ABSTRACT
While Gnosticism as a subject of interest in the history of Christianity has produced raging debates for the past hundred years, the same cannot be said for the appropriation of gnostic concepts to the study of early Indian religions. Few scholars working on early Hindu and Buddhist texts have attempted to justify use of the term “gnostic” as a descriptor of certain ontological and epistemological concepts central in the two religions, even when they have used it. Yet the word gnostic as an adjective relating to certain experiences and forms of knowledge comes up often. It is likely it has been taken over into Indological writings on the basis of parallel concepts found in writings on “Christianizing Gnosticism,” and if so we are certainly justified in questioning whether gnostic concepts help in understanding early Indian religious materials. Certainly, parallels to what is found in classic Gnostic literature can be sought in Indic texts and practices, even if the contexts behind their development were different from what is found in ancient India.
