Buddhism and Gnosticism

Buddhologist Edward Conze (1966) has proposed that similarities existed between Buddhism and Gnosticism, a term deriving from the name "Gnostics" given to a number of Christian sects.

Edward Conze noted phenomenological commonalities between Mahayana Buddhism and Gnosticism, in his paper Buddhism and Gnosis, following an early suggestion by Isaac Jacob Schmidt. Conze explicitly compared Mahayana Buddhism with "gnosis," that is, knowledge or insight, and not with "the Gnostics," because too little was known about the Gnostics as a social group. Based on Conze's eight similarities, Hoeller gives the following list of similarities:

According to Conze, these commonalities were not by chance, but inherent to the essence of both religions. How these similarities came into existence was unclear for Conze, but according to Verardi they may be related to the sea trade between the Roman Empire and India, which was intense at the time. Verardi further notes the similarities between the social-economic base of both Gnosticism and Buddhism, namely merchants, which both had to compete with the "great organised powers," of Rome and the Christian Church, and of the Brahmans. Both communities represented "an open economy and society lacking the defenses (and the vexations) of nomos," the law and institutions of the establishment.

Conze's suggestions were noted by Elaine Pagels as a "possibility," in the introduction to The Gnostic Gospels, but Pagels' suggestion has not gained academic acceptance or generated significant further study.

According to Giuseppe Tucci, Manicheism may have influenced Tantric Buddhism, while Mircea Eliade noted similarities in the symbolism of light and mystic knowledge, predating Manicheism, and possibly going back to an early common Indo-Iranian source. Verardi notes that Manicheism is the prime source for comparisons between Buddhism and Gnosticism, Manicheism representing "the same urban and mercantile ambience of which Buddhism was an expression in India." When the mercantile economy declined, with the decline of the Roman empire, Manicheism lost its support. The Manicheists were hostile to the closed society of farming and landownership, just like the Buddhism conflicted with the "non-urban world controlled by Brahman laymen."

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