Greek and Indian philosophy - parallels and interchanges
Hi all,
While doing some research on Greek philosophy, I came across some Sanskrit words of Greek origin.
One of them was ???? hor? astrology which apparently comes from Greek ??? hora hour, period of time, degree of the zodiac.
The other one was ????? sunaph? a particular planetary configuration which is from Greek ?????? synaphe conjunction, union (also used in Platonic philosophers like Plotinus in the sense of union of the soul with God).
[???? hor? occurs in the 6th century CE work Brhajj?taka a.k.a. Hor? Sh?stra (Science of Astrology); ????? sunaph? occurs in the 8th century Ishvara Git? (Song of the Lord).]
After some further research I found that there is evidence of Greek influence on Indian astronomy, medicine, religious art and possibly religion and philosophy from the 4th century BC onwards.
There also seem to be some interesting parallels between Platonic philosophy and certain currents of Indian philosophy.
Would anyone know if there were any interchanges between the two traditions or where I can find out more/discuss this topic?
Many thanks
While doing some research on Greek philosophy, I came across some Sanskrit words of Greek origin.
One of them was ???? hor? astrology which apparently comes from Greek ??? hora hour, period of time, degree of the zodiac.
The other one was ????? sunaph? a particular planetary configuration which is from Greek ?????? synaphe conjunction, union (also used in Platonic philosophers like Plotinus in the sense of union of the soul with God).
[???? hor? occurs in the 6th century CE work Brhajj?taka a.k.a. Hor? Sh?stra (Science of Astrology); ????? sunaph? occurs in the 8th century Ishvara Git? (Song of the Lord).]
After some further research I found that there is evidence of Greek influence on Indian astronomy, medicine, religious art and possibly religion and philosophy from the 4th century BC onwards.
There also seem to be some interesting parallels between Platonic philosophy and certain currents of Indian philosophy.
Would anyone know if there were any interchanges between the two traditions or where I can find out more/discuss this topic?
Many thanks
Comments (67)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_astrology
Search "Zeno and Nargarjuna".
I'm not sure what you mean by "Western bias".
I don't really care which direction the influence was as long as there is evidence for it. Greek and Babylonian influence on Indian astronomy, for example, is acknowledged even by Indian writers.
See Satyendra Nath Naskar, Foreign Impact on Indian Life and Culture (c. 326 B.C. to c. 300 A.D.), 1996, for example.
I don't think serious scholars really dispute that different civilisations or cultures mutually influence one another. Unfortunately, I can't find anything concrete on philosophy, hence my question.
Try searching Parmenides, Zeno, or Eleatic school and India. They are close in thought, as is Plato (as you remark). Indian art for me is decadent Platonism, or Platonism taken to it's natural conclusion
Bear in mind, the Alexandrian empire gave rise to the 'greco-bactrian' style of Buddhist sculpture, which became quite famous. Good wiki article here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhist_art
There's also a school of thought that the Greek sceptic Pyrrho of Elis visited the Alexandrian empire and studied with Buddhists. There's a book Adam Kuzminski Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism. (Beware of a later book on the same topic by Christopher Beckwith, many of his claims are contested by other scholars.) There's an influential paper on this topic also Pyrrho and India, Everard Flintoff.
The Questions of King Milinda is an interesting exchange between a Buddhist scholar and the Indo-Greek King Menander.
As a general observation, the fact is that there are many striking parallels between Platonism and Indian philosophy.
For example, the so-called “parable of the chariot” in which the Indian version has the horses standing for the senses, the chariot for the body, the charioteer for the intellect and the rider for the soul (Katha Upanishad).
Now, an almost identical version is found in Greek writers like Plato, Parmenides and Xenophon.
Another example that strikes me is the tripartite division of the soul into distinct psychological aspects/functions.
Greek:
???????????? epithymetikon sensual aspect
????? thymos emotional aspect
?????????? logistikon intellectual aspect
Indian:
???? manas sensual aspect
?????? ahamkara emotional aspect
?????? buddhi intellectual aspect
Also, the concept of a higher inner soul/man - Greek ???? nous, Indian ????? purusha - that is connected downwards with the body-mind complex and upwards with God. See Plotinus, et al.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Obviously, I am not in a position, at this point in time, to determine who influenced whom or whether there was a third, common source (Egyptian/Babylonian?).
However, as regards astrology, the consensus seems to be that Hellenistic astrology drew on Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources in the second and first millennia BC and flourished for centuries until it began to decline in the West under Christianity. But it survived in Persia, it influenced Indian astrology and was transmitted to the Islamic world (from where it was re-introduced into Europe).
I haven’t got a theory with respect to philosophy but, as a theoretical possibility, could Platonic traditions have followed a somewhat similar trajectory?
For example, tradition has it that Pythagoras went to Egypt to acquire “secret knowledge” and apparently, in the 6th century CE, the last leading philosophers from the Platonic Academy at Athens settled in Persia from where Platonism passed into the Arab world.
It would be difficult to prove, but equally difficult to disprove, the possibility that Platonists went even further east, reaching India where they may have influenced certain currents of local philosophy and mysticism. Hence it may be worthwhile looking for parallels in Indian traditions that emerged in the early Middle Ages whose appearance may be explained with the help of external influence.
1- Did you consider that both are indoeuropean languages and these might be cognates? Often some scholars with nationalistic views use these words to claim one language influenced the other. Maybe the same IE origin logic could be applied to the common teachings.
2- Are ???? and upper soul ???? the same in the platonic context? I don't believe they are, soul and ???? are distinct enteties with different attributes.
Hi there.
1. If the etymology of "hora" and "sunapha" had been proposed by "scholars with nationalistic views" I wouldn't have considered it. You may rest assured that I always check my sources very carefully.
"Sunapha" is mentioned by scholars like Mircea Eliade who had the highest respect for Indian spirituality (see Yoga and Immortality, etc). As for "hora", the Gargi Samhita and other Sanskrit works expressly state that the astronomy/astrology they deal with is of Yunani (i.e. Greek) origin.
2. ???? and ???? are often used in different senses/contexts. Even in modern Greek both of them can mean "soul" but also "mind" depending on the context. The way I see it, psyche is really the soul (endowed with a body and mind) but is essentially identical with ???? or spirit.
It is precisely this essential identity of soul with spirit that enables man to ascend to the higher worlds of spirit.
Regarding the origin of the word hora can't find any reference to what you and your illustrated sources are saying only that the origin of the word can be traced to proto indoeuropean.
To be honest remember once someone claiming that the Greek ???- came from the the sanskrit jna- as in Jnana Yoga (yes these claims can work both ways), however according to the info available they are cognates.
Regarding hora, have you tried the Wikipedia article "Indian Astronomy"?
Last time I looked it said “Greek astronomical ideas began to enter India in the 4th century BCE”
If there's no problem of being cognates and no evidence of the contrary, then "case closed" :)
For example, Moriz Winternitz says that the 6th-century astronomer Var?hamihira wrote a work called Brhajj?taka which was also known as Hor?sh?stra i.e., Science of Hor?/Horoscope/Astrology, where hor? is a Greek word (“???”): Geschichte der indischen Literatur, 3 Bände, Leipzig 1905-1922, III, p. 569, text available at archive.org
However, if you think that Sanskrit ???? and Greek ??? are cognates, that's fine by me. I don't believe in communism, I believe in individualism and plurality of views.
The topic of the thread is parallels and interchanges between Greek and Indian philosophy. I thought this was clear.
Curious enough, even though you see Greece influencing India, the beliefs you expressed earlier seem close to Advaita Vedânta than Platonism.
It isn't "me" that sees Greece influencing India, it's the academic consensus that Greece influenced India in terms of art, astronomy, astrology and medicine. Please refer to Wikipedia and other online articles on the subject.
As regards philosophy, nobody seems to know who influenced whom, hence the topic I wanted to discuss. I only said that there is a theoretical possibility of Greek influence on some currents of Indian philosophy, not all.
Humans communicate, exchange ideas and cultures do influence each other. Why do you find the concept of Greek influence so unsettling?
The fact is that parallels do exist as you yourself admit. The normal course of discussion is to establish what the parallels are and then look into the issue of interchange and diffusion. If it can be shown that India influenced Greece, that's OK by me. But we haven't got there yet.
To some extent it might be counter intuitive. During the Principate period things were seen the other way around. You can find it in Plotinus desire to visit India and a modern theory that his teacher Sakkas came from those parts, in Apollonius of Tyana actually doing it, and if I'm not mistaken Pythagoras was also believed at that point to have learned from the Brahmins. Then you have the modern claim Jesus visited India.
However in the end of the day it is irrelevant. Did A influence B directly or through an intermediary, or vice versa, were both influenced by a contemporary C or a common ancestor, or did they arrive at similar conclusions in some things?At some point one realizes the important thing is the teachings, if they are useful or not, accurate or not.
Of course they are both paths of self knowledge. That's exactly why it may be useful to establish the parallels between the two. If nothing else, we may find in one what is missing in the other and this might help us to complete our knowledge of monistic philosophy.
However, we can’t reinvent the wheel. We must rely on known facts as established by academic consensus.
You said that you didn’t read my post in detail. Maybe you should now because I never said that Greek influence on Indian philosophy was an established fact. I only mentioned it as a possibility, as something that needs to be established.
Let me clarify this for you. Philosophy is about one’s worldview or Weltanschauung, one’s perception of the world. In the ancient world, this included a wide range of related fields such as astrology, religion and magic.
The belief that the human soul could ascend to the stars meant that philosophy was closely interconnected with astronomy and astrology. This is why Platonic philosophers from Plato onwards also concerned themselves with astronomy and astrology, see Plotinus, Porphyry and others.
If Greek astronomy and astrology influenced Indian traditions, as seems to have been the case, then it is reasonable to ask whether along with astronomy and astrology there was also some influence on philosophy. So, IMO the question is not quite as out of place as you are suggesting.
However, there's the small matter of Multiple Discovery. Nonetheless, linguistic evidence of near-identical words seems inexplicable in terms of multiple discovery theory. What's probably even more fascinating is how these memes - these are memes after all - found willing hosts in both cultures separated by vast tracts of ocean and land; it suggests that the lives, hopes, aspirations, fears, porblems, etc., the overall mise-en-scéne of the two culutures were by and large alike.
I think we are on the same page there. After Alexander the Great, the western world including parts of the Middle East was very much Hellenized and Hellenistic and Indian culture obviously intersected or overlapped to some extent as shown by Indian temple art and astronomy/astrology.
In any case, a cursory overview reveals a large number of parallels (the list is incomplete and provisional and possibly not entirely accurate on one or two points):
The tripartite composition of the soul.
The concept of a higher and lower self, one divine and one human.
Union of the human soul with God as the ultimate goal of life.
Five elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether) that constitute the universe.
Five sensory faculties: sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch.
The concept of cosmic creation by a process of emanation Greek ???????? aporrhoia from the highest spiritual principle (God/the One).
Triadic cycle of abiding-procession-return, Greek ???? mone, ??????? proodos, ????????? epistrophe
Impermanence or “illusory” nature of the physical world.
The concept of the “heart” as the innermost core of the self, Greek ?????? kardia, Sanskrit ???? hRd and its role in attaining enlightenment or salvation.
Salvation through a process of psychic/spiritual purification, illumination and deification culminating in unity with God.
Prayer, meditation and contemplation as a means of attaining enlightenment/salvation.
Magical/spiritual formulas or “mantras” as an aid to invocation, concentration, interiorisation of consciousness, etc.
Remembrance or recognition of God.
Observance of certain moral and ethical precepts.
Set of obstacles encountered on the path that are to be overcome.
Renunciation of or indifference to material things as an aid to spiritual advancement.
The concept of “divine grace”, Greek ????? haris, Sanskrit ???????? shaktip?ta and its role in spiritual salvation.
Supernatural powers or divine gifts Greek ????????? charismata Sanskrit ?????? siddhi accomplishments, as a manifestation of divine grace and spiritual advancement.
The role of a spiritual teacher or master as a guide on the path.
Reincarnation or metempsychosis, etc., etc.
I’m fully aware that there is a difference between parallels and diffusion. But if we can establish a number of parallels beyond what can reasonably be regarded as “coincidence” or "multiple discovery", then I think we have good reason to at least try to look into the problem of diffusion or origin.
However, these isolated words point to broader influence. When we take a closer look, we find that there was extensive borrowing from Hellenistic/Christian sources and we can clearly identify striking parallels at the level of vocabulary (concepts and technical terms) as well as practice in spiritual currents like Sufism that can’t be explained away as accidental.
Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism.
F. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins.
Margaret Smith, The Way of the Mystics: The Early Christian Mystics and the Rise of the Sufis.
Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity.
Lloyd Ridgeon, The Cambridge Companion to Sufism.
It's true these practices have often infiltrated religions and philosophies despite of condemnation by the same.
Alexandra David-Neel in her preface Mystics and Magicians from Tibet mentions the process of fusion of a true philosophy with such practices concluding that the name Lamaism is more suited to Tibetan religion than Buddhism.
This is why it is legitimate to assume that philosophy may have accompanied astronomy and astrology.
Basically, the attested historical facts are as follows:
There is a well-attested Platonic tradition from Plato to the early centuries of the Christian Era.
There is Platonic influence on Christian philosophy and mysticism.
There is Platonic (or Christian Hellenistic) influence on Islamic philosophy and mysticism, and the emergence of Sufism in about the 8th century CE.
Also in the 8th century, the Greek word sunaphe that was also used by Plotinus and others in the sense of union of the soul with God, appears in the Sanskrit text of the Ishvara Git? (The Song of the Lord).
At the same time, Indian philosophical and mystical currents showing parallels to Platonism emerge, e.g., Kashmiri Shaivism in the monistic tradition of Abhinavagupta which flourished from the 9th to the 13th centuries.
There is a wide spectrum of magic practices, some being close to religion and others to what goes by the name of black magic or sorcery. If you read Augustine of Hippo (The City of God) he mentions "angels (gods) who come down to the theurgists, attracted by magical art of some kind". However, this mustn't be confused with black magic or sorcery in the negative sense. In a philosophical context, "magic formulas" may be employed in some traditions to invoke the help of divinities or to remove obstacles created by certain spirits, i.e. for spiritual not nefarious purposes.
Why do you think it has a Greek origin?
Thomas Burrow, The Sanskrit Language:
“Occasionally words were introduced from outside India, e.g. from Iranian (v?rab?na- ‘breast plate’) or from Greek (hor? ‘hour’)” p. 43
Moriz Winternitz, History of Indian Literature (Geschichte der indischen Literatur), Vol III:
“[…] der vom Horoskop handelnde Zweig der Astrologie, […] nach dem Griechichen Hor? genannt wird, ganz under dem Einfluss der Griechichen Astrologie” p. 569
(the branch of astrology dealing with the horoscope ... named after the Greek Hor?, wholly under the influence of Greek astrology)
At p. 570 he says that the Sanskrit work Yavana-Jataka was translated from the Greek by the Greek Yavaneshvara in 169 CE
[??? yavana is the Sanskrit word for Greek]
Monier-Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary:
???? [hor?] f. (fr. Gk. ???) an hour (the 24th part of an Aho-r?tra); the half of a zodiacal sign; horoscope or horoscopy
????? [sunaph?] f. (= Gk. ??????; cf. ????) a partic. configuration of the planets (when any one of the planets, except the Sun, occupies a secondary position, to the moon),
???? [anaph?] f. a particular configuration of the planets. [Gk. ?????]
The Catholic Mass is a type of magic. Thomas Aquinas's tutor (Albert) talked about magic in nature
Well, I can't disagree with that. All religious rituals may be interpreted as "magic", depending on the inner attitude of the performer and always bearing in mind that there is a big difference between "black" and "white" forms of magic according to the nature of the intent behind the action and its impact on the world. In a sense, there is a thin line between philosophy, religion and magic.
Ye "Albert the Great" (Albert Magnus) thought of the world as an emanation of God (Leibnizian) into an angelic order and then into the world we know. So there were angels and demons in everything. Aquinas draw the distinction between God and the world more sharply.
Correct. There are numerous elements of Platonism in Christian tradition. The eastern parts of the Roman Empire were heavily influenced by Greek language and culture, including philosophy and this influence can be seen in early Christianity.
The apostle Paul who died c. 62-64 CE was born in Greek-speaking ??????? Cilicia and was sufficiently familiar with Greek philosophy and language to converse with the philosophers of Athens (Acts 17:16-34).
(See G. Scott Gleaves, Did Jesus Speak Greek? The Emerging Evidence of Greek Dominance In First-Century Palestine, Cambridge, 2015.)
Many of the founders of the Christian Church (Church Fathers) had been Hellenistic philosophers or had at least studied some Greek philosophy - which was part of higher education in the Roman Empire.
Church Fathers from Justin Martyr (c. 150 CE) onwards recount studying Platonism or quote from Platonic works.
In his address to God, St Augustine (354-430) wrote: “By reading these books of the Platonists I had been prompted to look for truth as something incorporeal, and I caught sight of your invisible nature [… ] So, I seized eagerly upon the venerable writings inspired by your Holy Spirit, especially those of the apostle Paul …” (Confessions, Book VII 20-21).
And, of course, Platonism also passed into Islamic and other traditions especially from Christian Hellenistic centres like Alexandria and Harran (Greek ?????? Charrae which was also known as ??????????? Hellenopolis, Greek City).
Imo the only thing Augustine "caught sight of" was that he was inauthentic
As important as it may have been in their philosophical practice it's easy to forget about it at least reading Proclus whom despite of being an intense practinioner of it haven't found yet any relevant mention to it in the works read so far.
As far as I know Plotinus did not endorse Theurgy.
I see. Connected by the silk roads?
I thought Alexander the "great" returned home or at least tried to quite soon after only reaching the borders of the then Indian civilization. He never had anything the likes of a military campaign to conquer India and so never did. In other words Alexander the "great" couldn't have contributed much towards the Hellenization of India, assuming that happened at all, for his interaction with India was too brief and also only occurred at the periphery of the contemporaneous Indian empire.
Quoting Apollodorus
Agreed! That there seems to be a by and large 1-to-1 correspondence between Greek and Indian thought can't just be a coincidence. Some sorta exchange of ideas having taken place is as good as explanations can get.
Yes, there were trade links, but also the Indo-Greek Kingdom (Yavanarajya) in Afghanistan and the Punjab from where influence was exerted on Indian art, etc. This is what I mean when I say "after Alexander the Great". I don't mean Alexander in person!
I don’t subscribe to the view that everything comes from the Greeks, but neither do I believe in the notion that everything comes from India.
The metaphysical worldview of Platonists like Plotinus, for example, is concentric and hierarchical. Everything emanates from the "centre" of the cosmic circle or sphere and returns by ascending back to it. Hence the terminology of "heart". The "heart" (innermost self) of man is identical to the "heart" of God. Hence Platonic, Christian and Indian mystics use similar language
It is precisely this essential identity between the two, that makes "return" or "reunion" possible.
There is a triadic cycle of abiding-procession-return, ???? mone, ??????? proodos, ????????? epistrophe (corresponding to the Indian sRshti, stithi, samh?ra).
Simply put, the Universal Intelligence abides in itself, proceeds out of itself in creation and reverts back into itself. Or interiorisation of consciousness. Hence contemplation and meditation as the principal means.
This is found both in Platonism and in Indian traditions like Kashmiri Shaivism (9th century CE).
So, could Platonism have stimulated or influenced the emergence of Indian philosophical and mystical traditions, either directly or through Christian and Islamic mysticism? I believe that there is a possibility. In any case, we can't deny the striking parallels.
Or maybe both cultures are expressing something essential to their common root? That would facilitate communication.
I've wondered why Plato believed in reincarnation. Was it a Greek idea?
This is a problem that’s about as old as Platonism. It’s hard to tell what Plato actually believed. It is important to bear in mind though, that in those days philosophy was largely a secret tradition that had several levels of teachings imparted to different tiers of students. Hence the belief in Plato’s ?????? ??????? agrapha dogmata or “unwritten teachings”.
My personal feeling is that Plato used certain teachings simply as an intellectual framework that would assist the student in training his mind in philosophical thinking. Same applies to Socrates. We can’t take all his questions and answers seriously. The point was to prepare the student’s mind for the actual teachings that would be imparted in a master-to-disciple situation or initiation at a suitable time.
As regards the origins of reincarnation, it is of course possible that it originated in India. However, if we’re talking about interchange, then some ideas may have travelled in the opposite direction, similar to astronomy and astrology, elements of which were taken by the Greeks from Egyptian and Mesopotamian traditions and later passed on to India.
In fact, astronomy itself was probably used in the same way, i.e. to dislodge the student's mind from the constrictions of everyday thought processes and prepare it for a higher level of experience or understanding. Hence the close connection between Platonic philosophy and astronomy.
As Socrates put it, the epithet “wise” (sophos) properly belongs to God alone. Though he may appear to be wise in the eyes of ordinary men, the philosopher himself is not strictly speaking a wise person (sophos), he is merely one who aspires to be wise like God - as far as this is humanly possible.
To make the philosopher’s mind as wise as humanly possible as the mind of God, it needs to be taken out of its narrow, everyday context and acquainted with a broader vista, such as the heavens, his ultimate home among the stars or gods.
To paraphrase the Bible, the philosopher lives in the world but his soul is not of this world, it is of God. His mind is focused on the heavens above. This is why astronomy and mathematics were so important to philosophy and students of philosophy were called mathematikoi, i.e. “students” or “learners” from mathema, “lesson”.
A central part of the lesson to be learned was to see the Cosmos as an ordered, mathematically arranged harmonious whole, which in turn would bring about order and harmony to the learner’s mind and harmonize his soul with the World Soul. Hence the importance of astronomy and mathematics in philosophical teaching.
Philosophy sees the Cosmos as a circle framed by the twelve constellations of the zodiac, with everything emanating from and returning to its centre, the point that is also the philosopher’s ultimate goal. The heavenly vault also contains within itself the 360 degrees of the circle which are also the 360 days of the year, the 60 minutes of the hour (Greek ??? hor?), the 60 seconds of the minute, etc., down to the smallest particle of time from which the fabric of reality is woven.
Incidentally, this is also the reason behind the astronomical and calendrical significance of Greek temple architecture.
In any case, we can see that the little word “hor?” is connected to a vast science or system of thought that goes beyond mere astronomy and astrology. We also know that the earliest known mathematical texts are from Sumer/Mesopotamia and that the Greeks borrowed their tradition from the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians. So, there may well be multiple sources for both Greek and Indian traditions.
Most famous Platonists were vegetarians even when they performed sacrifices as a necessary evil. There were alternatives, like cakes baked with the shape of animals. Not all Christian views and doctrines have a counter part in Greek philosophy, some have actually opposite views.
On one side Christians end up being the ones putting end to animal sacrifices (even though they still occur rarely in Christian populations as surviving pagan customs), but utterly rejected the idea of compassion towards animals that had been building among Greek philosophers.
As an example, from the Neopythagorean Apollonius, being familiar with the Bible you may see the differences:
He also justifies his prescience regarding the plague with his diet:
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius
"Not all Christian views and doctrines have a counter part in Greek philosophy, some have actually opposite views."
I never said anything else. On the other hand, animal sacrifices in Greece do have a counterpart in Hinduism, though perhaps less so in Buddhism.
See the Wikipedia article "Animal sacrifice in Hinduism"
Either way, this has no bearing on the topic discussed here.
See the Wikipedia article “Animal sacrifice in Hinduism”.
70% of Indians are meat eaters and if you add Pakistan and Bangladesh (that used to be part of India until a few decades ago) it probably amounts to more than 90%.
Vegetarians have always been a small minority in India, including at the time of Plato.
Brahmins used to eat meat and only later adopted vegetarianism from the Buddhists
See Wikipedia article “History of Brahmin diet”.
Swami Vivekananda admitted that Brahmins in Vedic times ate cows (Vivekananda, A Biography).
Brahmins were the main proponents of sacrificing and eating cows in Vedic times (Professor D N Jha, former member of the Indian Council of Historical Research and author of The Myth of the Holy Cow).
The Apastambha Grihya Sutra recommends sacrificing/slaughtering cows at weddings, reception of guests, etc.
Beef is recommended in the Charaka Samhita, the basic text of traditional Indian medicine, etc.
By your own admission, Platonic philosophers were vegetarians. This would indicate that they were very advanced morally and spiritually which I fully agree with.
If we look at other cultural developments across the region, we see that Egyptian and Sumerian temples go back to the 4th millennium BC.
Greek temples had developed by the 9th century BC.
The oldest Buddhist shrine is a wooden structure from the 6th century BC.
The oldest Jain temple is from the 1st century BC.
The oldest Hindu temple structure is from 121-151 CE.
The Golden Age of India was between 300 and 500 CE.
It is called “Golden Age” because there were important developments in mathematics, astronomy, science, religion, philosophy, art and architecture.
These developments came about under Greek influence in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, art and, quite possibly, religion and philosophy.
Greek influence came from the next-door Indo-Greek Kingdom (Yavanarajya) in what is today Afghanistan and the Punjab, that was established after Alexander the Great’s conquest of the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent in 326 BC and persisted for several centuries, but also through links with the Hellenistic or Graeco-Roman world.
As pointed out by Joseph Campbell, the imposition of Christianity on the Roman Empire in the 4th century CE caused a “tide of refugees, bearing a rich treasure of Late Roman, Greek, and Syro-Egyptian civilization, whose influence immediately inspired many aspects of the subsequent Indian golden age” (Oriental Mythology, p. 289).
1. One following Alexander the Great’s 327 BC conquest of Northwest India which resulted in control of the entire Indus Valley, c. 200-225 BC.
2. A second one from the Hellenized Roman Empire following sea trade routes, in the first centuries CE.
3. And a third wave of learned refugees (Greeks and others from the Hellenized eastern parts of the Roman Empire) who took refuge in India after the imposition of Christianity, c. 400 CE.
J Campbell, Oriental Mythology, The Masks of God, Vol. II, p. 289
Campbell also notes that Dr Herman Goetz, former curator of the Museum of Baroda, has shown that “there occurred an event of epochal importance for India at the beginning of the fifth century CE”, pointing out that “there occurred the sudden flowering of an immense and really wonderful constellation of architectural, sculptural, literary, social, religious and philosophical forms, unknown to India before but bearing hundreds of points of relationship to Late Rome” p. 326.
See also Herman Goetz, “Imperial Rome and the Genesis of Classical Indian Art”, East and West, New series, Vol. 10, Nos. 3-4, Sept. Dec. 1959.
Significantly, the tide of Hellenistic influence in the fields of Indian mathematics, astronomy, astrology and art coincides with the emergence of Indian religious works such as the Puranas (including the Kurma Purana whose Ishvara Gita contains the Greek word sunaphe) as well as the emergence of philosophical and mystical traditions in the monistic Advaita tradition that shows close parallels to Platonic traditions:
Brahma Sutra of Badarayana, compiled in 400-450 CE.
Mandukya Karika of Gaudapada, 6th century CE.
Brahmasutrabhasya of Adi Shankaracharya, 700-800 CE
Kashmir Shaivism of Vasugupta and Abhinavagupta, 9th century CE, etc.
Devotional bhakti movements such as Shaiva Siddhanta also emerged at the same time (7th - 9th centuries CE).
The established historical facts suggest that Platonism flourished up to the early centuries of the Christian Era after which it influenced Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, especially the mystical currents within these such as Sufism and the Kashmiri Shaivism of Abhinavagupta.
This explains why an Indian may look at Platonism and say “this is Advaita” and a Platonist may look at Advaita and say “this is Platonism”.
However, when I look at the Advaita system of Abhinavagupta, I tend to go a step further and say not only “this is Platonism” but “this is a more elaborate form of Platonism”.
It is obvious that Abhinavagupta’s system is a synthesis of Platonism, Hinduism and Buddhism that does not seem to occur before his time.
It is my belief that in the same way as Indians borrowed mathematical concepts from the Greeks on the basis of which they developed more advanced concepts, they also borrowed from the Platonists and elaborated certain philosophical concepts in ways that we don’t see in Hellenistic Platonism.
Therefore, we may find in Abhinavagupta what is missing in Plotinus and his Western successors. What remains to be established is to what extent Abhinavagupta’s elaborations would be acceptable to Platonism. Personally, I tend to think that there is quite a bit that Platonists would be happy to accept or at least explore as a way of developing or "completing" their system.
For someone who only knows Advaita Vedanta from youtube videos, what exactly is the similarity with Platonism, besides being paths of self knowledge?
Regarding diet, the same way athletes from each sport have the body and diet that suits them, and they don't do it to aggrandize themselves but because they want to achieve results and is the best for their practice, it's only natural that someone committed to philosophical practice follows the one that better suits it, like Apollonius did. But it's understandable if the rest of society don't.
Also have a look at the couple of dozen points of similarity I provided in the list above.
Thanks that looks like an interesting book, since you are so familiarized with the subject it seemed an easy task for you to give a comparison. The Advaita in YouTube lectures sure looks quite different from Platonism.
Some see the differences and others the similarities. The list I provided was meant for those who can see the similarities. As to the others, they'll have to do their own research.
For example, while noting some similarities, Gregorios writes that “the Plotinian concept of emanation finds no precise parallel in Indian thought” – P M Gregorios “Does Geography Condition Philosophy? On Going Beyond the Occidental-Oriental Distinction”.
As a matter of fact, the concept of the manifest as an emanation of the unmanifest is not altogether unknown to Indian philosophy. And the Plotinian concept of the One abiding in itself, proceeding out of itself in creation and reverting back to itself (mone, proodos, epistrophe) is certainly comparable to the Indian concept of emanation, abidance and withdrawal (sRshti, sthiti, samh?ra) that we find especially in monistic traditions like Abhinavagupta’s Kashmiri Shaivism. Even the concept of “the One” (Greek “to Hen”, Sanskrit “Ekam”) is obviously essentially identical in both systems.
As regards differences, both systems admit five faculties of perception (sight, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling by touch) as powers of the soul, whereby it perceives or “takes in” features of the world such as color, etc. However, in addition to the five cognitive powers of perception, the soul in Indian philosophy also has five motor powers through which it acts on or interacts with the physical world: locomotion or moving about in space, speaking or uttering sounds, excreting, procreating and grasping or taking hold of things.
This seems to be one area to which Platonism appears to give less attention than its Indian counterparts.
Also related to perception, is the Indian theory of impermanence or momentariness (kshanikav?da) which Abhinavagupta seems to have adapted to his own system from Buddhism. Briefly, it holds that an object is perceived in a rapid sequence of very brief units of perception (kshana, moments) which are combined by the mind into a seemingly solid and more lasting image of the object.
I can’t find anything comparable in Platonism but I think that together with the five motor powers of the soul this could be added to Platonism without major difficulties. Obviously, Abhinavagupta was an untiring thinker and his system is extremely elaborate – some, including myself, would say too elaborate – but I tend to believe that Platonism may benefit from borrowing a few elements of it in so far as they are consistent with its own fundamental tenets.
Consider this, according to Advaita all is Brahman and we are Brahman, according at least to a school we are God that forgot whom he is. Where is this found in Platonism?
In the other topic someone asked you about the similarities between Greek and Chinese Philosophy, what is your explanation?
I don't know anything about Chinese Philosophy, I think you're confusing me with someone else.
In any case, I’m not aware of any belief in Platonism about a “God who forgets”. On the contrary, the only one who forgets is the human soul, which is why it descends into the world of matter (Enneads III 1, 15). And even the soul has the potential to remember its true identity and return to its original source.