This passage from Peter Brown's "The Rise of Western Christendom" describes cultural exchanges between Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean a few centuries later:
By the year 700 Christian communities were scattered throughout the known world, from Ireland to Central Asia. Archaeologists have discovered fragments of Christian texts which speak of basic Christian activities pursued in the same manner from the Atlantic to the edge of China.
Both in County Antrim, in Northern Ireland, and in Panjikent, east of Samarkand, fragmentary copybooks from around A.D. 700 – wax on wood for Ireland, broken potsherds for Central Asia – contain lines copied from the Psalms of David.
In both milieux, something very similar was happening. Schoolboys, whose native languages were Irish in Antrim and Soghdian in Panjikent, tried to make their own, by this laborious method, the Latin and the Syriac versions, respectively, of what had become a truly international, sacred text – the “Holy Scriptures” of the Christians.
I do not think that there is a direct connection here. There are some vague similarities to some Buddhist doctrins, but that is only very much on the surface. The whole train of thought of Pseudo-Dionysius is Neoplatonic. Pseudo-Dionysius is primarily exploring the limits of theological speech and doctrin with the toolset of "classical" European philosophy and his contemporary theology. Much is just a "Christianed" paraphrase of Proclos.
It's a stretch. But remember that Plotinus only signed up to march against the Sassanids to learn Kushan philosophy better! And their ideas on apophatic theology already show up in the Enneads, eg. in his negative treatment of material beings.
If you're the kind of person who likes reading original sources, you're in luck[1]!
> The surviving writings are four treatises and ten letters. The four treatises are: 1) On the divine names (DN) (Peri theion onomaton, in Greek; De Divinis Nominibus, in Latin), the longest work of thirteen chapters that deals with affirmative or kataphatic theology, namely, the names attributed to God the creator in scripture and also in pagan texts, but also exploring the limits of language and therefore also involving negative or apophatic theology. 2) On the celestial hierarchy (CH) (Peri tes ouranias hierarchias, in Greek; De coelesti hierarchia, in Latin), a work that examines how the nine choirs of angels (in scripture) are to be understood in lifting us up to God. 3) On the ecclesiastical hierarchy (EH) (Peri tes ekklestiastikes hierarchias, in Greek; De ecclesiastica hierarchia, in Latin) that examines the various orders and liturgy of the church as relating us to God through a divinely appointed but human hierarchy. And 4) On Mystical theology (MT) (Peri mustikes theologias, in Greek; De mystica theologia, in Latin), a brief but powerful work that deals with negative or apophatic theology and in which theology becomes explicitly “mystical” for the first time in history (By mystical here we do not mean an extraordinary or private experience of transcending one’s self in the modern sense of the term, but simply “hidden”. On this see Bouyer, 1949; Vanneste, 1959; McGinn 1994). There follow ten letters that provide helpful comments upon topics in the above four treatises, especially letter 9 on what Dionysius calls symbolic theology of which works 2) and 3) above (CH; EH) form a substantial part. The ten letters appear to be arranged in a roughly hierarchical order, letters 1–4 being addressed to a monk (a certain Gaius, also the name of one or more of St. Paul’s companions), letter 5 to a deacon, letter 6 to a priest, and letters 7 and 9 to hierarchs or bishops. Letter 8 disrupts this order since it is addressed to a monk charged with disrupting the hierarchical order itself!
I'd expect the Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast(SHWEP) to cover him at some point in the near future, but the host hasn't quiet reached that point in the timeline yet. When he does, expect a much more digestible source of information.
Also, posterior to Pseudo-Dionysius but very much influenced by him, I'd also recommend to anyone interested in this to also read about Hesychasm:
> Hesychasm is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church in which stillness (hēsychia) is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer.[web 1] While rooted in early Christian monasticism, it took its definitive form in the 14th century at Mount Athos.
Gregory Palamas [2] is the most well-known theologian behind that movement.
Related to today's geo-political events, later on, in the 1700s, hesychasm made its way to some of the most important monasteries in Russia via Northern Moldova and via this Ukrainian monk, Paisius Velichkovsky [3]:
> Saint Paisius Velichkovsky or Wieliczkowski (Paisie de la Neamţ in Romanian; Паисий Величковский in Russian; Паїсій Величковський in Ukrainian; 20 December 1722 – 15 November 1794) was an Eastern Orthodox monk and theologian who helped spread staretsdom or the concept of the spiritual elder to the Slavic world.[2] He is a pivotal figure in Orthodox Church history.
I'm writing a whole thesis right now on the connections between Ancient Indian Philosophy and Psychoanaylsis. It's almost done, maybe I'll post it here for you guys to read.
Yes. Romaka in Sanskrit literature is Egyptian Alexandria not Rome as one might think. It was the major port of trade between East and West during the Graeco-Roman era and an intellectual center thanks to the library. Indian philosophers were known to have been present there. (Though, again, we don’t precisely precisely know if they were Buddhists or some other sect.)
Greco-Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism