maternal granddaughter of the Lynkestian king Arrhabaeus, probably in a Macedonian effort to strengthen the alliance with both the Illyrians and Lynkestians or to detach the Lynkestians from their historical alliance with the Illyrians, after the Macedonian defeat by Illyrians or an Illyrian-Lynkestian invasion in 393 BC. Through Eurydice, Amyntas had three sons, all of whom became kings of Macedonia one after the other, and a daughter: Alexander II, Perdiccas III, Philip II, and Eurynoe.

The Roman historian Justin relates several, possibly apocryphal, stories about Eurydice and Eurynoe. He claims that Eurynoe prevented her mother and her lover (unnamed, but likely Ptolemy of Aloros) from assassinating Amyntas late in his reign by revealing the plan to her father. However, Eurynoe is not referred to by name in any other source and, moreover, is unlikely to have known the details of this supposedly secret plot. According to Justin, Amyntas spared Eurydice because they shared children, but that she would later help murder Alexander and Perdiccas in order to place Ptolemy on the throne. Alexander was in fact killed by friends of Ptolemy at a festival in 368 BC, but the extent to which Eurydice knew of or participated in this plot is opaque. Perdiccas, on the other hand, assassinated Ptolemy in 365 BC only to be killed in battle by the Illyrians in 359 BC.

Amyntas most likely married Gygaea soon after marrying Eurydice, because Gygaea's children made no attempt to claim the throne before the 350s BC, implying that they were younger than Eurydice's children. Additionally, both Diodorus and Justin call Alexander II the eldest son of Amyntas. Through Gygaea, Amyntas had three more sons: Archelaus, Arrhidaeus, and Menelaus. Unlike Eurydice's children, none of Gygaea's sons ascended to the throne and were all killed by their half-brother Philip II.

Amyntas also adopted the Athenian general Iphicrates around 386 BC in recognition of his military services and marital ties with the Thracian king, Cotys I.

Lineage and accession
Amyntas became king at a troubled time for Macedonia and the Argead dynasty. The unexpected death of his great-grandfather King Alexander I in 454 BC triggered a dynastic crisis between his five sons: Perdiccas II, Menelaus, Philip, Alcetas, and Amyntas' grandfather, Amyntas. Perdiccas would eventually emerge victorious, extinguishing the line of Philip. The elder Amyntas evidently retired to his lands at some point in the conflict and no part in the exercise of power. Archelaus, Perdiccas' son, ascended to the throne around 413 BC and allegedly murdered Alcetas and his son, thus eliminating that family branch as well. However, Archelaus would himself be killed, possibly murdered, in 400 or 399 BC by his lover Craterus. His death prompted another succession crisis, resulting in five kings ruling in less than seven years, with nearly all ending violently. As Diodorus tells us, the younger Amyntas seized the throne at this point in 393/2 BC after assassinating the previous king Pausanias. Following his accession, Macedonia experienced no major internal political problems for the entirety of Amyntas' reign.

King of Macedon
Shortly after he became king in 393 or 392, he was driven out by the Illyrians, but in the following year, with the aid of the Thessalians, he recovered his kingdom. Medius, head of the house of the Aleuadae of Larissa, is believed to have provided aid to Amyntas in recovering his throne. The mutual relationship between the Argeadae and the Aleuadae dates to the time of Archelaus.

To shore up his country against the threat of the Illyrians, Amyntas established an alliance with the Chalcidian League led by Olynthus. In exchange for this support, Amyntas granted them rights to Macedonian timber, which was sent back to Athens to help fortify their fleet. With money flowing into Olynthus from these exports, their power grew. In response, Amyntas sought additional allies. He established connections with Kotys, chief of the Odrysians. Kotys had already married his daughter to the Athenian general Iphicrates. Prevented from marrying into Kotys' family, Amyntas soon adopted Iphicrates as his son.

After the King's Peace of 387 BC, Sparta was anxious to re-establish its presence in northern Greece. In 385 BC, Bardylis and his Illyrians attacked Epirus instigated and aided by Dionysius I of Syracuse, in an attempt to restore the Molossian king Alcetas I of Epirus to the throne. When Amyntas sought Spartan aid against the growing threat of Olynthus, the Spartans eagerly responded. That Olynthus was backed by Athens and Thebes, rivals to Sparta for the control of Greece, provided them with an additional incentive to break up this growing power in the north. Amyntas thus concluded a treaty with the Spartans, who assisted him in a war against Olynthus. First Spartan-Macedonian forces suffered two defeats but in 379 BC they managed to destroy Olynthus. He also entered into a league with Jason of Pherae, and assiduously cultivated the friendship of Athens. In 371 BC at a Panhellenic congress of the Lacedaemonian allies, he voted in support of the Athenians' claim and joined other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis.

With Olynthus defeated, Amyntas was now able to conclude a treaty with Athens and keep the timber revenues for himself. Amyntas shipped the timber to the house of the Athenian Timotheus, in Piraeus.

Amyntas died aged 50, leaving his throne to his eldest son, Alexander II.

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title: Amyntas III of Macedon


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Anacharsis

Anacharsis (Ἀνάχαρσις, Анахарсис) was a Scythian prince and philosopher of uncertain historicity who lived in the 6th century BC.

Life
Anacharsis was the brother of the Scythian king Saulius, and both of them were the sons of the previous Scythian king, Gnurus.

Few concrete details are known about the life of the historical Anacharsis. He is known to have travelled to Greece, where he possibly became influenced by Greek culture.

Anacharsis was later killed by his brother Saulius for having sacrificed to the Scythian ancestral Snake-Legged Goddess at her shrine in the country of Hylaea by performing an orgiastic and shamanistic ritual at night during which he wore images on his dress and played drums.

The ancient Greek author, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, claimed that Anacharsis had been killed because he had renounced Scythian customs and adopted Greek ones, although this claim was likely invented by Herodotus himself. The religious rituals practised by Anacharsis instead corresponded more closely to those of the transvestite Anarya priesthood of the Scythians.

Legacy
An amphora found in the western at Pontic Olbia where was located the temple of Apollo Iētros (lit. 'Apollo the Healer') recorded the dedication of "paternal honey" to this god by a Scythian named Anaperrēs (Αναπερρης), who may have been the son of Anacharsis.

The nephew of Anacharsis, Idanthyrsus, who was the son and successor of Saulius, would later become famous among the Greeks in his own right for having resisted the Persian invasion of Scythia in 513 BC.

In Graeco-Roman philosophy
Later Graeco-Roman tradition transformed Anacharsis into a legendary figure as a kind of "noble savage" who represented "Barbarian wisdom," due to which the ancient Greeks included him as one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Consequently, Anacharsis became a popular figure in Greek literature, and many legends arose about him, including claims that he had been a friend of Solon.

The ancient Greek historian, Ephorus of Cyme, later used this image of Anacharsis to create an idealised image of the Scythians.

Eventually, Anacharsis completely became an ideal "man of nature" or "noble savage" figure in Greek literature, as well as favourite figure of the Cynics, who ascribed to him a 3rd century BC work titled the.

Due to the transformation of Anacharsis into a favourite character of Greek philosophers, nearly all of the ancient writings concerning him are about Greek literature, which makes the information regarding the historical Anacharsis himself difficult to assess.

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Anah

Anah or Ana (عانة, ), formerly also known as Anna, is an Iraqi town on the Euphrates approximately midway between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Persian Gulf. Anah lies from west to east on the right bank along a bend of the river just before it turns south towards Hīt.

Name
The town was called (d)Ha-na-at$KI$ in cuneiform texts from the Old Babylonian period, A-na-at of the land Suhum by the scribes of Tukulti-Ninurta c. 885 BC, and An-at by the scribes of Assur-nasir-pal II in 879 BC. The name has been connected with the widely worshipped war goddess Anat. It was known as Anathō (Άναθω) to Isidore Charax and Anatha to Ammianus Marcellinus; early Arabic writers described it variously as ʾĀna or (as if plural) ʾĀnāt.

Antiquity
The earliest references to Anah are probably found in letters of the period of Zimri-Lim of Mari.

Under Hammurapi of Babylon the town was under Babylonian control, being included in the governorate of Sūḫu. Later, the town was under Assyrian rule.

At the beginning of the 8th century BC, Šamaš-rēša-uṣur and his son Ninurta-kudurrī-uṣur succeeded in creating an independent political entity, and called themselves "governors of Sūḫu and Mari". The land of Sūḫu occupied a quite extensive region on the Middle Euphrates, approximately from the area near Falluja in the southeast to the area of Ḫindanu (modern Tell Jabiriyah, near Al-Qa'im) in the northwest. Important evidence for this period was recovered during English and Iraqi salvage excavation campaigns at Sur Jurʿeh and on the island of ʿAna (Anah) in the early 1980s.

Xenophon recorded that the army of Cyrus the Younger resupplied during a campaign in 401 BC at "Charmande" near the end of a 90-parasang march between Korsote and Pylae, which likely intends Anah.

Anatha was the site where the Roman emperor Julian first met opposition in his AD 363 expedition against the Sassanid Empire. He got possession of the place and relocated its inhabitants.

Middle Ages
In 657, during the Muslim conquest of Iraq, Ali's lieutenants Ziyad and Shureih were refused passage across the Euphrates at Anah. Later, in 1058, Anah was the place of exile of the caliph Qaim when al-Basasiri was in power. In the 14th century, Anah was the seat of the catholicos who served as primate over the Persian Christians. Throughout early Islamic rule, it was a prosperous trade town, well known for its date palms and gardens; in the 14th century, Mustafi wrote of the fame of its palm groves. Medieval Arab poets celebrated Anah's wine; Between the 14th and 17th centuries, Anah served as a headquarters for a host of regional Arab tribes.

Ottoman rule
Starting around 1535, the town served as the de facto capital of the Abu Rish bedouin emirs, whom the Ottomans appointed as governors of several sancaks (provinces) as well as çöl beyis or "desert emirs". In 1574, Leonhart Rauwolff found the town divided into two parts, the Turkish "so surrounded by the river that you cannot go into it but by boats" and the larger Arab section along one of the banks. In 1610, Texeira said Anah lay on both banks of the river, with which Pietro Della Valle agreed. In that year, Della Valle found the Scot George Strachan resident at Anah, working as the physician to the emir and studying Arabic; he also found some "sun worshippers" (actually Alawites) still living there. Della Valle and Texeira called Anah the principal Arab town on the Euphrates, controlling a major route west from Baghdad and territory reaching Palmyra.

About 1750, the Ottomans installed a rudimentary administration to run Anah and its district. After roughly a century, a more organized local government was put in place, whereby Anah became the center of a kaza belonging to the Baghdad Vilayet.

At the beginning of the 19th century, G.A. Olivier found only 25 men in service of the local prince, with residents fleeing daily to escape from bedouin attacks against which he offered no protection. He described the city as a single long street of five or six miles along a narrow strip of land between the river and a ridge of rocky hills. W. F. Ainsworth, chronicling the British Euphrates expedition, reported that in 1835 the Arabs inhabited the northwest part of the town, the Christians the center, and the Jews the southeast. The same year, the steamer Tigris went down in a storm just above Anah, near where Julian's force had suffered from a similar storm.

By the mid-19th century, the houses were separated from one another by fruit gardens, which also filled the riverine islands near the town. The most easterly island contained a ruined castle, while the ruins of ancient Anatho extended a further two miles along the left bank. It marked the boundary between the olive (north) and date (south) growing regions in the area. With the positioning of Turkish troops in the town around 1890, the locals no longer had to pay blackmail (huwwa) to the bedouins. Through the early 20th century, coarse cotton cloth was the only manufacture. In 1909 Anah had an estimated population of 15,000 and 2,000 houses. Most of the inhabitants were Sunni Muslim Arabs, though a small Jewish community lived on the town's southern edge.

Kingdom of Iraq
In 1918, the town was captured by British forces and by 1921, became incorporated into the Kingdom of Iraq. It remained an administrative center of a qadaa, part of the larger Ramadi-based liwa of Dulaym. Anah's qadaa also included the subdistricts of Hīt, al-Qa'im and Jubba. The townspeople's long feud with the inhabitants of Rawa was settled diplomatically by 1921. Its territory to the west was dominated by the subtribes of Anizzah, while to the east the Jarba branch of the Shammar held sway.

Most of Anah's building were located among a dense belt of date palms and was "reckoned as healthy and picturesque", according to historian S. H. Longrigg. The date palms were irrigated by water wheels. There were also more scattered dwelling in the mid-stream islands of the Euphrates near the town center. The women of the town were well known for their beauty and the weaving of cotton and wool textiles. The men, many of whom were compelled to emigrate to lack of living space, were largely engaged as boatmen and transporters of water to Baghdad. The town had relatively high educational standards, with eight schools built there by 1946.

F. R. Chesney reported about 1800 houses, two mosques, and 16 waterwheels. One minaret is particularly old. Northedge reported the locals commonly attributed it to the 11th century but opined that it was more likely from about a century after that. It rose from one of the islands and belonged to the local mosque. Dr. Muayad Said described it as an octagonal body "enhanced by alcoves, some of which are blind" and noted earlier conservation work undertaken in 1935, 1963 and 1964. When the valley was flooded by the Haditha Dam in 1984/85, the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities cut it into sections and removed it to the new Anah, where it was re-erected to a height of 28 m at the end of the 1980s.

ISIS captured the town in 2014. On September 19, 2017, an offensive to retake the town from ISIS control began. After two days of fighting the town was recaptured by the Iraqi army.

Climate
Anah has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh). Most rain falls in the winter. The average annual temperature in Anah is 20.7 °C. About 127 mm of precipitation falls annually.

title: Anah


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Ānanda

Ānanda (Pali and Sanskrit: आनन्द; 5th–4th century BCE) was the primary attendant of the Buddha and one of his ten principal disciples. Among the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda stood out for having the best memory. Most of the texts of the early Buddhist Sutta-Piṭaka (सुत्त पिटक; सूत्र-पिटक, Sūtra-Piṭaka) are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council. For that reason, he is known as the Treasurer of the Dhamma, with Dhamma (धर्म, dharma) referring to the Buddha's teaching. In Early Buddhist Texts, Ānanda was the first cousin of the Buddha. Although the early texts do not agree on many parts of Ānanda's early life, they do agree that Ānanda was ordained as a monk and that Puṇṇa Mantānīputta (पूर्ण मैत्रायणीपुत्र, Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇīputra) became his teacher. Twenty years in the Buddha's ministry, Ānanda became the attendant of the Buddha, when the Buddha selected him for this task. Ānanda performed his duties with great devotion and care, and acted as an intermediary between the Buddha and the laypeople, as well as the saṅgha (संघ). He accompanied the Buddha for the rest of his life, acting not only as an assistant, but also a secretary and a mouthpiece.

Scholars are skeptical about the historicity of many events in Ānanda's life, especially the First Council, and consensus about this has yet to be established. A traditional account can be drawn from early texts, commentaries, and post-canonical chronicles. Ānanda had an important role in establishing the order of bhikkhunīs (भिक्षुणी), when he requested the Buddha on behalf of the latter's foster-mother Mahāpajāpati Gotamī (महाप्रजापती गौतमी, Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī) to allow her to be ordained. Ānanda also accompanied the Buddha in the last year of his life, and therefore was witness to many tenets and principles that the Buddha conveyed before his death, including the well-known principle that the Buddhist community should take his teaching and discipline as their refuge, and that he would not appoint a new leader. The final period of the Buddha's life also shows that Ānanda was very much attached to the Buddha's person, and he saw the Buddha's passing with great sorrow.

Shortly after the Buddha's death, the First Council was convened, and Ānanda managed to attain enlightenment just before the council started, which was a requirement. He had a historical role during the council as the living memory of the Buddha, reciting many of the Buddha's discourses and checking them for accuracy. During the same council, however, he was chastised by Mahākassapa (महाकाश्यप, Mahākāśyapa) and the rest of the saṅgha for allowing women to be ordained and failing to understand or respect the Buddha at several crucial moments. Ānanda continued to teach until the end of his life, passing on his spiritual heritage to his pupils Sāṇavāsī (शाणकवासी, Śāṇakavāsī) and Majjhantika (मध्यान्तिक, Madhyāntika), among others, who later assumed leading roles in the Second and Third Councils. Ānanda died 20 years after the Buddha, and stūpas (monuments) were erected at the river where he died.

Ānanda is one of the most loved figures in Buddhism. He was known for his memory, erudition and compassion, and was often praised by the Buddha for these matters. He functioned as a foil to the Buddha, however, in that he still had worldly attachments and was not yet enlightened, as opposed to the Buddha. In the Sanskrit textual traditions, Ānanda is considered the patriarch of the Dhamma who stood in a spiritual lineage, receiving the teaching from Mahākassapa and passing them on to his own pupils. Ānanda has been honored by bhikkhunīs since early medieval times for his merits in establishing the nun's order. In recent times, the composer Richard Wagner and Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore were inspired by stories about Ānanda in their work.

Name
The word ānanda (आनन्द) means 'bliss, joy' in Pāli and in Sanskrit. Pāli commentaries explain that when Ānanda was born, his relatives were joyous about this. Texts from the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition, however, state that since Ānanda was born on the day of the Buddha's enlightenment, there was great rejoicing in the city—hence the name.

Previous lives
According to the texts, in a previous life, Ānanda made an aspiration to become a Buddha's attendant. He made this aspiration in the time of a previous Buddha called Padumuttara, many eons (kappa, Sanskrit: ) before the present age. He met the attendant of Padumuttara Buddha and aspired to be like him in a future life. After having done many good deeds, he made his resolution known to the Padumuttara Buddha, who confirmed that his wish will come true in a future life. After having been born and reborn throughout many lifetimes, and doing many good deeds, he was born as Ānanda in the time of the current Buddha Gotama.

Early life
Ānanda was born in the same time period as the Buddha (formerly Prince Siddhattha), which scholars place at 5th–4th centuries BCE. Tradition says that Ānanda was the first cousin of the Buddha, his father being the brother of Suddhodana (Śuddhodana), the Buddha's father. In the Pāli and Mūlasarvāstivāda textual traditions, his father was Amitodana (Amṛtodana), but the Mahāvastu states that his father was Śuklodana—both are brothers of Suddhodana. The Mahāvastu also mentions that Ānanda's mother's name was Mṛgī (Sanskrit; lit. 'little deer'; Pāli is unknown). The Pāli tradition has it that Ānanda was born on the same day as Prince Siddhatta (Siddhārtha), but texts from the Mūlasarvāstivāda and subsequent Mahāyāna traditions state Ānanda was born at the same time the Buddha attained enlightenment (when Prince Siddhattha was 35 years old), and was therefore much younger than the Buddha. The latter tradition is corroborated by several instances in the Early Buddhist Texts, in which Ānanda appears younger than the Buddha, such as the passage in which the Buddha explained to Ānanda how old age was affecting him in body and mind. It is also corroborated by a verse in the Pāli text called Theragāthā, in which Ānanda stated he was a "learner" for 25 years, after which he attended to the Buddha for another 25 years.Following the Pāli, Mahīśasaka and Dharmaguptaka textual traditions, Ānanda became a monk in the second year of the Buddha's ministry, during the Buddha's visit to Kapilavatthu (Kapilavastu). He was ordained by the Buddha himself, together with many other princes of the Buddha's clan (Sākiya, Śākya), in the mango grove called Anupiya, part of Malla territory. According to a text from the Mahāsaṅghika tradition, King Suddhodana wanted the Buddha to have more followers of the khattiya caste (kṣatriyaḥ), and less from the brahmin (priest) caste. He therefore ordered that any khattiya who had a brother follow the Buddha as a monk, or had his brother do so. Ānanda used this opportunity, and asked his brother Devadatta to stay at home, so that he could leave for the monkhood. The later timeline from the Mūlasarvāstivāda texts and the Pāli Theragāthā, however, have Ānanda ordain much later, about twenty-five years before the Buddha's death—in other words, twenty years in the Buddha's ministry. Some Sanskrit sources have him ordain even later. The Mūlasarvāstivāda texts on monastic discipline (Pāli and Vinaya) relate that soothsayers predicted Ānanda would be the Buddha's attendant. In order to prevent Ānanda from leaving the palace to ordain, his father brought him to Vesālī (Vaiśālī) during the Buddha's visit to Kapilavatthu, but later the Buddha met and taught Ānanda nonetheless. On a similar note, the Mahāvastu relates, however, that Mṛgī was initially opposed to Ānanda joining the holy life, because his brother Devadatta had already ordained and left the palace. Ānanda responded to his mother's resistance by moving to Videha (Vaideha) and lived there, taking a vow of silence. This led him to gain the epithet Videhamuni (Vaidehamuni), meaning 'the silent wise one from Videha'. When Ānanda did become ordained, his father had him ordain in Kapilavatthu in the Nigrodhārāma monastery (Niyagrodhārāma) with much ceremony, Ānanda's preceptor (upajjhāya; Sanskrit: ) being a certain Daśabāla Kāśyapa.

According to the Pāli tradition, Ānanda's first teachers were Belaṭṭhasīsa and Puṇṇa Mantānīputta. It was Puṇṇa's teaching that led Ānanda to attain the stage of sotāpanna (śrotāpanna), an attainment preceding that of enlightenment. Ānanda later expressed his debt to Puṇṇa. Another important figure in the life of Ānanda was Sāriputta (Śāriputra), one of the Buddha's main disciples. Sāriputta often taught Ānanda about the finer points of Buddhist doctrine; they were in the habit of sharing things with one another, and their relationship is described as a good friendship. In some Mūlasarvāstivāda texts, an attendant of Ānanda is also mentioned who helped motivate Ānanda when he was banned from the First Buddhist Council. He was a "Vajjiputta" (Vṛjjiputra), i.e. someone who originated from the Vajji confederacy. According to later texts, an enlightened monk also called Vajjiputta (Vajraputra) had an important role in Ānanda's life. He listened to a teaching of Ānanda and realized that Ānanda was not enlightened yet. Vajjiputta encouraged Ānanda to talk less to laypeople and deepen his meditation practice by retreating in the forest, advice that very much affected Ānanda.

Attending to the Buddha

In the first twenty years of the Buddha's ministry, the Buddha had several personal attendants. However, after these twenty years, when the Buddha was aged 55, the Buddha announced that he had need for a permanent attendant. The Buddha had been growing older, and his previous attendants had not done their job very well. Initially, several of the Buddha's foremost disciples responded to his request, but the Buddha did not accept them. All the while Ānanda remained quiet. When he was asked why, he said that the Buddha would know best whom to choose, upon which the Buddha responded by choosing Ānanda. Ānanda agreed to take on the position, on the condition that he did not receive any material benefits from the Buddha. Accepting such benefits would open him up to criticism that he chose the position because of ulterior motives. He also requested that the Buddha allow him to accept invitations on his behalf, allow him to ask questions about his doctrine, and repeat any teaching that the Buddha had taught in Ānanda's absence. These requests would help people trust Ānanda and show that the Buddha was sympathetic to his attendant. Furthermore, Ānanda considered these the real advantages of being an attendant, which is why he requested them.

The Buddha agreed to Ānanda's conditions, and Ānanda became the Buddha's attendant, accompanying the Buddha on most of his wanderings. Ānanda took care of the Buddha's daily practical needs, by doing things such as bringing water and cleaning the Buddha's dwelling place. He is depicted as observant and devoted, even guarding the dwelling place at night. Ānanda takes the part of interlocutor in many of the recorded dialogues. He tended the Buddha for a total of 25 years, a duty which entailed much work. His relationship with the Buddha is depicted as warm and trusting: when the Buddha grew ill, Ānanda had a sympathetic illness; when the Buddha grew older, Ānanda kept taking care of him with devotion.

Ānanda sometimes literally risked his life for his teacher. At one time, the rebellious monk Devadatta tried to kill the Buddha by having a drunk and wild elephant released in the Buddha's presence. Ānanda stepped in front of the Buddha to protect him. When the Buddha told him to move, he refused, although normally he always obeyed the Buddha. Through a supernatural accomplishment (iddhi; ṛiddhi) the Buddha then moved Ānanda aside and subdued the elephant, by touching it and speaking to it with loving-kindness.

Ānanda often acted as an intermediary and secretary, passing on messages from the Buddha, informing the Buddha of news, invitations, or the needs of lay people, and advising lay people who wanted to provide gifts to the saṅgha. At one time, Mahāpajāpatī, the Buddha's foster-mother, requested to offer robes for personal use for the Buddha. She said that even though she had raised the Buddha in his youth, she never gave anything in person to the young prince; she now wished to do so. The Buddha initially insisted that she give the robe to the community as a whole rather than to be attached to his person. However, Ānanda interceded and mediated, suggesting that the Buddha had better accept the robe. Eventually the Buddha did, but not without pointing out to Ānanda that good deeds like giving should always be done for the sake of the action itself, not for the sake of the person. The texts say that the Buddha sometimes asked Ānanda to substitute for him as teacher, and was often praised by the Buddha for his teachings. Ānanda was often given important teaching roles, such as regularly teaching Queen Mallikā, Queen Sāmāvatī, (Śyāmāvatī) and other people from the ruling class. Once Ānanda taught a number of King Udena (Udayana)'s concubines. They were so impressed by Ānanda's teaching, that they gave him five hundred robes, which Ānanda accepted. Having heard about this, King Udena criticized Ānanda for being greedy; Ānanda responded by explaining how every single robe was carefully used, reused and recycled by the monastic community, prompting the king to offer another five hundred robes. Ānanda also had a role in the Buddha's visit to Vesālī. In this story, the Buddha taught the well-known text Ratana Sutta to Ānanda, which Ānanda then recited in Vesālī, ridding the city from illness, drought and evil spirits in the process. Another well-known passage in which the Buddha taught Ānanda is the passage about spiritual friendship (kalyāṇamittata). In this passage, Ānanda stated that spiritual friendship is half of the holy life; the Buddha corrected Ānanda, stating that such friendship is the entire holy life. In summary, Ānanda worked as an assistant, intermediary and a mouthpiece, helping the Buddha in many ways, and learning his teachings in the process.

Resisting temptations
Ānanda was attractive in appearance. A Pāli account related that a bhikkhunī (nun) became enamored with Ānanda, and pretended to be ill to have Ānanda visit her. When she realized the error of her ways, she confessed her mistakes to Ānanda. Other accounts relate that a low-caste woman called Prakṛti (also known in China as ) fell in love with Ānanda, and persuaded her mother Mātaṅgī to use a black magic spell to enchant him. This succeeded, and Ānanda was lured into her house, but came to his senses and called upon the help of the Buddha. The Buddha then taught Prakṛti to reflect on the repulsive qualities of the human body, and eventually Prakṛti was ordained as a bhikkhunī, giving up her attachment for Ānanda. In an East Asian version of the story in the Śūraṃgamasūtra, the Buddha sent Mañjuśrī to help Ānanda, who used recitation to counter the magic charm. The Buddha then continued by teaching Ānanda and other listeners about the Buddha nature.

Establishing the nun's order

In the role of mediator between the Buddha and the lay communities, Ānanda sometimes made suggestions to the Buddha for amendments in the monastic discipline. Most importantly, the early texts attribute the inclusion of women in the early saṅgha (monastic order) to Ānanda. Fifteen years after the Buddha's enlightenment, his foster mother Mahāpajāpatī came to see him to ask him to be ordained as the first Buddhist bhikkhunī. Initially, the Buddha refused this. Five years later, Mahāpajāpatī came to request the Buddha again, this time with a following of other Sākiya women, including the Buddha's former wife Yasodharā (Yaśodarā). They had walked 500 km, looked dirty, tired and depressed, and Ānanda felt pity for them. Ānanda therefore confirmed with the Buddha whether women could become enlightened as well. Although the Buddha conceded this, he did not allow the Sākiya women to be ordained yet. Ānanda then discussed with the Buddha how Mahāpajāpatī took care of him during his childhood, after the death of his real mother. Ānanda also mentioned that previous Buddhas had also ordained bhikkhunīs. In the end, the Buddha allowed the Sākiya women to be ordained, being the start of the bhikkhunī order. Ānanda had Mahāpajāpati ordained by her acceptance of a set of rules, set by the Buddha. These came to be known as the garudhamma, and they describe the subordinate relation of the bhikkhunī community to that of the bhikkhus or monks. Scholar of Asian religions Reiko Ohnuma argues that the debt the Buddha had toward his foster-mother Mahāpajāpati may have been the main reason for his concessions with regard to the establishment of a bhikkhunī order.

Many scholars interpret this account to mean that the Buddha was reluctant in allowing women to be ordained, and that Ānanda successfully persuaded the Buddha to change his mind. For example, Indologist and translator I.B. Horner wrote that "this is the only instance of his [the Buddha] being over-persuaded in argument". However, some scholars interpret the Buddha's initial refusal rather as a test of resolve, following a widespread pattern in the Pāli Canon and in monastic procedure of repeating a request three times before final acceptance. Some also argue that the Buddha was believed by Buddhists to be omniscient, and therefore is unlikely to have been depicted as changing his mind. Other scholars argue that other passages in the texts indicate the Buddha intended all along to establish a bhikkhunī order. Regardless, during the acceptance of women into the monastic order, the Buddha told Ānanda that the Buddha's Dispensation would last shorter because of this. At the time, the Buddhist monastic order consisted of wandering celibate males, without many monastic institutions. Allowing women to join the Buddhist celibate life might have led to dissension, as well as temptation between the sexes. The garudhamma, however, were meant to fix these problems, and prevent the dispensation from being curtailed.

There are some chronological discrepancies in the traditional account of the setting up of the bhikkhunī order. According to the Pāli and Mahīśasaka textual traditions, the bhikkhunī order was set up five years after the Buddha's enlightenment, but, according to most textual traditions, Ānanda only became attendant twenty years after the Buddha's enlightenment. Furthermore, Mahāpajāpati was the Buddha's foster mother, and must therefore have been considerably older than him. However, after the bhikkhunī order was established, Mahāpajāpati still had many audiences with the Buddha, as reported in Pāli and Chinese Early Buddhist Texts. Because of this and other reasons, it could be inferred that establishment of the bhikkhunī order actually took place early in the Buddha's ministry. If this is the case, Ānanda's role in establishing the order becomes less likely. Some scholars therefore interpret the names in the account, such as Ānanda and Mahāpajāpati, as symbols, representing groups rather than specific individuals.

According to the texts, Ānanda's role in founding the bhikkhunī order made him popular with the bhikkhunī community. Ānanda often taught bhikkhunīs, often encouraged women to ordain, and when he was criticized by the monk Mahākassapa, several bhikkhunīs tried to defend him. According to Indologist Oskar von Hinüber, Ānanda's pro-bhikkhunī attitude may well be the reason why there was frequent discussion between Ānanda and Mahākassapa, eventually leading Mahākasapa to charge Ānanda with several offenses during the First Buddhist Council. Von Hinüber further argues that the establishment of the bhikkhunī order may have well been initiated by Ānanda the Buddha's death, and the introduction of Mahāpajāpati as the person requesting to do so is merely a literary device to connect the ordination of women with the person of the Buddha, through his foster mother. Von Hinüber concludes this based on several patterns in the early texts, including the apparent distance between the Buddha and the bhikkhunī order, and the frequent discussions and differences of opinion that take place between Ānanda and Mahākassapa. Some scholars have seen merits in von Hinüber's argument with regard to the pro- and anti-factions, but as of 2017, no definitive evidence has been found for the theory of establishment of the bhikkhuni order after the Buddha's death. Buddhist studies scholar Bhikkhu Anālayo has responded to most of von Hinuber's arguments, writing: "Besides requiring too many assumptions, this hypothesis conflicts with nearly 'all the evidence preserved in the texts together'", arguing that it was monastic discipline that created a distance between the Buddha and the bhikkhunīs, and even so, there were many places in the early texts where the Buddha did address bhikkhunīs directly.

The Buddha's death
Despite his long association with and close proximity to the Buddha, the texts describe that Ānanda had not become enlightened yet. Because of that, a fellow monk Udāyī (Udāyin) ridiculed Ānanda. However, the Buddha reprimanded Udāyī in response, saying that Ānanda would certainly be enlightened in this life.

The Pāli Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta related the last year-long trip the Buddha took with Ānanda from Rājagaha (Rājagṛha) to the small town of Kusinārā (Kuśinagara) before the Buddha died there. Before reaching Kusinārā, the Buddha spent the retreat during the monsoon (vassa, varṣā) in Veḷugāma (Veṇugrāmaka), getting out of the Vesālī area which suffered from famine. Here, the eighty-year old Buddha expressed his wish to speak to the saṅgha once more. The Buddha had grown seriously ill in Vesālī, much to the concern of some of his disciples. Ānanda understood that the Buddha wished to leave final instructions before his death. The Buddha stated, however, that he had already taught everything needed, without withholding anything secret as a teacher with a "closed fist" would. He also impressed upon Ānanda that he did not think the saṅgha should be reliant too much on a leader, not even himself. He then continued with the well-known statement to take his teaching as a refuge, and oneself as a refuge, without relying on any other refuge, also after he would be gone. Bareau argued that this is one of the most ancient parts of the text, found in slight variation in five early textual traditions:

"'Moreover, this very beautiful episode, touching with nobility and psychological verisimilitude with regard to both Ānanda and the Buddha, seems to go back very far, at the time when the authors, like the other disciples, still considered the Blessed One [the Buddha] a man, an eminently respectable and undefiled master, to whom behavior and utterly human words were lent, so that one is even tempted to see there the memory of a real scene which Ānanda reportedly told to the Community in the months following the Parinirvāṇa [death of the Buddha].'"

The same text contains an account in which the Buddha, at numerous occasions, gave a hint that he could prolong his life to a full eon through a supernatural accomplishment, but this was a power that he would have to be to exercise. Ānanda was distracted, however, and did not take the hint. Later, Ānanda did make the request, but the Buddha replied that it was already too late, as he would die soon. Māra, the Buddhist personification of evil, had visited the Buddha, and the Buddha had decided to die in three months. When Ānanda heard this, he wept. The Buddha consoled him, however, pointing out that Ānanda had been a great attendant, being sensitive to the needs of different people. If he was earnest in his efforts, he would attain enlightenment soon. He then pointed out to Ānanda that all conditioned things are impermanent: all people must die. In the final days of the Buddha's life, the Buddha traveled to Kusinārā. The Buddha had Ānanda prepare a place for lying down between two sal trees, the same type of tree under which the mother of the Buddha gave birth. The Buddha then had Ānanda invite the Malla clan from Kusinārā to pay their final respects. Having returned, Ānanda asked the Buddha what should be done with his body after his death, and he replied that it should be cremated, giving detailed instructions on how this should be done. Since the Buddha prohibited Ānanda from being involved himself, but rather had him instruct the Mallas to perform the rituals, these instructions have by many scholars been interpreted as a prohibition that monastics should not be involved in funerals or worship of stūpas (structures with relics). Buddhist studies scholar Gregory Schopen has pointed out, however, that this prohibition only held for Ānanda, and only with regard to the Buddha's funeral ceremony. It has also been shown that the instructions on the funeral are quite late in origin, in both composition and insertion into the text, and are not found in parallel texts, apart from the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta. Ānanda then continued by asking how devotees should honor the Buddha after his death. The Buddha responded by listing four important places in his life that people could pay their respects to, which later became the four main places of Buddhist pilgrimage. Before the Buddha died, Ānanda recommended the Buddha to move to a more meaningful city instead, but the Buddha pointed out that the town was once a great capital. Ānanda then asked who will be next teacher after the Buddha would be gone, but the Buddha replied that his teaching and discipline would be the teacher instead. This meant that decisions should be made by reaching consensus within the saṅgha, and more generally, that now the time had come for the Buddhist monastics and devotees to take the Buddhist texts as authority, now that the Buddha was dying.

The Buddha gave several instructions before his death, including a directive that his former charioteer Channa (Chandaka) be shunned by his fellow monks, to humble his pride. In his final moments, the Buddha asked if anyone had any questions they wished to pose to him, as a final chance to allay any doubts. When no-one responded, Ānanda expressed joy that all of the Buddha's disciples present had attained a level beyond doubts about the Buddha's teaching. However, the Buddha pointed out that Ānanda spoke out of faith and not out of meditative insight—a final reproach. The Buddha added that, of all the five hundred monks that are surrounding him now, even the "latest" or "most backward" (pacchimaka) had attained the initial stage of sotapanna. Meant as an encouragement, the Buddha was referring to Ānanda. During the Buddha's final Nirvana, Anuruddha was able to use his meditative powers to understand which stages the Buddha underwent before attaining final Nirvana. However, Ānanda was unable to do so, indicating his lesser spiritual maturity. After the Buddha's death, Ānanda recited several verses, expressing a sense of urgency (saṃvega), deeply moved by the events and their bearing: "Terrible was the quaking, men's hair stood on end, / When the all-accomplished Buddha passed away."

Shortly after the council, Ānanda brought the message with regard to the Buddha's directive to Channa personally. Channa was humbled and changed his ways, attained enlightenment, and the penalty was withdrawn by the saṅgha. Ānanda traveled to Sāvatthī (Śrāvastī), where he was met with a sad populace, who he consoled with teachings on impermanence. After that, Ānanda went to the quarters of the Buddha and went through the motions of the routine he formerly performed when the Buddha was still alive, such as preparing water and cleaning the quarters. He then saluted and talked to the quarters as though the Buddha was still there. The Pāli commentaries state that Ānanda did this out of devotion, but also because he was "not yet free from the passions".

Ban
According to the texts, the First Buddhist Council was held in Rājagaha. In the first vassa after the Buddha had died, the presiding monk Mahākassapa (Mahākāśyapa) called upon Ānanda to recite the discourses he had heard, as a representative on this council. There was a rule issued that only enlightened disciples (arahants) were allowed to attend the council, to prevent mental afflictions from clouding the disciples' memories. Ānanda had, however, not attained enlightenment yet, in contrast with the rest of the council, consisting of 499 arahants. Mahākassapa therefore did not allow Ānanda to attend yet. Although he knew that Ānanda's presence in the council was required, he did not want to be biased by allowing an exception to the rule. The Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition adds that Mahākassapa initially allowed Ānanda to join as a sort of servant assisting during the council, but then was forced to remove him when the disciple Anuruddha saw that Ānanda was not yet enlightened.

Ānanda felt humiliated, but was prompted to focus his efforts to reach enlightenment before the council started. The Mūlasarvāstivāda texts add that he felt motivated when he remembered the Buddha's words that he should be his own refuge, and when he was consoled and advised by Anuruddha and Vajjiputta, the latter being his attendant. On the night before the event, he tried hard to attain enlightenment. After a while, Ānanda took a break and decided to lie down for a rest. He then attained enlightenment right there, right then, halfway between standing and lying down. Thus, Ānanda was known as the disciple who attained awakening "in none of the four traditional poses" (walking, standing, sitting, or lying down). The next morning, to prove his enlightenment, Ānanda performed a supernatural accomplishment by diving into the earth and appearing on his seat at the council (or, according to some sources, by flying through the air). Scholars such as Buddhologist André Bareau and scholar of religion Ellison Banks Findly have been skeptical about many details in this account, including the number of participants on the council, and the account of Ānanda's enlightenment just before the council. Regardless, today, the story of Ānanda's struggle on the evening before the council is still told among Buddhists as a piece of advice in the practice of meditation: neither to give up, nor to interpret the practice too rigidly.

Recitations
The First Council began when Ānanda was consulted to recite the discourses and to determine which were authentic and which were not. Mahākassapa asked of each discourse that Ānanda listed where, when, and to whom it was given, and at the end of this, the assembly agreed that Ānanda's memories and recitations were correct, after which the discourse collection (Sutta Piṭaka, Sūtra Piṭaka) was considered finalized and closed. Ānanda therefore played a crucial role in this council, and texts claim he remembered 84,000 teaching topics, among which 82,000 taught by the Buddha and another 2,000 taught by disciples. Many early Buddhist discourses started with the words "Thus have I heard" (Evaṃ me sutaṃ, Evaṃ mayā śrutam), which according to most Buddhist traditions, were Ānanda's words, indicating that he, as the person reporting the text (saṃgītikāra), had first-hand experience and did not add anything to it. Thus, the discourses Ānanda remembered later became the collection of discourses of the Canon, and according to the Haimavāta, Dharmaguptaka and Sarvāstivāda textual traditions (and implicitly, post-canonical Pāli chronicles), the collection of Abhidhamma (Abhidhamma Piṭaka) as well. Scholar of religion Ronald Davidson notes, however, that this is not preceded by any account of Ānanda learning Abhidhamma. According to some later Mahāyāna accounts, Ānanda also assisted in reciting Mahāyāna texts, held in a different place in Rājagaha, but in the same time period. The Pāli commentaries state that after the council, when the tasks for recitation and memorizing the texts were divided, Ānanda and his pupils were given the task to remember the Dīgha Nikāya.

Charges
During the same council, Ānanda was charged for an offense by members of the saṅgha for having enabled women to join the monastic order. Besides this, he was charged for having forgotten to request the Buddha to specify which offenses of monastic discipline could be disregarded; for having stepped on the Buddha's robe; for having allowed women to honor the Buddha's body after his death, which was not properly dressed, and during which his body was sullied by their tears; and for having failed to ask the Buddha to continue to live on. Ānanda did not acknowledge these as offenses, but he conceded to do a formal confession anyway, "... in faith of the opinion of the venerable elder monks"—Ānanda wanted to prevent disruption in the saṅgha. With regard to having women ordained, Ānanda answered that he had done this with great effort, because Mahāpajāpati was the Buddha's foster-mother who had long provided for him. With regard to not requesting the Buddha to continue to live, many textual traditions have Ānanda respond by saying he was distracted by Māra, though one early Chinese text has Ānanda reply he did not request the Buddha to prolong his life, for fear that this would interfere with the next Buddha Maitreya's ministry.

According to the Pāli tradition, the charges were laid after Ānanda had become enlightened and done all the recitations; but the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition has it that the charges were laid before Ānanda became enlightened and started the recitations. In this version, when Ānanda heard that he was banned from the council, he objected that he had not done anything that went against the teaching and discipline of the Buddha. Mahākassapa then listed seven charges to counter Ānanda's objection. The charges were similar to the five given in Pāli. Other textual traditions list slightly different charges, amounting to a combined total of eleven charges, some of which are only mentioned in one or two textual traditions. Considering that an enlightened disciple was seen to have overcome all faults, it seems more likely that the charges were laid before Ānanda's attainment than after.

Indologists von Hinüber and Jean Przyluski argue that the account of Ānanda being charged with offenses during the council indicate tensions between competing early Buddhist schools, i.e. schools that emphasized the discourses (sutta, sūtra) and schools that emphasized monastic discipline. These differences have affected the scriptures of each tradition: e.g. the Pāli and Mahīśāsaka textual traditions portray a Mahākassapa that is more critical of Ānanda than that the Sarvāstivāda tradition depicts him, reflecting a preference for discipline above discourse on the part of the former traditions, and a preference for discourse for the latter. Another example is the recitations during the First Council. The Pāli texts state that Upāli, the person who was responsible for the recitation of the monastic discipline, recited Ānanda does: again, monastic discipline above discourse. Analyzing six recensions of different textual traditions of the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta extensively, Bareau distinguished two layers in the text, an older and a newer one, the former belonging to the compilers that emphasized discourse, the latter to the ones that emphasized discipline; the former emphasizing the figure of Ānanda, the latter Mahākassapa. He further argued that the passage on Māra obstructing the Buddha was inserted in the fourth century BCE, and that Ānanda was blamed for Māra's doing by inserting the passage of Ānanda's forgetfulness in the third century BCE. The passage in which the Buddha was ill and reminded Ānanda to be his own refuge, on the other hand, Bareau regarded as very ancient, pre-dating the passages blaming Māra and Ānanda. In conclusion, Bareau, Przyluski and Horner argued that the offenses Ānanda were charged with were a later interpolation. Findly disagrees, however, because the account in the texts of monastic discipline fits in with the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta and with Ānanda's character as generally depicted in the texts.

Historicity
Tradition states that the First Council lasted for seven months. Scholars doubt, however, whether the entire canon was really recited during the First Council, because the early texts contain different accounts on important subjects such as meditation. It may be, though, that early versions were recited of what is now known as the Vinaya-piṭaka and Sutta-piṭaka. Nevertheless, many scholars, from the late 19th century onward, have considered the historicity of the First Council improbable. Some scholars, such as orientalists Louis de La Vallée-Poussin and D.P. Minayeff, thought there must have been assemblies after the Buddha's death, but considered only the main characters and some events before or after the First Council historical. Other scholars, such as Bareau and Indologist Hermann Oldenberg, considered it likely that the account of the First Council was written after the Second Council, and based on that of the Second, since there were not any major problems to solve after the Buddha's death, or any other need to organize the First Council. Much material in the accounts, and even more so in the more developed later accounts, deal with Ānanda as the unsullied intermediary who passes on the legitimate teaching of the Buddha. On the other hand, archaeologist Louis Finot, Indologist E. E. Obermiller and to some extent Indologist Nalinaksha Dutt thought the account of the First Council was authentic, because of the correspondences between the Pāli texts and the Sanskrit traditions. Indologist Richard Gombrich, following Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali's arguments, states that "it makes good sense to believe ... that large parts of the Pali Canon do preserve for us the Buddha-vacana, 'the Buddha's words', transmitted to us via his disciple Ānanda and the First Council".

Role and character
Ānanda was recognized as one of the most important disciples of the Buddha. In the lists of the disciples given in the Aṅguttara Nikāya and Saṃyutta Nikāya, each of the disciples is declared to be foremost in some quality. Ānanda is mentioned more often than any other disciple: he is named foremost in conduct, in attention to others, in power of memory, in erudition and in resoluteness. Ānanda was the subject of a sermon of praise delivered by the Buddha just before the Buddha's death, as described in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta: it is a sermon about a man who is kindly, unselfish, popular, and thoughtful toward others. In the texts he is depicted as compassionate in his relations with lay people, a compassion he learnt from the Buddha. The Buddha relays that both monastics and lay people were pleased to see Ānanda, and were pleased to hear him recite and teach the Buddha's teaching. Moreover, Ānanda was known for his organizational skills, assisting the Buddha with secretary-like duties. In many ways, Ānanda did not only serve the personal needs of the Buddha, but also the needs of the still young, growing institute of the saṅgha.

Moreover, because of his ability to remember the many teachings of the Buddha, he is described as foremost in "having heard much" (bahussuta, Sanskrit:, ). Ānanda was known for his exceptional memory, which is essential in helping him to remember the Buddha's teachings. He also taught other disciples to memorize Buddhist doctrine. For these reasons, Ānanda became known as the "Treasurer of the Dhamma" (Dhamma-bhaṇḍāgārika, Sanskrit: ), Dhamma (Sanskrit: ) referring to the doctrine of the Buddha. Being the person who had accompanied the Buddha throughout a great part of his life, Ānanda was in many ways the living memory of the Buddha, without which the saṅgha would be much worse off. Besides his memory skills, Ānanda also stood out in that, as the Buddha's cousin, he dared to ask the Buddha direct questions. For example, after the death of Mahāvira and the depicted subsequent conflicts among the Jain community, Ānanda asked the Buddha how such problems could be prevented after the Buddha's death. However, Findly argues that Ānanda's duty to memorize the Buddha's teachings accurately and without distortion, was "both a gift and a burden". Ānanda was able to remember many discourses verbatim, but this also went hand-in-hand with a habit of not reflecting on those teachings, being afraid that reflection might distort the teachings as he heard them. At multiple occasions, Ānanda was warned by other disciples that he should spend less time on conversing to lay people, and more time on his own practice. Even though Ānanda regularly practiced meditation for long hours, he was less experienced in meditative concentration than other leading disciples. Thus, judgment of Ānanda's character depends on whether one judges his accomplishments as a monk or his accomplishments as an attendant, and person memorizing the discourses. From a literary and didactic point of view, Ānanda often functioned as a kind of foil in the texts, being an unenlightened disciple attending to an enlightened Buddha. Because the run-of the-mill person could identify with Ānanda, the Buddha could through Ānanda convey his teachings to the mass easily. Ānanda's character was in many ways a contradiction to that of the Buddha: being unenlightened and someone who made mistakes. At the same time, however, he was completely devoted to service to the Buddha. The Buddha is depicted in the early texts as both a father and a teacher to Ānanda, stern but compassionate. Ānanda was very fond of and attached to the Buddha, willing to give his life for him. He mourned the deaths of both the Buddha and Sāriputta, with whom he enjoyed a close friendship: in both cases Ānanda was very shocked. Ānanda's faith in the Buddha, however, constituted more of a faith in a person, especially the Buddha's person, as opposed to faith in the Buddha's teaching. This is a pattern which comes back in the accounts which lead to the offenses Ānanda was charged with during the First Council. Moreover, Ānanda's weaknesses described in the texts were that he was sometimes slow-witted and lacked mindfulness, which became noticeable because of his role as attendant to the Buddha: this involved minor matters like deportment, but also more important matters, such as ordaining a man with no future as a pupil, or disturbing the Buddha at the wrong time. For example, one time Mahākassapa chastised Ānanda in strong words, criticizing the fact that Ānanda was travelling with a large following of young monks who appeared untrained and who had built up a bad reputation. In another episode described in a Sarvāstivāda text, Ānanda is the only disciple who was willing to teach psychic powers to Devadatta, who later would use these in an attempt to destroy the Buddha. According to a Mahīśāsaka text, however, when Devadatta had turned against the Buddha, Ānanda was not persuaded by him, and voted against him in a formal meeting. Ānanda's late spiritual growth is much discussed in Buddhist texts, and the general conclusion is that Ānanda was slower than other disciples due to his worldly attachments and his attachment to the person of the Buddha, both of which were rooted in his mediating work between the Buddha and the lay communities.

Passing on the teaching
After the Buddha's death, some sources say Ānanda stayed mostly in the West of India, in the area of Kosambī (Kausambī), where he taught most of his pupils. Other sources say he stayed in the monastery at Veḷuvana (Veṇuvana). Several pupils of Ānanda became well-known in their own right. According to post-canonical Sanskrit sources such as the Divyavadāna and the Aśokavadāna, before the Buddha's death, the Buddha confided to Ānanda that the latter's student Majjhantika (Madhyāntika) would travel to Udyāna, Kashmir, to bring the teaching of the Buddha there. Mahākassapa made a prediction that later would come true that another of Ānanda's future pupils, Sāṇavāsī (Śāṇakavāsī, Śāṇakavāsin or Śāṇāvasika), would make many gifts to the saṅgha at Mathurā, during a feast held from profits of successful business. After this event, Ānanda would successfully persuade Sāṇavāsī to become ordained and be his pupil. Ānanda later persuaded Sāṇavāsī by pointing out that the latter had now made many material gifts, but had not given "the gift of the Dhamma". When asked for explanation, Ānanda replied that Sāṇavāsī would give the gift of Dhamma by becoming ordained as a monk, which was reason enough for Sāṇavāsī to make the decision to get ordained.

Death and relics

Though no Early Buddhist Text provides a date for Ānanda's death, according to the Chinese pilgrim monk Faxian (337–422 CE), Ānanda went on to live 120 years. Following the later timeline, however, Ānanda may have lived to 75–85 years. Buddhist studies scholar L. S. Cousins dated Ānanda's death twenty years after the Buddha's.

Ānanda was teaching till the end of his life. According to Mūlasarvāstivāda sources, Ānanda heard a young monk recite a verse incorrectly, and advised him. When the monk reported this to his teacher, the latter objected that "Ānanda has grown old and his memory is impaired ..." This prompted Ānanda to attain final Nirvana. He passed on the "custody of the [Buddha's] doctrine" to his pupil Sāṇavāsī and left for the river Ganges. However, according to Pāli sources, when Ānanda was about to die, he decided to spend his final moments in Vesālī instead, and traveled to the river Rohīni. The Mūlasarvāstivāda version expands and says that before reaching the river, he met with a seer called Majjhantika (following the prediction earlier) and five hundred of his followers, who converted to Buddhism. Some sources add that Ānanda passed the Buddha's message on to him. When Ānanda was crossing the river, he was followed by King Ajātasattu (Ajātaśatrū), who wanted to witness his death and was interested in his remains as relics. Ānanda had once promised Ajāsattu that he would let him know when he would die, and accordingly, Ānanda had informed him. On the other side of the river, however, a group of Licchavis from Vesālī awaited him for the same reason. In the Pāli, there were also two parties interested, but the two parties were the Sākiyan and the Koliyan clans instead. Ānanda realized that his death on either side of the river could anger one of the parties involved. Through a supernatural accomplishment, he therefore surged into the air to levitate and meditate in mid-air, making his body go up in fire, with his relics landing on both banks of the river, or in some versions of the account, splitting in four parts. In this way, Ānanda had pleased all the parties involved. In some other versions of the account, including the Mūlasarvāstivāda version, his death took place on a barge in the middle of the river, however, instead of in mid-air. The remains were divided in two, following the wishes of Ānanda.

Majjhantika later successfully carried out the mission following the Buddha's prediction. The latter's pupil Upagupta was described to be the teacher of King Aśoka (3rd century BCE). Together with four or five other pupils of Ānanda, Sāṇavāsī and Majjhantika formed the majority of the Second Council, with Majjhantika being Ānanda's last pupil. Post-canonical Pāli sources add that Sāṇavāsī had a leading role in the Third Buddhist Council as well. Although little is historically certain, Cousins thought it likely at least one of the leading figures on the Second Council was a pupil of Ānanda, as nearly all the textual traditions mention a connection with Ānanda.

Ajāsattu is said to have built a stūpa on top of the Ānanda's relics, at the river Rohīni, or according to some sources, the Ganges; the Licchavis had also built a stūpa at their side of the river. The Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang (602–64 CE) later visited stūpas on both sides of the river Rohīni. Faxian also reported having visited stūpas dedicated to Ānanda at the river Rohīni, but also in Mathurā. Moreover, according to the Mūlasarvāstivāda version of the Saṃyukta Āgama, King Aśoka visited and made the most lavish offerings he ever made to a stūpa: He explained to his ministers that he did this because "[t]he body of the Tathāgata is the body of dharma(s), pure in nature. He [Ānanda] was able to retain it/them all; for this reason the offerings [to him] surpass [all others]"—body of dharma here referred to the Buddha's teachings as a whole.

In Early Buddhist Texts, Ānanda had reached final Nirvana and would no longer be reborn. But, in contrast with the early texts, according to the Mahāyāna Lotus Sūtra, Ānanda would be born as a Buddha in the future. He would accomplish this slower than the present Buddha, Gotama Buddha, had accomplished this, because Ānanda aspired to becoming a Buddha by applying "great learning". Because of this long trajectory and great efforts, however, his enlightenment would be extraordinary and with great splendor.

Legacy
Ānanda is depicted as an eloquent speaker, who often taught about the self and about meditation. There are numerous Buddhist texts attributed to Ānanda, including the Atthakanāgara Sutta, about meditation methods to attain Nirvana; a version of the Bhaddekaratta Sutta (Bhadrakārātrī, ), about living in the present moment; the Sekha Sutta, about the higher training of a disciple of the Buddha; the Subha Suttanta, about the practices the Buddha inspired others to follow. In the Gopaka-Mogallānasutta, a conversation took place between Ānanda, the brahmin Gopaka-Mogallāna and the minister Vassakara, the latter being the highest official of the Magadha region. During this conversation, which occurred shortly after the Buddha's death, Vassakara asked whether it was decided yet who would succeed the Buddha. Ānanda replied that no such successor had been appointed, but that the Buddhist community took the Buddha's teaching and discipline as a refuge instead. Furthermore, the saṅgha did not have the Buddha as a master anymore, but they would honor those monks who were virtuous and trustworthy. Besides these suttas, a section of the Theragāthā is attributed to Ānanda. Even in the texts attributed to the Buddha himself, Ānanda is sometimes depicted giving a name to a particular text, or suggesting a simile to the Buddha to use in his teachings.

In East Asian Buddhism, Ānanda is considered one of the ten principal disciples. In many Indian Sanskrit and East Asian texts, Ānanda is considered the second patriarch of the lineage which transmitted the teaching of the Buddha, with Mahākassapa being the first and Majjhantika or Saṇavāsī being the third. There is an account dating back from the Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda textual traditions which states that before Mahākassapa died, he bestowed the Buddha's teaching on Ānanda as a formal passing on of authority, telling Ānanda to pass the teaching on to Ānanda's pupil Saṇavāsī. Later, just before Ānanda died, he did as Mahākassapa had told him to. Buddhist studies scholars Akira Hirakawa and Bibhuti Baruah have expressed skepticism about the teacher–student relationship between Mahākassapa and Ānanda, arguing that there was discord between the two, as indicated in the early texts. Regardless, it is clear from the texts that a relationship of transmission of teachings is meant, as opposed to an upajjhāya–student relationship in a lineage of ordination: no source indicates Mahākassapa was Ānanda's upajjhāya. In Mahāyāna iconography, Ānanda is often depicted flanking the Buddha at the right side, together with Mahākassapa at the left. In Theravāda iconography, however, Ānanda is usually not depicted in this manner, and the motif of transmission of the Dhamma through a list of patriarchs is not found in Pāli sources.

Because Ānanda was instrumental in founding the bhikkhunī community, he has been honored by bhikkhunīs for this throughout Buddhist history. The earliest traces of this can be found in the writings of Faxian and Xuan Zang, who reported that bhikkhunīs made offerings to a stūpa in Ānanda's honor during celebrations and observance days. On a similar note, in 5th–6th-century China and 10th-century Japan, Buddhist texts were composed recommending women to uphold the semi-monastic eight precepts in honor and gratitude of Ānanda. In Japan, this was done through the format of a penance ritual called keka (悔過). By the 13th century, in Japan a cult-like interest for Ānanda had developed in a number of convents, in which images and stūpas were used and ceremonies were held in his honor. Presently, opinion among scholars is divided as to whether Ānanda's cult among bhikkhunīs was an expression of their dependence on male monastic tradition, or the opposite, an expression of their legitimacy and independence.

Pāli Vinaya texts attribute the design of the Buddhist monk's robe to Ānanda. As Buddhism prospered, more laypeople started to donate expensive cloth for robes, which put the monks at risk for theft. To decrease its commercial value, monks therefore cut up the cloth offered, before they sew a robe from it. The Buddha asked Ānanda to think of a model for a Buddhist robe, made from small pieces of cloth. Ānanda designed a standard robe model, based on the rice fields of Magadha, which were divided in sections by banks of earth. Another tradition that is connected to Ānanda is paritta recitation. Theravāda Buddhists explain that the custom of sprinkling water during paritta chanting originates in Ānanda's visit to Vesālī, when he recited the Ratana Sutta and sprinkled water from his alms bowl. A third tradition sometimes attributed to Ānanda is the use of Bodhi trees in Buddhism. It is described in the text Kāliṅgabodhi Jātaka that Ānanda planted a Bodhi tree as a symbol of the Buddha's enlightenment, to give people the chance to pay their respects to the Buddha. This tree and shrine came to be known as the Ānanda Bodhi Tree, said to have grown from a seed from the original Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha is depicted to have attained enlightenment. Many of this type of Bodhi Tree shrines in Southeast Asia were erected following this example. Presently, the Ānanda Bodhi Tree is sometimes identified with a tree at the ruins of Jetavana, Sāvatthi, based on the records of Faxian.

In art
Between 1856 and 1858 Richard Wagner wrote a draft for an opera libretto based on the legend about Ānanda and the low-caste girl Prakṛti. He left only a fragmentary prose sketch of a work to be called Die Sieger, but the topic inspired his later opera Parsifal. Furthermore, the draft was used by composer Jonathan Harvey in his 2007 opera Wagner Dream. In Wagner's version of the legend, which he based on orientalist Eugène Burnouf's translations, the magical spell of Prakṛti's mother does not work on Ānanda, and Prakṛti turns to the Buddha to explain her desires for Ānanda. The Buddha replies that a union between Prakṛti and Ānanda is possible, but Prakṛti must agree to the Buddha's conditions. Prakṛti agrees, and it is revealed that the Buddha means something else than she does: he asks Prakṛti to ordain as a bhikkhunī, and live the celibate life as a kind of sister to Ānanda. At first, Prakṛti weeps in dismay, but after the Buddha explains that her current situation is a result of karma from her previous life, she understands and rejoices in the life of a bhikkhunī. Apart from the spiritual themes, Wagner also addresses the faults of the caste system by having the Buddha criticize it.

Drawing from Schopenhauer's philosophy, Wagner contrasts desire-driven salvation and true spiritual salvation: by seeking deliverance through the person she loves, Prakṛti only affirms her will to live (Wille zum Leben), which is blocking her from attaining deliverance. By being ordained as a bhikkhunī she strives for her spiritual salvation instead. Thus, the early Buddhist account of Mahāpajāpati's ordination is replaced by that of Prakṛti. According to Wagner, by allowing Prakṛti to become ordained, the Buddha also completes his own aim in life: "[H]e regards his existence in the world, whose aim was to benefit all beings, as completed, since he had become able to offer deliverance—without mediation—also to woman."

The same legend of Ānanda and Prakṛti was made into a short prose play by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, called Chandalika. Chandalika deals with the themes of spiritual conflict, caste and social equality, and contains a strong critique of Indian society. Just like in the traditional account, Prakṛti falls in love with Ānanda, after he gives her self-esteem by accepting a gift of water from her. Prakṛti's mother casts a spell to enchant Ānanda. In Tagore's play, however, Prakṛti later regrets what she has done and has the spell revoked.

title: Ānanda


text:
Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras (Ἀναξαγόρας, Anaxagóras, "lord of the assembly"; c. 500 – c.  428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, Anaxagoras came to Athens. In later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus.

Responding to the claims of Parmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras introduced the concept of Nous (Cosmic Mind) as an ordering force. He also gave several novel scientific accounts of natural phenomena, including the notion of panspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere. He deduced a correct explanation for eclipses and described the Sun as a fiery mass larger than the Peloponnese, and also attempted to explain rainbows and meteors.

Biography
Anaxagoras was born in the town of Clazomenae in the early 5th century BCE, where he may have been born into an aristocratic family. He arrived at Athens, either shortly after the Persian war (in which he may have fought on the Persian side), or at some point when he was a bit older, around 456 BCE. While at Athens, he became close with the Athenian statesman Pericles. According to Diogenes, Laërtius and Plutarch, in later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus; the charges may have been political, owing to his association with Pericles, if they were not fabricated by later ancient biographers. According to Laërtius, Pericles spoke in defense of Anaxagoras at his trial, c. 450. Even so, Anaxagoras was forced to retire from Athens to Lampsacus in Troad (c. 434 – 433). He died there around the year 428. Citizens of Lampsacus erected an altar to Mind and Truth in his memory and observed the anniversary of his death for many years. They placed over his grave the following inscription:" Here Anaxagoras, who in his quest of truth scaled heaven itself, is laid to rest."

Philosophy
Responding to the claims of Parmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras described the world as a mixture of primary imperishable ingredients, where material variation was never caused by an absolute presence of a particular ingredient, but rather by its relative preponderance over the other ingredients; in his words, "each one is... most manifestly those things of which there are the most in it". He introduced the concept of nous (cosmic mind) as an ordering force, which moved and separated the original mixture, which was homogeneous or nearly so.

Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry from Ionia to Athens. According to Anaxagoras, all things have existed in some way from the beginning, but originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined throughout the universe. All things existed in this mass but in a confused and indistinguishable form. There was an infinite number of homogeneous parts (ὁμοιομερῆ) as well as heterogeneous ones.

The work of arrangement, the segregation of like from unlike, and the summation of the whole into totals of the same name, was the work of Mind or Reason (νοῦς). Mind is no less unlimited than the chaotic mass, but it stood pure and independent, a thing of finer texture, alike in all its manifestations and everywhere the same. This subtle agent, possessed of all knowledge and power, is especially seen ruling all life forms. Its first appearance, and the only manifestation of it which Anaxagoras describes, is Motion. It gave distinctness and reality to the aggregates of like parts.

Decrease and growth represent a new aggregation (σὐγκρισις) and disruption (διάκρισις). However, the original intermixture of things is never wholly overcome. Each thing contains parts of other things or heterogeneous elements, and is what it is only on account of the preponderance of certain homogeneous parts which constitute its character. Out of this process arise the things we see in this world.

Astronomy
Plutarch says "Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall to earth."

His observations of the celestial bodies and the fall of meteorites led him to form new theories of the universal order, and to the prediction of the impact of meteorites. According to Pliny, he was credited with predicting the fall of the meteorite in 467. He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the Sun is a mass of red-hot metal, that the Moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones. He thought that the Earth was flat and floated supported by 'strong' air under it, and that disturbances in this air sometimes caused earthquakes. He introduced the notion of panspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere.

He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows, and the Sun, which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the Peloponnese; he also said that the Moon had mountains, and he believed that it was inhabited. The heavenly bodies, he asserted, were masses of stone torn from the Earth and ignited by rapid rotation. His theories about eclipses, the Sun, and Moon may well have been based on observations of the eclipse of 463 BCE, which was visible in Greece.

Anaxagoras was one of the first to assert that the moon reflected sunlight and did not produce light by itself; a statement translated as “the sun induces the moon with brightness” was found in his writings.

Mathematics
According to Plutarch in his work On exile, Anaxagoras is the first Greek to attempt the problem of squaring the circle, a problem he worked on while in prison.

Legacy
Anaxagoras wrote a book of philosophy, but only fragments of the first part of this have survived, through preservation in the work of Simplicius of Cilicia in the 6th century AD.

Anaxagoras' book was reportedly available for a drachma in the Athenian marketplace. It was certainly known to Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, based on the contents of their surviving plays, and possibly to Aeschylus as well, based on the testimony of Seneca. However, although Anaxagoras almost certainly lived in Athens during the lifetime of Socrates (born 470 BCE), there is no evidence that they ever met. In the Phaedo, Plato portrays Socrates saying of Anaxagoras as a young man: 'I eagerly acquired his books and read them as quickly as I could'. However, Socrates goes on to describe his later disillusionment with his philosophy. Anaxagoras is also mentioned by Socrates during his trial in Plato's Apology.

He is also mentioned in Seneca's Natural Questions (Book 4B, originally Book 3: On Clouds, Hail, Snow). It reads: "Why should I too allow myself the same liberty as Anaxagoras allowed himself?"

The Roman author Valerius Maximus preserves a different tradition; Anaxagoras, coming home from a long voyage, found his property in ruin, and said: "If this had not perished, I would have"—a sentence described by Valerius as being "possessed of sought-after wisdom".

Dante Alighieri places Anaxagoras in the First Circle of Hell (Limbo) in his Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto IV, line 137).

Chapter 5 in Book II of De Docta Ignorantia (1440) by Nicholas of Cusa is dedicated to the truth of the sentence "Each thing is in each thing" which he attributes to Anaxagoras.

Anaxagoras appears as a character in the second Act of Faust, Part II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Friedrich Nietzsche also frequently mentions Anaxagoras in the later chapters of his book entitled Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. He speaks fondly of Anaxagoras's nous, and defends the idea by claiming philosophers had "failed to recognize the meaning of Anaxagoras' [nous]..." and believed that it was "perfectly sufficient for his in·sight to have found a motion which is capable of creating visible order in a thoroughly mixed chaos, by means of a simple continuous action." Nietzsche believes it is essential to understand Anaxagoras's nous as a sort of act of free will, not determined by any previous action before.

Ancient testimony
In the Diels-Kranz numbering for testimony and fragments of Pre-Socratic philosophy, Anaxagoras is catalogued as number 59.

The most recent edition of this catalogue is

Biography

 * A1.
 * A3.
 * A5.
 * A12.
 * A13.
 * A15.
 * A16.
 * A17.
 * A18.

Fragments

 * B1.
 * B2.
 * B3.
 * B4.
 * B5.
 * B6.
 * B7.
 * B8.
 * B9.
 * B10.
 * B11.
 * B12.
 * B13.
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 * B15.
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 * B21.
 * B21a.
 * B21b.

Translations of the fragments

 * Sider, David (ed.), The Fragments of Anaxagoras, with introduction, text, and commentary, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2005.
 * Kirk G. S.; Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. (1983) The Presocratic Philosophers: a critical history with a selection of texts (2nd ed.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-25444-2; originally authored by Kirk and Raven and published in 1957
 * Sider, David (ed.), The Fragments of Anaxagoras, with introduction, text, and commentary, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2005.
 * Kirk G. S.; Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. (1983) The Presocratic Philosophers: a critical history with a selection of texts (2nd ed.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-25444-2; originally authored by Kirk and Raven and published in 1957
 * Sider, David (ed.), The Fragments of Anaxagoras, with introduction, text, and commentary, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2005.
 * Kirk G. S.; Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. (1983) The Presocratic Philosophers: a critical history with a selection of texts (2nd ed.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-25444-2; originally authored by Kirk and Raven and published in 1957
 * Sider, David (ed.), The Fragments of Anaxagoras, with introduction, text, and commentary, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2005.
 * Kirk G. S.; Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. (1983) The Presocratic Philosophers: a critical history with a selection of texts (2nd ed.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-25444-2; originally authored by Kirk and Raven and published in 1957

title: Anaxagoras


text:
Anaxarchus

Anaxarchus (Ἀνάξαρχος; c. 380 – c. 320 BC) was a Greek philosopher of the school of Democritus. Together with Pyrrho, he accompanied Alexander the Great into Asia. The reports of his philosophical views suggest that he was a forerunner of the Greek skeptics.

Life
Anaxarchus was born at Abdera in Thrace. He was the companion and friend of Alexander the Great in his Asiatic campaigns. His relationship with Alexander, however, was ambiguous, owing to contradictory sources. Some paint Anarxchus as a flatterer, among them Plutarch, who tells a story that at Bactra, in 327 BC in a debate with Callisthenes, Anaxarchus advised all to worship Alexander as a god even during his lifetime. In contrast, others paint Anaxarchus as scathingly ironic towards the monarch. According to Diogenes Laertius, in response to Alexander's claim to have been the son of Zeus-Ammon, Anaxarchus pointed to his bleeding wound and remarked, "See the blood of a mortal, not ichor, such as flows from the veins of the immortal gods."

When Alexander was trying to show that he was divine so that the Greeks and Macedonians would perform proskynesis to him, Anaxarchus said that Alexander could "more justly be considered a god than Dionysus or Heracles" (Arrian, 104)

Diogenes Laertius says that Anaxarchus earned the enmity of Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, with an inappropriate joke against tyrants in a banquet in Tyre in 331 BC. Later, when Anaxarchus was forced to land in Cyprus against his will, Nicocreon ordered him to be pounded to death in a mortar. The philosopher endured this torture with fortitude, taunting the king with, "just pound the bag of Anaxarchus, you do not pound Anaxarchus". When Nicocreon threatened to cut out his tongue, Anaxarchus himself bit it out and spat it in his face.

Philosophy
Very little is known about his philosophical views. It is thought that he represents a link between the atomism of Democritus, and the skepticism of his own apprentice Pyrrho. He also shares ethical traits with the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools.

Anaxarchus is said to have studied under Diogenes of Smyrna, who in turn studied under Metrodorus of Chios, who used to declare that he knew nothing, not even the fact that he knew nothing. According to Sextus Empiricus, Anaxarchus "compared existing things to a scene-painting and supposed them to resemble the impressions experienced in sleep or madness." It was under the influence of Anaxarchus that Pyrrho is said to have adopted "a most noble philosophy, . . . taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgement." Anaxarchus is said to have praised Pyrrho's "indifference and sang-froid." He is said to have possessed "fortitude and contentment in life," which earned him the epithet eudaimonikos ("fortunate").

His skepticism seems to have been pragmatical, postulating that against the uncertainty of existence, the only viable stance is to pursue happiness or eudaimonia, for which it is necessary to cultivate indifference or adiaphora. According to him, the effort to differentiate truth from falseness through the senses is both useless and detrimental to happiness.

He wrote a work named About the Monarchs. In it, he spouses that knowledge is useless without the ability to know when to speak and what to say in every occasion.

Plutarch reports that he told Alexander the Great that there was an infinite number of worlds, causing the latter to become dejected because he had not yet conquered even one.

title: Anaxarchus