A unique journey through the Buddhist history of Western philosophy.
When Alexander the Great arrived in India with his army, he was accompanied by a Greek philosopher named Pyrrho. Pyrrho became the first European Buddhist. His intellectual legacy has persisted throughout the history of Western philosophy as a challenge to all thought.
In his book Kirje Buddhalta – Länsimaisen filosofian buddhalainen historia (Letter from the Buddha – The Buddhist History of Western Philosophy) Jussi Ahlroth approaches the central ideas of Western philosophy from a Buddhist perspective. Spanning from Socrates to Jacques Derrida, the book is a unique journey through the history of thought and Western philosophy which introduces the reader to Buddhist views on world, mind and what it is to be a human. The result is a significant contribution to the history of encounters between Western culture and Buddhist tradition.
Ahlroth asks what thinking is, and finds an answer in the legacy of Pyrrho — a new yet ancient understanding of death, life, and the space that underlies everything.
Jussi Ahlroth is a non-fiction author, culture journalist and public speaker, who studied philosophy and has practised Vajrayana Buddhism for more than twenty years. He teaches Buddhism is Helsinki.
”A masterpiece.”
– Esa Saarinen, Finland’s most famous philosopher and a longtime public intellectual
“Although the book works well as an introduction to the thoughts of the most famous Western philosophers and although it provides incomparable general education about Buddhism, its greatest merit is the enthusiasm for philosophy that it exudes.”
– A book review by Janne Välimaa in Helsingin Sanomat, a major daily newspaper and the largest subscription-based newspaper in northern Europe
Jussi Ahlroth
Kirje Buddhalta – Länsimaisen filosofian buddhalainen historia
ISBN 978-951-858-811-8 (paperback)
755 pages
Published by SKS Kirjat in 2025