[world-vedic] INDIA AND GREECE

02-12-2000, 10:11 AM

INDIA AND GREECE
BY sushama_l (AT) hotmail (DOT) com
Indian civilization is
distinctive for its antiquity
and continuity. Apart from its own vitality, the continuity of Indian
civilization is largely due to its ability to adapt to alien ideas,
harmonize
contradictions and mould new thought patterns. Her constant contacts
with the
outside world also gave India the opportunity to contribute to other
civilizations. Whilst other ancient civilizations have long ceased to
exist,
Indian civilization has continued to grow despite revolutionary
changes. The
ancient cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia have not survived.
But in
India today, Hindus seek inspiration from concepts similar to those
originally
advanced by their ancestors.
Jawarharlal Nehru says in his book The
Discovery of
India, " Till recently many European thinkers imagined that
everything
that was worthwhile had its origins in Greece or Rome. Sir Henry Maine
has said
somewhere that except the blind forces of nature, nothing moves in this
world
which is not originally Greek."
However, Indian contacts with the Western world date back to
prehistoric times.
Trade relations, preceded by the migration of peoples, inevitably
developed into
cultural relations. This view is not only amply supported by both
philological
and archaeological evidence, but by a vast body of corroborative
literary
evidence as well: Vedic literature and the Jatakas, Jewish chronicles,
and the
accounts of Greek historians all suggest contact between India and the
West.
Taxila was a great center of commerce and learning. " Crowds of
eager
scholars flowed to it for instruction in the three Vedas and in the
eighteen
branches of knowledge." Tradition affirms that the great epic, the
Mahabharata, was first recited in the city." ( An Advance History
of India,
R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Raychanduri p.64) Buddha is reputed to have studied
in
Taxila. Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy owe their origin to Indian
thought
and spirituality.
12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Indian
Thought and the West
mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Dr.
S. Radhakrishnan, has said, "
The
Europeans are apt to imagine that before the great Greek thinkers,
Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle, there was a crude confusion of thought, a sort of
chaos
without form and void. Such a view becomes almost a provincialism when
we
realize that systems of thought which influenced countless millions of
human
beings had been elaborated by people who never heard the names of the
Greek
thinkers."
There has been too much
inclination among Western
writers to idealize the Greeks and their civilization, and they have
tended to
discover too much of the contemporary world in the Greek past. In fact
almost
everything was traced to ancient Greece. In all that concerned
intellectual
activity and even faith, modern civilization was considered to be an
overgrown
colony of Hellas. The obvious Greek failings, their shortcomings and the
unhealthy features of their civilization, was rationalized and
romanticized.
Modern research, however,
has marred
this comforting image and is helping to put Greek culture into its
proper
historical perspective showing that, like any other culture, it
inherited
something from preceding civilizations, profited from the progress of
its
neighboring cultures ( like India and Persia) and, in turn, bequeathed
much to
later generations.
Gods of
heaven
It is significant to note
that
although the Indians and Greeks (Yavanas) had come from the same
Indo-European
stock, they met as strangers in the sixth century B.C. Persian Empire.
Soon,
however, the cousins became associates in a a common cultural
enterprise.
Similarities in language, associated by similarities in religious
beliefs,
indicate that these two peoples must have either been in close contact
at some
early period or have had a common origin, even though neither had any
recollection of those times.
For example, the gods of heaven
(Varuna - Ouranos;
Dyaus - Zeus ) and the dawn (Ushas - Aurora) were common to the Greeks
and
Indians. The most prominent characteristics of the gods of both races
was their
power of regulating the order of nature and banishing evil. The Olympian
religion of the Greeks and Vedic beliefs had a common background. The
Greek
concept of logos was very close to the vedic Vac, which
corresponds to the Latin Vox.
net/veda2.jpg" align="left" hspace="12" vspace="12" width="180" height="185">In a passage of the Rig
Veda, Vac is praised as a divine
being. Vac is
omnipotent, moves amongst divine beings, and carries the great gods,
Mitra,
Varuna, Indra and Agni, within itself. The doctrine of Vac teaches that
"all gods live from Vac, also all demi-gods, animals and people.
Vac is the
eternal being, it is the first-born of the eternal law, mother of the
Vedas and
navel of immortality." Vedic Aryans attached such great importance
to the
spoken word that one who could not correctly pronounce Sanskrit was
called barbar
(meaning stammering).
The Greek barbaroi had the same meaning. There is
also a striking similarity between the social life described in the
Homeric
poems- the Illiad and Odyssey- and that found in the Vedas. Homeric
gods, like
the heroes who believed in them, often rode in the horse driven
chariots. Horse-chariotry
was a feature of the life of the Indo-European people. The Homeric idea
of a
language of the gods is also found in Sanskrit, Greek, Old Norse, and
Hittite
literatures. Some scholars, like
Fiske, have even asserted that
elements of the
Trojan war story are to be found in the war between the bright deities,
and the
night demons as described in the Rig Veda. It is clear from Homer that
even they
used articles of Indian merchandise which were known by names of Indian
origin,
such as Kassiteros (Sanskrit, Kastira), elephas (Sanskrit, ibha), and
ivory.
Indian
Philosophy
By contrast, philosophical
thought in
India in the sixth century B.C. had become quite mature. It had reached
a stage
which could have been arrived at only after long and arduous
philosophical
quest. Jainism and Buddhism, the latter enormously influential in
Indian and
neighboring cultures, had emerged by this time. But even before their
advent,
the philosophical reflections of the early Upanishads
(900-600 B.C.) had set forth the
fundamental
concepts of Hindu thought which have continued to dominate the Indian
mind.
It is perhaps necessary
to point
out that there has often been a wide divergence between Indian and
Western
interpretations of Indian thought. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy once even
declared that a true
account to Hinduism may be given in a categorical denial of most of the
interpretation that have been made by Westerners or Western-trained
Indians.
net/upanishads5.jpg" align="left" hspace="12" vspace="12" width="286"
height="133">The tradition of Indian philosophic
thought is as complex as it is long. The complexities of Indian
philosophy have
arisen through centuries of deep reflection on the many aspects of human
experience, and, in the search for some reality behind the external
world,
various methods have been restored to ranging from experimental to the
purely
speculative. It is the oldest philosophical tradition in the world is
to be
traced in the ancient Vedas. Although the religious and philosophical
spirit of
India emerges distinctly in the Rig Veda, the Upanishads are its most
brilliant
exposition, for the Vedic civilization was naturalistic and utilitarian,
although it did not exclude the cosmological and religious
speculation.
Older than Plato or
Confucius, the
Upanishads are the most ancient philosophical works and contain the
mature
wisdom of India's intellectual and spiritual attainment. They have
inspired not
only the orthodox system of Indian thought but also the so-called
heterodox
schools such as Buddhism. In profundity of thought and beauty of style,
they
have rarely been surpassed not only in Indian thought but in the
Western and
Chinese philosophical traditions as well.
The Upanishads have greatly
influenced Indian culture throughout history and have also found
enthusiastic
admirers abroad. Schopenhauer was almost lyrical about them. Max
Muller said: " The Upanishads are
the ....
sources of .....the Vedanta philosophy, a system in which human
speculation
seems to me to have reached its very acme." The Upanishads
are
saturated with the spirit of inquiry, intellectual analysis, and a
passion for
seeking the truth.
net/sadhu.jpg" align="left" hspace="12" vspace="12" width="279"
height="411">India, is the home of philosophy.
Certainly India is a country where philosophy has always been very
popular and
influential. An American scholar has stated that teachers of philosophy
in India
were as numerous as merchants in Babylonia. The sages have always been
heroes of
the Indians. If philosophy did emerge in India earlier than in Greece,
and if
the two countries were in close contact soon after this
emergence, it is
not unlikely that Indian thought had some influence on Greek
philosophy.
Indian Inspiration of
Pythagoras
The similarity between the
theory of
Thales, that water is the material cause of all things, and the Vedic
idea of
primeval waters as the origin of the universe, was first pointed out by
Richard
Garbe. The resemblances, too, between
the teachings of Pythagoras (ca. 582-506
B.C.) and Indian philosophy are striking. It was Sir William
Jones, the founder
of comparative philology, who first pointed out the pointed out the
similarities
between Indian and Pythagorean beliefs. Later, other scholars such as
Colebrooke,
Garbe, and Winternitz also testified
to the Indian inspiration of Pythagoras.
12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Orphic
religion, Pythagorean philosophy, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism and several
others not
so well-known have been influenced by the Samkhya-Vedanta thought of
India. In
pre-Christian centuries Persia served as a middle ground between India,
and
Greece. It is known that Indian archers with their long bows, one end
of which
was planted in the ground, fought in Darius's war against Greece.
Brahmins and
Buddhists were in Greece before Socrates. Later Alexandria became a
great center
of commerce and learning, where Buddhists and Brahmins congregated and
where
Neo-Platonism was born. The great astronomical observatory at
Ujjayini (now
Ujjain) in central India was linked to Alexandria in
Egypt.
mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">The
essence of Socratic and Platonic philosophy has remained unintelligible
in the
West because of lack of insight into Indian thought. Plato's view of
Reality is
the same as that of the Upanishads. His method of attaining knowledge
of the
Good is that of Vedanta. In the Phaedo, Plato describes silent
meditation
as withdrawal of the senses from their objects and as stilling the
processes of
mind.
mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">The
Greek theoria of the Pythagoreans, of Socrates and Plato, from which the
world 'theater' comes is the vision or darshana of the
Upanishads.
Plato
mentions that philosophic wisdom can only be communicated directly from
a
teacher to disciple, like lighting one lamp by another. The Timaeus
indicates after the manner of the Upanishads that the receiver of
philosophic
truth must be a fit person - fit by character and not by reason of
intellect
alone. Platonic thought is so un-Greek in the sense in which Greek
thought is
generally taken, namely, purely rationalism, that some philosopher,
such as Nietzsche, have called it " un-Hellenic."
mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">According
to Voltaire, "
The Greeks, before the time of
Pythagoras, traveled into India for
instruction. The signs of the seven planets and of the seven metals are
still
almost all over the earth, such as the Indians invented: the Arabians
were
obliged to adopt their cyphers." (The Philosophy of History, p. 527).
Pythagoras
was particularly influenced by Indian philosophy. Professor
R. G. Rawlinson remarks that,
"almost all the
theories, religious, philosophical, and mathematical, taught by the
Pythagorians
were known in India in the sixth century B.C."
mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Even
Aristotle, the great rationalist and empiricist, upheld so strongly by
teachers
of philosophy in the West, is not fully understood. Aristotle speaks of
intellect in the same sense as do the Upanishads- intellect which is not
thinking logically but which grasps truth immediately. The Indian term
for
intellect is buddhi, the purest understanding.
The thought of Plotinus is Hindu.
Eusebius in his biography of Socrates,
relates
an incident recorded in the fourth century B.C. in which Socrates met a
Brahmin
in the agora or the market place. The Brahmin asked Socrates what he
was doing.
Socrates replied that he was questioning people in order to understand
man. At
this, the Brahmin laughed and asked how one could understand man
without knowing
God.
12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">The
Socrates conception of freedom and virtue is that of the Upanishads.
Socrates
defined virtue as knowledge. Virtue is character, the realization of
the essence
of man. Know thyself, which is exactly the same as the Upanisadic
command, Atmanam
biddhi. In the Gita, knowledge or wisdom is defined as character.
Virtue,
comes from the Vedic word vira (hero, man).
mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Greek
philosophy began in Asia Minor and Greek writers refer to the travels of
Pythagoras, and others, to the East to gain wisdom. According to his biographer
Iamblichus, "Pythagoras traveled widely, studying the esoteric
teachings of
the Egyptians, Assyrians, and even Brahmins." According to Gomprez,
"It is not too much to assume that the curious Greek who was a
contemporary
of Buddha, and it may be of Zoraster, too, would have acquired a more
or less
exact knowledge of the East, in the age of intellectual fermentation,
through
the medium of Persia."
net/vishnu_on_ananta.jpg" align="left" hspace="12" vspace="12" width="188"
height="200">Vivekananda said that Samhkya was the
basis of the philosophy of the whole world. " There is no
philosophy in the
world that was not indebted to Kapila. (Kapila is the founder of the
Sankhya
philosophy). Krishna says in the Gita that, among the perfected sages,
he is
Kapila. Pythagoras came to India and studied his philosophy and that
was the
beginning of the philosophy of the Greeks. Later it formed the
Alexandrian
school, and still later the Gnostic."
It is believed that the
Dravidians
from India went to Egypt and laid the foundation of its civilization
there. the
Egyptians themselves had the tradition that they originally came from
the South,
from a land called Punt,
which an historian of the West, Dr.
H.R. Hall,
thought referred to some part of India.
The Indus Valley
civilization is,
according to Sir John Marshall who was in charge of the excavations,
the oldest
of all civilizations unearthed (c. 4000 B.C.) It is older than the
Sumerian and
it is believed by many that the latter was a branch of the
former.
Some people called the
Brahui who
dwell in Baluchistan which is at present a part of Pakistan, still
speak the
Dravidian language. It is likely that their ancestors were the people
who sailed
across the narrow waters at the entrance of the Persian Gulf to Oman
and then to
Aden along the southern littoral of Arabia, crossing over to Africa at
the
narrow strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, near Somaliland and proceeding north
along the
Nile Valley.
"We hear of Arabian
trade with
Egypt as far back as 2743 B.C. probably as ancient as was the trade with
India." (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, vol. 4 p.
157).
Both upon archaeological
and
historical grounds, India is the mother of civilizations.
Material skill and
spiritual ideas spread from the Indus valley to Nineveh and Babylon, to
the
entire Middle East, to the Nile Valley and thence to Greece and
Rome.
Did You Know?
Iron with
Mettle
Ancient India developed advanced
metallurgical technology that mad it possible to cast a remarkable iron
pillar,
dating to about 300 B.C.E. Still standing today in Delhi. This solid
shaft of
wrought iron is about 24 feet high and 16 inches in diameter. It has
been
exposed to weather and pollution since its erection, yet shows minimal
corrosion, a technology lost to current ironmakers. Even with today's
advances,
only four foundries in the world could make this piece and none were
able to
keep it rust-free.
The earliest known metal expert (some 2,200 years ago) Rishi
Pantanjali. His book Loha Shastra, "metal manual" describes
in detail
metal preparation.
sushama_l (AT) hotmail (DOT) com