16th century European contacts with Hinduism

[Steve Farmer]

Valerie Roebuck writes:

> Yes, what term *would* a 16th century European have used for a contemporary
> Hindu? Giordano Bruno, 'De Magia', c. 1589 (para 1), gives examples of
> Magi: "Trimegisti apud Aegyptios, Druidae apud Gallos, Gymnosophistae apud
> Indos, Cabalistae apud Hebraeos, Magi apud Persas (qui a Zoroastre), Sophi
> apud Graecos, Sapientes apud Latinos".
>
> Was the reference to Gymnosophistae derived from Classical sources, or does
> it imply some more recent contact (e.g. the 1494 visitor to Pico della
> Mirandola's circle in Florence)?

They got their second-hand information about India from Bk 3 of
Herodotus (translated into Latin by Lorenzo Valla in the mid 15th
century), Plutarch, Diogenes Laertes, Eusebius -- a host of classical
sources. This second-hand knowledge is pretty well studied, e.g., in
Jean W. Sedlar, _India and the Greek World: A Study in the
Transmission of Culture_ (1980).