Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buddhism and the Roman world

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. No consensus. This is clearly not going to end up as delete, and since that's the primary purpose of AfD, I don't see any point in relisting this. Whether this is kept as is, or moved to a different title, or merged somewhere, are all things that can get worked out on the article talk page. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:53, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Buddhism and the Roman world

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Per WP:GNG. I came across this article by chance. I believe the article does not belong in Wikipedia, because it is a collection of vague relations and coincidences, many of which are unsourced. No substantial relation between the Roman Empire and Buddhism is described. Whatever relation there is between Buddhism and the ancient European civilizations, has been sufficiently covered by the article Greco-Buddhism. This article does not add anything useful to that, though. I couldn't find any substantial coverage of the subject on Google Scholar either. There appears to be no relation at all between the Roman empire and Buddhism, or at least, not that scholars know of. Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 22:06, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This should be merged into Greco-Buddhism, then. As such it is relevant as the impact of Greco-Buddhism.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 22:27, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 02:50, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Buddhism-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 02:50, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merge as per nom. There really is a conspicuous absence of anything Roman in the article, and what is there seems broadly duplicative of (or at best supplementary to) content at Greco-Buddhism. Whether things like, e.g., the quotes in Buddhism_and_the_Roman_world#Western_knowledge_of_Buddhism are worth merging I can't tell. Note that Greco-Buddhism is getting a little large though, so if parts are considered for merging they might better be parceled out to the more specialized articles linked there. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:59, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Greco-Buddhism (which already covers the period). The Hellenistic period (by some definitions) covers the eastern part of the Roman empire up until 330 AD (when we switch over to Byzantines). Icewhiz (talk) 10:19, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: this is a good start-class article that has some nice images (I would never have expected to see a Buddhist statue recovered from Pompeii!) and describes specific contacts between Buddhists and the Roman world. It's definitely not suitable for deletion, although it could stand better organization. Not sure if it would benefit from merging into Greco-Buddhism, because that article covers a slightly different, though related topic, and the contents of this one seem likely to get lost if merged in. If, as has been suggested, Greco-Buddhism is reaching the point where it might benefit from more detailed areas being split off, then perhaps this would be a suitable target for some of that content to be merged into, instead of the other way around. Not sure if the title should be "and the Roman World"; I would have said in. But it's not a terrible title. So I oppose deletion, and support some kind of merger, but possibly with content being merged into this article instead of out of it. P Aculeius (talk) 22:50, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and Oppose Merge. Roman contacts with the Buddhist world is a notable topic on its own. I have seen numerous sources discussing the impact of Buddhist missionaries on the early Christian thought. Greco-Buddhism is a completely separate topic, as that is concerned with the conversion of Greek conquerors and polities in the Northwestern India to Buddhism, and adoption of a Greek style art (such as coinage) in India. Buddhism and the Roman world is more about how much the Eastern and Western thoughts influenced each other, rather than about a birth of a new syncretistic culture. It is true that the scope of the article would need to be better defined. Merging the article to another is not going to help in that regard. Ceosad (talk) 19:43, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"numerous sources discussing the impact of Buddhist missionaries on the early Christian thought" — Where? I was under the impression that Buddhism could not be traced west of Persia in antiquity. Certainly we can assume some Buddhists as traders and envoys entered the Mediterranean world, but I am unaware of any missionaries. Srnec (talk) 00:46, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Buddhist missionaries are known to have been sent to Syria, Macedon and Egypt. The Mauryan Empire tried to expand Buddhism very actively beyond India. Buddhist influences on Christianity is a related article that mentions some of these sources. Ceosad (talk) 06:22, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There's room for tightening in the existing article, but also sources for expansion. that have not been used. Srnec (talk) 00:46, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- I feel that there is a useful scope for all the articles referred to in this discussion. The present one may need improving. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:37, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I am not sure whether the topic of Buddhism and the Roman world is notable or not, but if it is, this article does not tell me about it, and doesn't seem to have much that isn't already in the other articles it links to for further information. Some sections seem to have nothing to do with the Roman world, and even the elements that are related seem only tangentially so - a Buddhist monk self-immolated in Athens sometime between 22 BC and 13 AD; a statuette found in Pompeii probably originated in India, but it's not clear which deity it represents, and nothing certain is known about how it got from India to Italy (direct trade? or traded through multiple interactions?). RebeccaGreen (talk) 09:44, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.