Jump to content
IndiaDivine.org

Onasander

Members
  • Content Count

    2
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  1. Not so fast, in the battle of Western Philosophy vs Eastern Philosophy, the only winner is philosophy, and the failure lays on you. We already had a huge exposure to Vedanta philosophy via Plotinius, and it's smeared like jam through Christian Orthodoxy and Catholicism as the philosophical language traditionally used to explain Christianity. He lived three centuries after Christ, in Egypt, which had long established ties with India. The west had a huge influence on Indic thought as well, Buddha's conception of Being and Dialectics were greek imports from after Plato and Aristotle. Maybe everyone here has been scratching their heads as to why the era Buddha lived in went from 680 BC down to the 300s? It's because exactly that- scholars east and west noted the trends of migration at that time went east (jews existed in his province 60 years before his birth to give you a hint). Later, after Alexander the Great's invasion, we left a huge Macedonian and Greek population behind, and they laid the foundations for the main expansion of Buddhism both west (total failure) and into central asia and china (huge success). The system of Astrology used in India is a western invention. Much of the meditative practices used in India are Hermetic in origin as well, stretching back in embryonic form to Babylonia in the Caudecisis cults, and we can trace the evolution of the Chakra system in the west- including in Plato's work where it was still very much evolving. The Migration of Symbols: Chapter VI. The Winged Globe, the Caduceus, and the Trisula: II. The Origins of the Caduceus http://img3.photographersdirect.com/img/32244/wm/pd3117135.jpg http://images.unurthed.com/Rawson-caduceus-84-large.jpg http://agdei.com/Caduceus.JPG http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQe8EP4QdPF3it48IH3KmPh4f82esaYOV1Swk_VlD1-ipgeLkAN-eorlX6i It's not unknown to occur in temples in India, but clearly has a western origin, Mesopotamia and Egypt and Athens to be exact. I find this all hilarious, given how many people still hold to the Aryan Invasion theory, in trying to show evidence of a superiority of one system of philosophy over another in terms of geography. It's a massive fail..... Aryans came from the North West, like Alexander, and like the Muslims. Think about the implications. It's a duh moment..... India was never that isolated. I've heard of some try to stretch the Rg Veda back to 9000 BC on the basis of a glacier lake mentioned in it that fed the Saraswati.... fair enough.... but we have Gobekli Tepe thousands of years older. You can claim fabulous underground cities lost.... cities that apparently never wanted to build or expand inland..... we lay claim as well..... we too have flood myths of advanced underwater civilizations and cryptic ruins. In the west, we're not left trying to figure out what came before the Indo-European culture.... we know our roots in mesopotamia and the bronze age culture. India has random groups like the Vedas in Sri Lanka to point to. Farther back in history we look, the less pretty the synthesis of East vs West looks. Besides, the Hermetic tradition in the west continued to evolve well past the Chakra system in India. We went into labeling the parts of the mind in Hermatics and Kabbalah, and have the Ennegram from Christian Roman times (preserved via the Sufi) and Alchemy from Egypt. We went Jungian- post Freudian.... long, long ago. This isn't a post to undermine Indic philosophy. I wouldn't be here on sites such as this if I cared to. It's to point out we too have just as complex a history, and it's not all that easy to claim superiority. We all came from somewhere, and in every generation people go elsewhere, carrying with them ideas. Greeks and Romans recorded debating Jains and Buddhists. We leant a great amount of our knowledge in return to India and it's a core part of the thinking of the sub continent in general. It's not shameful to acknowledge this. It's reasonable. It's why we can after a little adjustment so rapidly go into comparison of religions east and west. We had out Zen movements in the west with the Navel Gazing in the Byzantine Empire, German Mandalas, Bhakti style chanting in monasteries and Jesus prayers and roaming homeless Cynics and indifferent Stoics.
  2. I am watching Chanakya, and in this episode he's quoting names of theorists..... I can't find any of them on google though. I have read ancient works on statecraft and kingship, politics, and economics from Greece, Rome, Egypt, China, and Japan, and of course the Arthrasastra..... but outside of the Arthrasastra I come up next to nothing for india, beyond a Marathi to English translation of Emperor Ramakrishna (think that's his name) history of his reign, including a section that sort of resembles such a work as one would see in the west or sino-asia. I am not so much interested in histories, or a vague reference to the Mahabharata because I am not so much interested in mere brutal carnage. I am interested in how ancient india approached the affairs of state. It's absolutely impossible to find online. I know there are subsections of the Mahabharata that deal with it. And yes, I have read chunks of the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Bhagavad Gita. The Book of Manu has several elements of what I am looking for. I am just stumped as to why it's so difficult to find this stuff in India. Chinese love it, Mencius and Confucius and Lao Tzu are mainstays of culture. In west, Aristotle (he wrote a book on politics) is well known, as well as a great many others. Arabs have a listing of authors. India is a huge void, despite all the time spent on leaping from Upanisad to Upanisad. Does anyone know of classical sources? Stuff that isn't modern? I'm talking Pre-Bristish.
×
×
  • Create New...