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The Greeks who, honouring reason and sanity as they did, witnessed, with Alexander Susa, an ascetic's voluntary ascent of a funeral pyre or, with Augustus in 20 b.c. at Athens, a monk's self-immolation in flame, got an impression of craziness mixed with their astonishment. Whether there is a touch of madness in this strange Indian nation, and particularly in its more religious section, is a question in some Western visitors' minds even today.

-- Notebooks Category 15: The Orient > Chapter 1 : Meetings of East and West > # 213