[Buddha-l] The Shape of Ancient Thought

[curt]

 From McEvilley's "Afterword":

"Upanisadic influences on the pre-Socratics seem likely to have included 
monistic solutions to the Problem of the One and the Many, the doctrine 
of the transformation of the elements into one another, at least the 
ethical aspect of the reincarnation doctrine associated with it, and 
elements or aspects of the doctrine of cosmic cycle; at the same time 
Jain influences were entering Greece through the Orphic community. Since 
the ideas in question remained fundamental elements of Greek thought for 
a thousand years, it is time to acknowledge that one of the major 
strains of Greek thought was Indian-influenced -- that it might even be 
called the Indianized or Greco-Indian lineage"

In my opinion claims these claims are extremely dubious. It's very 
difficult to say what Jains or Orphics were really up to 2500 years ago 
- let alone what kind of "influence" they had on each other. The 
essential thing, though, is to realize that they lived in the same 
world. That's what is most important. The Greeks did not pull 
"civilization" and "philosophy" out of their arses - and western 
scholarship has been saying that they did for at least 150 years and 
still largely continues to say so.

- Curt