59. Looking East: Indian Influence on Greek Thought

Love the podcast series. I wanted to know how many more episodes are there in the Indian series and what will you be covering in those? 

Thanks for another wonderful episode! One thing that strikes me as really intriguing about Plotinus accompanying Gordian III on his expeditions to Persia is that, if I read the timelines correctly, sitting right there in the court of the Sassanids was Mani, who had just returned from from India. So if Plotinus had succeeded in his goal of making contact with Eastern philosophers, there's a good chance we could have had an encounter between the founder of Neoplatonism and the founder of Manicheanism, which is a really tantalizing prospect!

Vishwa Adluri, ‘Plotinus and the Orient: aoristos dyas’ in Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffin (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism (Abindgon, 2014), 77-99.

Maybe the the two people, the greek and the indians, have their mutual spirtual and intellectual roots much deeper, both being indo-european people, back in their caucasian homelands. It is hard not to see the similarities between the greek and the norse concept of deities and probably also the hindi world of gods (which I disgracefully know too little about). Likewise, philosophical thoughts in both Greece and India may find their roots in much older thoughts in a mutual past, now long forgotten

If you look at the history of Hippocratic medicine and Ayurveda I think you will find more detailed comparisons of cultural exchange which lines up with what you suggest here - namely that ideas that came in from India to the west were misinterpreted and poorly understand due to issues with transmissions or natives not fully sharing their systems. The reason I posit an east to west movement is that in the "bible" of Ayurveda ( Charaka) we see a fully formed system circe roughly 4-600 BC ( there are variation on this dating), but it undoubtedly had deeper oral roots and we see that the full ideas represented there only slowly start making their way into Hippocratic related traditions over much later time periods ( which coincides with deeper involvement-interchange between these cultures). Vicki Pitman wrote a thesis/book on this, though wasn't arguing history so much as comparing the systems, but if you put two and two together....

Furthermore, and something that can't be debated, is that the Greeks had NO system of astrology until Alexander the Great imported things from Babylonia. There are clear reference to the greatness of Chaldean astrologers and those from the east. Ancient Indian/Vedic culture undoubtedly stretched right up to this area or had interchange with it, and we see great traditions of astrology from this culture. This is a little more complex, and eurocentric academics like David PIngree have documented how much ideas from Greek and Indian astrological texts are similar. HOWEVER, he claims the reverse pollination even though - once again as we see in the Ayurvedic texts - India has a MUCH more stable and significant tradition in this field of knowledge, which only portions of confused/altered fragments seem to be found in later Hellenistic sources. To assume such a large and significant astrological tradition just sprung up overnight when the Greeks decided to bring it over to India is pretty much a racist and bigoted view if you ask me. 

i didn't know much about indian philosophy having influence on greek philosophy until i read about the concept of atomism in charvaka and jain schools of philosophy in india. charvaka school proposed theory of atomism a long time before the greeks proposed the same thing, nearly two to four hunfred years, atomism is clearly a big influence of indian philosophy on greek one, and should have been discussed, regards.

Has ancient Greeks influenced Indian culture. I think, there is a possibility because Alexander did visit India and he had colonies around India.

It is said that the works of Aristotle were lost to the West for many centuries. It seems the Arabs had preserved the works of Aristotle for all those centuries. How did the Arabs get the works of Aristotle?

I know this episode was mostly speculation, but it was mostly focused on a possible 1 way exchange from India to Mediterranian Greeks.  Is there also speculation going the other way, for Greek philosophy influencing Indian?  I imagine, if there is, most of it will be centred on the Indo-Greek "Yavanika" sources.

Interestingly, Sonam Kachru at UVA recently published a short article on another example. In chapter 3 of Vasubandhu's AKBh, there's a comment about insects growing in molten iron. Apparently, Aristotle says the same thing in book 5 of History of Animals.

The idea that some ancient indian and greek ideas might have a common origin, suggests a project to me. Following the example of the linguists, someone might try to deduce the ideas of the old indo-europeans. It would be a great adventure, certainly. Travelling through western and central Asia, ransacking the back closets of museums and old monasteries, looking for people who can translate tocharian and scythian, and maybe lamenting the scarcity of giraffes. Hmm, i almost said "shortage of giraffes", but that of course would have been a category error.

The "Liar's Paradox" was mentioned earlier in this series. Previously, i had just considered it from a meta standpoint. The phrase "this statement is no true" only produces a paradox in its own internal context. I am outside that context and so observe that it is only a string of words. It's the same as observing that there are not two hands drawing each other, there is only a drawing, produced by Escher, who is outside its context. However, after hearing you and your guest bring it up, i had a new thought. And that is that the statement is effectively false (or maybe falacious?) in that it claims to describe itself but it cannot.

It seems to me that Ashoka's legacy would be a good place to look?

I have become very interested in the exchanges between India and Greece since reading McEvilley's book. I have since come to understand that there is considerable controversy regarding his opinions directly focused on him and his methodology. Is this at all an important concern?

I recognize that the standards of proof in the history of philosophy as practiced in the West require written evidence of contact or translation. Does the general controversy over transmission  (either direction) seem to be based on that and that alone - the absence of written evidence?  

Otherwise the impression of a East to West transmission - or a common photo-Indo European origin -  seems overwhelming. 

(Personally I am veering towards a common psychological foundation in the experiences of itinerant mystics living in caves favoried by people like Yulia Ustinova and Lewis-Williams. I believe this is part of a new interest in what is being called 'neuro-theology'.  But again, this path also seems impossible to prove by the current standards of history of philosophy. But I am wondering if these standards are being applied in order to control (or stifle) research in areas that are just too vulnerable to speculation and manipulation.)