Dandamis (name given to him by the Greeks) was an Indian gymnosophist (naked philosopher) whom Alexander the Great encountered in the woods near Taxila. He seems to have been the leader of an unidentified religious group of naked ascetics who lived in the wilderness, followed a non-violent life and, in some cases, practiced self-immolation by fire. For some reason, the Greeks identified these Indian holy men as philosophers, making a parallelism with the philosophers of their homeland, but…