Some authors have pointed out similarities between the Therapeutae and early Buddhist monasticism, a tradition that is several centuries older. As described in the 1st century CE text Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Egypt had intense trade and cultural contacts with India during the period which, combined with evidence in the Indian Edicts of Ashoka of Buddhist missionary activity to the Mediterranean around 250 BCE, has led to the hypothesis that Therapeutae might have been a Buddhist sect composed of descendants of Ashoka's emissaries.
