[Buddha-l] Re: Natural lucidity for Socrates

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Dan, 

<<This is an example of the typical confused description found in Hellenistic sources. Even putting the minor factual inaccuracies aside, what Hippolytus is describing is Jains, not "Hindus" (Hindus or the equivalence of "Brahmin" with Hindu took a long time to develop, starting with the Muslim invention of the term Hindu, and much later -- 19th-20th c -- the British institutions of the category of "Hindu" as a religio-ethnic term, to which they offered the Indian locals substantial incentives in order to overcome that label). Brahman, in the ancient world, meant anyone from the Indian cultural orbit (the Indian states, Gandhara, the Hindu Kush, Sind, etc.). >>

Yes, I was aware of the confusion. Jean Filliozat, where I found the reference to The Refutation of All Heresies, even thinks Hyppolytus is describing Shivaists on the borders of the river Tungavenaa. He also think the very unGreek and rather Indian character of the Timæus could be a sign of possible non-Greek influences. What is obvious to me is that there were exchanges, since the knowledge has been reported, as confused as it may be, and that it's rather unreasonable than reasonable to doubt that. In general it's more the colonized adopting the ways of the colonizing, but when reading Diogenes Laertes and others it seems to be a recurrent fact that Greek philosophers (Pyrron, Democritos etc.) thought of the East as a source of wisdom and were said to have traveled to it. And even if it's legendary, what does it mean? In comparison what does it mean when it is believed in the Prajnaparamita sutras that they were kept in China?   

<<The ideas described here were being adopted by a variety of Christian sects at the time, especially in the Middle East, and the diet issues, the "light" vs. matter conflict, etc., became core issues in the life of Mani (who was a Baptist in roughly the area of Syria in his youth, but traveled eastward eventually, clearly coming into contact with Buddhists and others during his lifetime), and became ascetic foundations of Manichaeaism, so it is unclear to what degree Hippolytus is actually describing Indian (i.e., Jain) ideas, and to which extent he is indirectly refuting his Manichaean-like contemporaries. 

<<Nor, for that matter, were "hindus" of this or earlier periods pantheists or neoplatonic monists, as McEvilley presumes -- that came much later with certain vedantic revisionistic interpretations of the earlier traditions. So McEvilley's entire thesis appears misguided from the outset. Indians couldn't export what they never had. Indians would call this sort of thesis ati-prasanga -- the fallacy of exceeding what is reasonable.>>

I guess there are not that many possibilities for "All is one" (monistic) or equivalent approaches, especially for one who tries to live by them. I am not sure I would be able to tell the difference between a non-mental experience of pantheism, neoplatonic monism or the equality of all dharmas in their essence or a simple transe.  Which is why I still have a long way to go :-)

Joy