India is incredible land of Yogis. India is incredible because in this land there have been Yogis who can perform at their will incredulous or miraculous acts. Such acts look miraculous to us because they defy our reason and can’t be explained by science.
But how are such acts performed by Yogis? Major part of this website is devoted to explain how Yogis acquire the ability to perform such “miraculous” acts. You may have a look at it to understand how infinite and complex this universe is not only in its size but also in its kind (dimensions or planes). We humans are not alone here; there are many things that are mystery to our mind.
Let’s record with authentic sources such “miraculous” acts of Yogis. We commence with Yogi Kalyan who lived in 326 BC and was called by the Greeks ‘Kalanus’. He foretold Alexander the Great of his coming death soon in Babylon and promised to meet him then. Alexander’s generals were bewildered of the Kalanos’ power of prophacy when Alexander died after 6 months in Babylon.
Plutarch (45 AD) in his ‘Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans – the Life of Alexander’ relates about an incident where Alexander’s soldiers had an encounter with Indian Yogis and got an experience that was bizarre to their mind.
“This Yogi Calanus used to greet everybody, who came to see him, by saying ‘Kalyan Bhav’ or God save you, that is, be you God protected, and Greeks referred him by the name of Kalanus.”
J.W. McCrindle in the Biographical Appendix to his ‘Ancient India as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch and Justin’ relates in connection with one Kalanos, an Indian Yogi, very interesting things. He takes notice of all the available ancient Greek sources about Indian Yogis called by Greeks “gymnosophists’ and particularly about one called ‘Kalanos’ and writes about them thus:
“Kalanos was a gymnosophist of Taxila (a region of ancient India), who left India with Alexander, and burned himself alive on a funeral pile at Sousa. His real name, Plutarch says, was Sphines; but the Greeks called him Kalanos, because, in saluting those who met, he used the word kale! Equivalent to hail! The Sanskrit adjective ‘kalyana’ means salutary, lucky, well, etc. If we except Sandrokottos, Taxiles and Poros, there is no other Indian with whose history, opinions and personal characteristics the classical writers have made us so well acquainted as with those of Kalanos. … I shall here present translations of all the passages I can find which relate to him, and to another gymnosophist who was a man of a very different stamp called Mandanes, and sometimes, but improperly, Dandamis”.
Arrian (in VII.i.5-iii) has thus written about Yogi Kalanos (or Kalyana): “When Kalanos was in the country of Persia he fell into delicate health, though he had never before had an illness. Accordingly, as he had no wish to lead the life of an invalid, he thought it best to put an end to him before he had experience of any malady that would oblige him to change his former mode of life.
“Alexander long and earnestly opposed his request; but when he saw that he was quite inflexible, and that one mode of death was denied to him he would find another, he ordered a funeral pyre to be piled up in accordance with the man’s own directions, and ordered Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, one of the bodyguards, to superintend all the arrangements.
‘’Some say that a solemn procession of horses and men advanced before him, some of the men being armed, while others carried all kinds incense for the pyre. Others again say that they carried gold and silver bowls and royal apparel; also that a horse was provided for him because he was unable to walk from illness. He was, however, unable to mount the horse, and he was therefore carried on a litter crowned with a garland, after the manner of the Indians, and singing in the Indian tongue.
“The Indians say that what he sang were hymns to the gods and the praises of his countrymen, and that the horse which he was to have mounted – a Nesian steed of the royal stud – he presented to Lysimachos who attended him for instruction in philosophy. On others who attended him he bestowed the bowls and rugs which Alexander, to honor him, had ordered to be cast into the pyre.
“Then mounting the pile, he laid down upon it in a becoming manner in full view of the whole army. Alexander deemed the spectacle one which he could not with propriety witness, because the man to suffer was his friend; but to those who were present Kalanos caused astonishment in that he did not move any part of his body in the fire.
‘’As soon as the man charged with the duty, set fire to the pile, and the whole army raised the war-shout as if advancing to battle. The elephants also swelled the noise with their shrill and warlike cry to do honor to Kalanos.”
In a subsequent chapter (xviii) Arrian records the following story of Kalanos: “When he was going to the funeral pyre to die, he embraced all his other companions, but did not wish to draw near to Alexander to give him a parting embrace, saying he would meet him at Babylon and would there embrace him. This remark attracted no notice at the time; but afterwards, when Alexander died in Babylon, it came back to the memory of those who heard it, which then naturally took it to have been a prophecy of his death.”
McCrindle further remarks: “Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander, has another notice of Kalanos besides that which the reader will find translated in chapter 65. In chapter 69 he thus writes: “It was here (in Persepolis) that Kalanos, on being for a short time afflicted with colic, desired to have his funeral pile erected. He was conveyed to it on horseback, and after he had prayed and sprinkled himself with a libation and cut off part of his hair to cast into the fire, he ascended the pile, after taking leave of the Macedonians, and recommending them to devote that day to pleasure and hard-drinking with the king’s, whom, said he, I shall shortly see in Babylon. Upon this he lay down on the pyre and covered himself with his robes. When the flames approached he did not move, but remained in the same posture as when he lay down until the sacrifice was auspiciously consummated, according to the custom of the sages of his country. Many years afterwards another Indian in the presence of Caesar (Augustus) at Athens did the same thing. His tomb is shown till this day, and is called the Indian’s tomb. … Alexander, on returning from the pyre, invited many of his friends and his generals to supper, where he proposed a drinking bout, with a crown for the prize. Promachos, who drank most, reached four measures (14 quarts), and won the crown, which was worth a talent, but survived only for three days. The rest of the guests, Chares says, drank to such excess that forty-one of them died, the weather having turned excessively cold immediately after the debauch.”