Definition of "gymnosophists" [gymnosophists]

• Plural form of gymnosophist. (noun)

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• "Plato and Pythagoras left their country, to see those wise Egyptian priests: Apollonius travelled into Ethiopia, Persia, to consult with the Magi, Brachmanni, gymnosophists."
• "Indian philosophers, called by the Greeks gymnosophists, who went about as naked as apes; to those he proposed ridiculous questions, promising them very seriously that he who gave the worst answers should be hanged the first, and the rest in due order."
• "They seem to be the gymnosophists, or naked philosophers, described by Clitarchos as living in India at the time of the expedition of Alexander, and their history crops out in various accounts -- that of Clement of Alexandria, then of the Chinese Fu-Hian in the fourth and fifth centuries, and of the celebrated Chinese"