The Roots of Platonism and Vednta: Comments on McEvilley

John Bussanich

This encyclopedic study tracks the emergence and development of virtually all the major thinkers and schools in ancient Greece and India by means of complex comparative and historical schemasa truly monumental achievement in the comparative study of philosophy. This essay has the limited objective of assessing Thomas McEvilleys account of the trajectories of the Platonic and Vedntic traditions, with a particular focus on the various sources of these religious philosophies. I shall examine his treatment of these genealogies: (i) Orphic-Pythagoreans and Presocratics @ Plato @ Plotinus @ later Neoplatonists and (ii) Upaniads @ Brahmastras and Pur~as @ akara @ later Vedntins. (The valuable analyses of the Buddhist and Jaina traditions and, in the West, of Aristotle and the various Hellenistic schools are beyond the scope of this inquiry.) According to McEvilleys comparative criteria these traditions share a commitment to a tripartite metaphysical doctrine: (i) the self is identical to the ultimate ground of reality; (ii) the self has lost its original unity with the ultimately real and must seek to regain it through the pursuit of knowledge and the achievement of self-mastery; and (iii) the self attains final union or identity with ultimate reality through an experience which transcends knowledge and all limitations. His cross-traditional comparisons of the expression and of the content of these themes are embedded in a diffusionist model of historical development according to which Vedic India and to a lesser extent Iran, the Ancient Near East, and Egypt comprise the sources of archaic and classical Greek wisdom traditions. I shall comment on these themes in McEvilleys exposition: (i) the cogency of the diffusionist model, especially as it pertains to archaic Greece; (ii) traditional texts, oral teachings, and spiritual experience as sources of philosophical doctrine; and (iii ) the fundamental principles of Platonic and Vedntic metaphysics. International Journal of Hindu Studies 0, 0 (Month Year): 0000 2005 by the World Heritage Press Inc.

2 / John Bussanich ARCHAIC GREECE AND VEDIC INDIA

McEvilley begins his adventurous project with reflections on the momentous transition in both Greece and India from mythopoeic to rational and abstract modes of philosophizing in the first half of the first millenium BCE. He draws illuminating parallels between (i) substrate monism among the Milesians and in the early Upaniads, (ii) the quasimythic articulation of the cosmic person in late Vedic hymns and in Orphic poetic theology, and (iii) macrocosm/ microcosm homologies in the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, and Parmenides and in the Upaniads. With regard to the first theme, he compares Anaximanders apeiron (the unlimited) both with the g Vedas Aditi, the Unlimited Mother of the gods, and with Brahman, as in Taittirya Upaniad 3.1.1. An attractive feature of his approach at the outset is that it eschews facile analogies. He recognizes that Aditi is a goddess whereas Anaximanders apeiron is an abstract principle, which is designated with a neuter form and thus is essentially postmythological, like Uddlakas brahman (32). With the removal of concrete imagery from the characterization of the ultimate principles in both archaic Greece and India, we can discern, McEvilley argues, the emergence of the abstract idea of pure being, exempt from qualities, which displaces or transcends the mythical divinities. He also compares Thales first principle water with the primordial role of water in late Vedic and in Babylonian cosmogenesis. Unfortunately, he undercuts these mythical associations by overreliance on Aristotles materialist interpretation of the Milesians, leading him to embrace the standard protoscientific reading of the Milesians as physicalist reductionists, which thus places them at odds with the basic tenor of Upaniadic thought. Attention to Bhadra~yaka Upaniad 1.1.2 and related passages, where the primordial waters symbolize the divine potentiality of all existence, would have revealed even more clearly the metaphysical affinities of early Greek and Vedic cosmology. He would have profited greatly from consulting the revolutionary and still fundamental comparative work of A. K. Coomaraswamy, whom McEvilley completely ignores. Most relevant to the comparison of early Greek and Indian thought is his A New Approach to the Vedas (Coomaraswamy 0000) and the classic essays Vedic Exemplarism (1977) and Vedic Monotheism (2002). Coomaraswamys vision of Vedic metaphysics provides a more comprehensive perspective within which to situate McEvilleys specific comparisons of the nature and function of individual physical elements in Milesian thought with their Vedic counterparts. Coomaraswamy argues, for example, that MitrVaru~au, Sun, Fire, Spirit, etc., are all denotations of one and the same first

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 3 principle of manifestation, and the Waters, often called the wives of Varu~a, or mothers in relation to the Son, are the possibilities of manifestation (2002: 31n15). From the more sophisticated perspectives of Upaniadic and Platonic metaphysics, the first Greek speculation on the One and the Many involves monism to a lesser degree than McEvilley supposes, inasmuch as it specifies one stuff as the symbol for cosmic potentiality but lacks a clearly articulated notion of the absolute. Heraclitus deconstructs earlier cosmology by radically reformulating the interaction among the elements in striking, paradoxical poetry. McEvilleys analysis displays the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of his method. His piecemeal comparisons of Heraclitus flux-doctrine to the Buddhist concept of transience and his introspective search for hidden unity to the Vedntic tman are useful but superficial. Much more effective, in my view, is the detailed comparison of Heraclitus obscure account of the cycle of elemental transformations from fire to water to earth to water to fire (4044, 30400)the ancient reports of which make it sound like primitive meteorologywith the more elaborate presentation of a similar cycle by Uddlaka in Chndogya Upaniad 4, which is connected with the eschatological teachings of Pravha~a Jaivali in Chndogya 5 and Bhadra~yaka 6. McEvilley skillfully employs the complex Vedic scheme of the Path of the Gods (the way of fire) and the Path of the Fathers (the way of smoke) as an interpretive aid to explicate Heraclitus theory of exhalations according to which the bright exhalation of souls goes to the sun and produces day and summer and the dark exhalation of souls goes to the moon and produces night and winter. He convincingly challenges the standard physicalist interpretation of Heraclitus theory by showing its affinities with the Brhma~ical interiorization of the sacrifice and even with the emergence of a full-fledged reincarnation theory in seventh century BCE India. Now, Heraclitus does not explicitly espouse a theory of reincarnation, but McEvilleys exposition should stimulate further reflection on this question. Consideration of Heraclitus thinking on the destiny of the soul is postponed until the comprehensive discussion of reincarnation in chapter four. There McEvilley lays out in great detail the multifarious aspects of Upaniadic reincarnation theory which are lacking in the earlier discussion of Heraclitus.1 This long chapter is a kaleidoscopic excursion through Upaniadic, Egyptian, Orphic, and Greek references to metempsychosis, reincarnation, and astrophysical eschatology which investigates whether Greek theories of reincarnation and transmigration depend on non-Greek sources. I agree with the judgment that the Greek theories more closely resemble ancient Indian ones than ideas found in Thracian shamanism, in Mesopotamian cultures, or in Iranian Zoroastrianism. However, besides Pythagoras and Empedocles, reincarnation is poorly attested

4 / John Bussanich in other thinkers before Plato. Moreover, the diffusion of Indian ideas through Iran may be a more complicated process than he suggests, not to mention that different ideas arrived from the East at different times with different degrees of borrowing and assimilation on the part of the Greeks (cf. 126).2 A further complication is McEvilleys reliance on the traditional view, now discredited, that Zoroaster lived in the sixth or fifth century BCE instead of millenia before (see Kingsley 1990). Another theme about which McEvilley speculates rather loosely is monism. Indeed, he claims that Upaniadic monism and reincarnation theory are transmitted together to archaic Greece (122). In certain cases, the doctrinal comparisons are compelling, most notably in the section Parmenidean Monism and Indian Thought (5255) on the metaphysics of being in Parmenides and in numerous Upaniadic texts.3 But besides Parmenides (and the later Eleatic Melissus) few scholars would claim that any other Presocratic is a radical monist of the Upaniadic type. (Milesian material monism is quite a different sort, as suggested above.) Nevertheless, McEvilley thinks early Pythagoreanism is monistic (4400)which view is flatly contradicted by our earliest sources and also the thought of Heraclitus. Despite the latters enigmatic references to the unity of opposites from the divine point of view and to the One-Wise (Fragments 10, 67, 32, 41), more argument is required than McEvilley offers to claim him as a monist. To summarize, these opening chapters of the book articulate striking cosmological analogies between various Presocratics and several Upaniadic texts, but McEvilley has a tendency to homogenize the views of the Presocratics and press them too far in a monistic direction. This judgment has the effect of making the historical dependence of archaic Greece religious thought on Vedic India seem inevitable. I say: not so fast. While reading through this impressive collection of parallel passages one hungers for an explanation of what motivates and grounds the metaphysical and cosmological speculations of these remarkable early Greek thinkers, one that does not simply refer us to even earlier source-texts. McEvilley consistently neglects the experiential sources of Greek teachings and practices, an oversight that is most problematic in the case of Parmenides. Only briefly does he mention the crucial proem, that is, Fragment 1, which recounts Parmenides descent to the underworld where he meets the Goddess beyond the gates of Night and Day (57), which symbolize phenomenal duality in general. Indeed, he ignores most of the proems accountembodied in subtle imagery drawn from contemporary Greek poetryof Parmenides inner transformation and the dramatic trajectory of his shamanic, mystical transport. The mystical approach to Parmenides and to other Presocratics like Empedocles and to the Orphics occupies a prominent position in the work of classical scholars like Walter Burkert, Albrecht

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 5 Dieterich, and especially Peter Kingsley, who stress the centrality of incubation in Orphic-Pythagorean esoteric piety. Kingsley (1999, 2003) has delineated a striking picture of Parmenides as a priest in the cult of Apollo with its focus on healing, both physical and spiritual, and its proximate roots in Anatolia that reach as far as Iran. However extensive the borrowing of images and concepts, the practice of incubation and related techniques throughout the Mediterranean world in the first millennium BCE is in my view the ultimate source of the religious metaphysics disseminated in archaic Greece. To his credit, McEvilley mentions the practice of silence among the Pythagoreans and Parmenides (17879, 598), but he is more interested in the theory of reincarnation and so refers to incubation, and its central symbol of the descent, primarily in order to distinguish it from the former doctrines image of the ascent. But what is crucial for understanding the spiritual orientation and the doctrines of the OrphicPythagoreansas indeed also of their Vedic counterpartsis their mystical practices and experiences. We need only recall that incubationwithdrawing to caves and other quiet places to enter transcendent realms through dreaming or altered states of awarenessis just another name for meditation or trance. It seems to me that the interpretive regress implicit in McEvilleys approachand in other comparativistsmust stop somewhere: Did the Vedic is derive their insights from reading even older, anonymous, prehistoric texts; or did they, at some point, have direct access to the gods and transcendent states of consciousness through the practice of meditation and psychophysical disciplines like yoga? McEvilley appears to accept the second alternative, which I applaud, but this does not justify or require claiming Vedic India as the source of all Eurasian religious metaphysics. So if he wishes to assert that India is the source of archaic Greek doctrines, he needs to provide explanations why the Greeks, or other ancient cultures, were incapable of gaining access to the transcendent without instruction from Indian texts or teachers. It seems to me that doctrinal similarity is insufficient grounds for adopting such a horizontal explanation according to which Greeks or Etruscans or Egyptians require contact with Hindus or Buddhists or Jainas from South Asia to entertain or accept the truth of monism or reincarnation or divinization. Surprisingly, McEvilley does not even mention, let alone refute, the perennialist claim that most saints, sages, and philosophers discover for themselves and express the same core metaphysical doctrines and promote similar ethical practices with only variations of local color. Not that this rules out cross-cultural influences and borrowings. But his history of ideas presentation of metaphysical doctrines ignores the possibility that exceptional individuals in any and every culture have direct access to transcendent realities through spiritual practices like contemplation under the direction of a guru or divine being. This vertical

6 / John Bussanich model of explanation does not exclude the horizontal diffusion of new ideas or practices through reading scriptures or dialectical exchangeswhether in ones own tradition or imported from another. But even where such contacts play a role it must be recognized that religious experiences are expressed through symbols indigenous to a culture or region and that spiritual practices become actual only within the soul of the seeker. In commenting on Upaniadic doctrine Coomaraswamy points out that the realization of the corresponding state in which the Intellect does not intelligize, which is called in our text the Eternal Mystery [U VI.22] and in KU VI.10, the Supreme Goal and which cannot be taught, is the ultimate secret of initiation. It must not be supposed that any mere description of the secret, such as can be found in Scripture or exegesis, suffices to communicate the secret of de-mentation (amanbhva) [that is, the cessation of thought]; nor that the secret has ever been or could be communicated to an initiate or betrayed to anyone, or discovered by however much learning. It can only be realized by each one for himself; all that can be effected by initiation is the communciation of an impulse and an awakening of latent potentialities; the work must be done by the initiate himselfuntil the very end of the road has been reached (1977: 21314). From this more inclusive and vertical perspective, written and oral teachings may be taken as preconditions, but the individual must tread the path himself or herself. Moreover, the essential teachings in any tradition themselves derive from the great souls who have already achieved the goal and embodied their experiences in them. I suspect that McEvilley would agree with much of this. Yet he gives the impression that whats most important is the diffusion of concepts and images from one region or culture to another. Lets consider another case where an individuals religious experience contributes to the emergence of philosophical views. A few fragments of Heraclitus strongly suggest a radically new interest in archaic Greece in exploring the self as subject of inquiry which is distinct from the natural world: I searched out myself (Fragment 101); You will not be able to find the boundaries of the soul even if you walk every path, so deep is its measure (Fragment 45). Virtually the same idea is expressed at Kautaki Upaniad 4.1: A certain wise man in search of immortality, turned his sight inward and saw the self within. Both exemplify the new symbol of the self that emerges from direct experience of the inner infinite. McEvilley adduces other passages in the Upaniads as parallels to this theme in Heraclitus but concludes, correctly I think, that they do not constitute an argument for diffusion (39). Nevertheless, because he sees no

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 7 precedent in earlier Greek cosmological speculation for Heraclitus (and the Orphics) theory of elemental and psychic transformation, McEvilley concludes that it is in terms of Greek evidence, unaccountable (40). On the basis of his excellent comparison of Heraclitus and the Upaniadic theories, he observes that Heraclitus may be presumed to have had some familiarity with the central doctrines of Upaniadic Hinduism.This extraordinary parallelism is a strong and clear link between a pre-Socratic and an Upaniad. It amounts to a scholarly proofmeaning the most reasonable interpretation of the evidence as it currently stands. The Heraclitean systemhas not been accounted for historically by any other approach. Until the evidence changes, it should stand that elements of Heraclitus and of the Upaniads came either from each other or from an unknown common source (44). Besides the point that the last sentence appears to contradict the first, the argument begs the question by asserting that Heraclitus system must be accounted for historically, namely, through literary borrowing from an earlier text, be it Greek, Indian, or Mesopotamian. Speculating on broader historical patterns at the end of the section, McEvilley concludes that because the process from polytheism through Orphic pantheism to philosophical monism seems to have taken a century or so, whereas in India the analogous transition took five to seven centuries, there is some reason to look for a special cause that precipitated such a development, namely, diffusion from India or Mesopotamia to Greece (61). I share with McEvilley, and with daring scholars such as Walter Burkert, Eric Voegelin, and M. L. West, a fascination with the development in these and other ancient cultures from mythical to more abstract and differentiated forms of experience, thought, and literary expression. But we must be very cautious about the duration of the developmental stages, given the paucity of the evidence from archaic Greece and the insuperable difficulties of constructing chronology in Vedic India. Again, in my view, we need not rely primarily on tenuous historical connections to understand these texts or their experiential sources. What is crucial for archaic Greece are the spiritual breakthroughs experienced and expressed in powerful transformational language by Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoras, and Empedocles. Heraclitus explored himself and found a soul without limitsjust as the Vedic i s did. Parmenides learned stillness from the Pythagorean Ameiniasthe same mental cessation referred to throughout the Upaniads and later in the Yogastrasand it awakened him to the revelation of truths from the Goddess. Empedocles presents himself as a god, an enlightened being, to the citizens of Acragas, and he functions as a guru

8 / John Bussanich to his student Pausanias to whom he teaches Orphic-Pythagorean meditation and the secrets of nature. Another example of ambitious Orientalizing is McEvilleys claim that the Orphic doctrines of soul-body dualism, karmic bindings, transmigration, and heaven and hell states for the just and the wicked respectively, which influenced Plato and later Platonists, can be traced to Jaina missionary activity. The comparisons of Jaina, Buddhist, and Orphic doctrines are compelling, but the historical dependence of Orphic ideas on Jaina is based primarily on unsupported speculation by Alain Danilou in his va and Dionysos (1979). We encounter breathtaking inferential leaps like the following: The transition from Jain missionaries to proto-Orphics such as, perhaps, Pherecydes, is still largely invisible, though it must have occurred (204). Unfortunately, McEvilley refers to Pherecydes primarily to supply a link in the chain between the Orient and Orphic-Pythagoreans. Significantly, he does highlight the guru-disciple relationship by reference to stories that Pherecydes was a teacher of Pythagoras and Ameinias the Pythagorean of Parmenides (171). But he implies that even the notion of teaching lineages is imported from India. More emphatically he asserts that It is certain that Pherecydes imported Oriental ideas into the Greek tradition, including some from India. The Indian doctrines he brought entered Greece enmeshed in a net of Persian ideas. It is a plausible hypothesis that Pherecydes called them the teachings of Orpheus in order to naturalize them. In this way he passed them on to Pythagoras[who] combined them with elements of number religion, which was derived from other Oriental influences closer to home, and established an organized brotherhood to practice the path to purification (171; emphasis added). Classicists in particular will be troubled by the apparent arbitrariness with which McEvilley fits relatively obscure figures like Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and even Orpheus into a spiritual lineage that reaches back into the Asian hinterlands. They will also lament the absence of a sustained discussion of the fragments of Pherecydes and any reference to the definitive book on him by Hermann Schibli (1990). Unconvincing also is the suggestion that Pherecydes indulged selfconsciously in a kind of PR by labeling Oriental doctrines Orphic. Finally, the narrow range of Orphic texts and themes he analyzes is a limitation that could have been mitigated by wider consideration of recent scholarship (see, for example, Parker 1995).

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 9 PLATONISM AND VEDNTA

McEvilleys multifaceted comparisons of Plato, Plotinus, and the later Neoplatonists with the Vedntic tradition take greater account of religious experience as a doctrinal source than his survey of Orphic-Pythagorean and Upaniadic figures. This focus is quite welcome, given contemporary scholars preoccupation with abstract and theoretical problems, especially in Platos philosophy. He begins with the observation that Plato synthesized various preSocratic tendencies into a syncretic whole analogous to the synthesis of Pur~ic Hinduism by Vedntins like akara and Rmnuja. In his view, the Platonic synthesis although it seems to have emerged, ultimately, out of Indian prototypes, nevertheless took shape much earlier than the parallel syncretism in India (164). To evaluate this developmental hypothesis, one must consider the possibility that the distinct trajectories in the development of the two traditions from the classical to the medieval periods depend at least in part on the indigenous features in each culture, including the originality of geniuses like Plato and the authors of the Upaniads and the local literary histories. Regarding the literary expression of philosophical ideas, McEvilley says very little, which is understandable given the vast scale of his project, but a few points are worth noting. Despite the lack of canonical scriptures in archaic Greece, many Greek philosophersincluding Plato and continuing through the late Neoplatonistsinvoke archaic wisdom teachings, especially those transmitted in the Orphic-Pythagorean tradition, as quasi-scriptural sources for much of their own discursive philosophizing. Also, Platos dialogues are much closer in form and style to some Upaniads and early Buddhist texts than they are to the classical Vedntic texts of akara and Rmnuja, which comprise commentaries on the Upaniads, Brahmastra s, and Bhagavad Gt. The dialectical, psychological, and literary brilliance of Platos dialogues is unmatched in Hindu or Buddhist literature, though Indian philosophers easily match the Greeks in logical sophistication. Indeed, there are hardly any direct precedents in Greek literature for Platos dialogues. Once again we must consider factors unique to Plato and his age, for example, Socrates, the agonistic features of Greek culture, and perhaps Greek tragedy. Another distinguishing characteristic is that unlike the Vedntic commentators neither Plato nor Plotinus are involved in writing commentaries on scriptural texts, noted by McEvilley in the case of Plotinus (552). There is however a revelatory dimension to early Greek religious thought, as I have argued above, which is embodied in a variety of forms: mystery doctrines, traditional oral teachings, Delphic maxims (for example, know thyself and nothing in excess), the Socratic paradoxes (derived from his

10 / John Bussanich Apollonian daimonion ), and so forth. Orphic-Pythagorean teachings about the nature of the soul and its transmigration, purification, and divinization, Parmenides on being, just to mention the most prominent, are embraced by Platonists as revelatory truths and in certain instances are similar in content and function to the Upaniadic great sayings or mahvkyas, for example, not this, not this or you are that. Thus, the Orphic-Pythagorean tradition is analogous in some respects to Vedic ruti, at least for Platonists, though because of the decentralized nature of Greek religion as regards scriptures, authority, and doctrines, the teachings are treated more eclectically than in India. I should emphasize that in characterizing these teachings as revelation I do not mean to suggest that they preclude or are opposed to rational or philosophical inquiry. Such a faith vs. reason debating point is an artifact of postMedieval or even post-Reformation dogmatic theological debate and thus has no direct claim on ancient Greek or Indian speculation. In any case, here I only wish to point out some of the ways in which mystery teachings are assimilated and unpacked by Plato and the Neoplatonists, because McEvilley tends to reify concepts and doctrines for ease of comparison and to neglect the literary and historical contexts within which each writer worked. Ascertaining their attitudes towards their Orphic-Pythagorean heritage will also help defuse an interpretive dilemma that McEvilley has constructed for himself. Because he conceives of Orphism as a movement distinct from Pythagoreanism he is puzzled how Orphic ideas can coexist with Platos logical and analytical side (197). Getting to the root of the alleged tension between Orphism and analysis requires that we properly understand Parmenides metaphysics of being, for example, which is presented in logico-deductive form but which is inspired by a mystical revelation from the Goddess Persephone. McEvilley does not fully recognize the interdependence of the mystical-magical-eschatological Orphic streams and the rational-abstract-dialectical tendencies in early thinkers like Parmenides and Empedocles, and hence arises the imaginary dilemma how they can coexist in Plato (cf. West 1971: 23000).4 Platos repeated visits to South Italy no doubt provided him with direct access to Orphic-Pythagorean teachings and practices (and teachers), which permeate entire dialogues, like the Phaedoa text which is rich in abstract metaphysical thought and also in Orphic mysticismor frame many dialogues with concluding eschatological myths. Curiously, McEvilley does not have much to say about Platos myths, perhaps because their literary form and sensibility are alien to Indian texts, at least any I know of. Because these accounts of the afterlife are in Platos estimation incapable of rational demonstration, Platos Socrates aims to inculcate faith and hope in the esoteric stories (derived from anonymous sources) about the souls posthumous journeys. Careful study of the myths

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 11 reveals many details indigenous to the South Italian spiritual milieu that Plato has embellished and imaginatively woven into a unique tapestry.5 An examination of how Plato employs ideas from the Orphic mystery tradition in dialectical contexts is a valuable supplement to McEvilleys outline of Platos religious philosophy. Sometimes Plato introduces these ideas as dialectical starting-points or premises. For example, Socrates begins his argument against suicide in the Phaedo by invoking the Orphic maxim that we are possessions of the gods (62b78), an idea which Plato embraces also in the Laws where the Athenian Stranger, when he becomes inspired, frequently refers to us humans as toys or playthings of the gods (Laws 644d, 803c804b, 902b8). Particularly in the early and middle dialogues, Platos dialectic is imbued with a playfulness that aims to charm and seduce worldly types with the attractions of philosophy and the possibility of attaining true freedom. At times Plato invokes mystery teachings to help interlocutors find a way out of an impasse, for example, Socrates invokes the immortality of the soul, transmigration, and the theory of recollection in order to rescue the inquiry into the nature of virtue when Menos paradox threatens to block the way forward. He also tests them in arguments with skeptics or nihilists in order to unfold their intellectual implications or to show the limitations of dialectical argument. This strategy is typical of the Socratic elenchus (refutation argument) when testing definitions of the virtues vis vis the Socratic paradoxes, some of which as Delphic maxims are popular redactions of esoteric Orphic-Pythagorean doctrines. Prophetic Apollo is the divine source of these traditional sayings and also the divinity that speaks directly to Socrates through his personal voice, the daimonion. One might suppose that the paradoxical combination of Orphism and analysis is something Plato learned directly from Socrates.6 The existential dimension of Platos philosophy is embodied in the figure of Socrates and in the ways he intervenes in his interlocutors lives. In dialectical encounters and through the impasses (aporia) induced by Socratic questioning, the desire to seek the truth either grows or is thwarted: one either responds to Socrates or resists. Many dialogues in the Upaniads are also provoked by the vicissitudes of life, though traditionally this aspect of these texts has been ignored by Indologists.7 Grinshpons recent study skillfully unveils the conflicts and crises in the stories and dialogues of the Upaniadic characters, thereby supplementing the universalist context-free metaphysics, which dominates the Vedntic commentators and modern scholarship, with a contextual metaphysics that reaches into the human heart. Such a literary and dramatic way of reading the Upaniads, as well as dialogues in the Mokadharma , provides fertile ground for comparing the early Vednta with Plato.8 Both would agree, I think, that simply identifying and stating timeless truths is insufficient to awaken

12 / John Bussanich the desire to seek or attain the truth. McEvilley stresses the core of classical Vedntic teaching: over against the older Vedic practice of sacrifice and asceticism, what is needed, according to the new doctrine, is not to become brahman but to come to know that one already is (558; emphasis in original). But as McEvilley himself shows, because this knowledge is transcendent and suprarational, it cannot be achieved by intellectual means, by perusing doctrinal summaries, or without the complete transformation of ones psyche. Hence, the path involves withdrawal from normal life and the quieting of the mind through the practice of meditation and, in Vedntins like Rmnuja, through intense devotionalism. Certainly, there are significant variations in textual strategies and doctrinal formulations, not only between the Greek and Indian traditions but within each as well. Discontent, tragedy, and crisis motivate many of the Upaniadic characters to seek the truth, whereas akara and his successors, having perfected a literary style devoid of human voices and feelings, systematically coordinate doubts, objections, counter-objections, and dialectically refined truths in their scriptual commentaries (see Clooney 1993).9 We find a similar progressive reification and abstraction in the history of Greek philosophizing also. The aspiration to seek the truth is prominent at the very beginning of Parmenides poem (he will be carried as far as his heart aspires) and in the fragments of Empedocles. This psychological focus continues to live in Platos complex notion of metaphysical eros, while it is rationalized in Aristotle: Socratic aporia becomes an intellectual puzzle and ecstatic eros for the good becomes sober desire for the good. The role of Socrates as wise man and teacher in Platos dialogues calls for more attention than it receives in McEvilleys account of philosophy as a way of life in chapter 6 Platonic Ethics and Indian Yoga. He effectively demonstrates that the standard view of a profoundly ignorant Socrates (193) fails to explain Socrates search for knowledge of the self, one of the great themes in the Upaniads (190), and that this is a type of knowledge which transcends what Descartes and most contemporary philosophers seek (180). He cites a few passages (179) from the Phaedo to illustrate how Platos views on the withdrawal of the mind from sense-objects and the inner concentration of awareness in order to achieve a direct apprehension of transcendent objects of pure thought parallel countless texts in the Upaniads and in the Yoga tradition which identify knowledge of the self as the goal and meditation (dhyna) and absorption ( samdhi ) as the means. This higher type of knowledge is neither objective knowledge of the external world nor, ultimately, of anything distinct from the self. Thus, passages like the following support his assertion that Platonic phronsis specifies transcendent wisdom, which is analogous to Vedntic vidy (189) and Buddhist praj (609):

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 13 When the soul investigates by itself it passes into the realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging, and being akin to this, it always stays with it whenever it is by itself and can do so; it ceases to stray and remains in the same state while it touches things of the same kind, and its experience (pathma) then is what is called wisdom (phronsis) (Source? 79d17). Note the concrete language: the soul concentrated in itself touches pure being and its wisdom is an experience . For Platonists the highest knowledge is experiential, nondiscursive, nonpropositional, and incommunicable (see Bussanich 1997). Thus, I heartily concur with McEvilleys judgment that Platos descriptions of out-of-the-body knowledge have more in common with the practices of Indian yogis than with that of Descartes (181). This pithy observation captures nicely the interpretive myopia that afflicts much contemporary Plato scholarship. An excellent account of the meditative tranquility at which Platonic dialectic aims is this remarkable passage from the Republic, not cited by McEvilley: I suppose that someone who is healthy and moderate with himself goes to sleep only after having roused his rational part and feasted it on fine arguments and speculations, and having attained to clear self-consciousness; second, he neither starves nor feasts his appetites, so that they will slumber and not disturb his best part with either their pleasure or their pain, but theyll leave it alone, pure and by itself, to get on with its investigations, to yearn after and perceive something in the past or present or future that it doesnt know. Hes also calmed down his passionate part and doesnt go to bed in an emotionally disturbed state because hes been angry with someone. And when he has quieted these two parts and aroused the third, in which reason (logistikon) resides, and so takes his rest, you know that it is then that he best grasps the truth and that the visions that appear in his dreams are least lawless (571d6572b1). Remarkably, Plato relies on the Greek religious idiom of incubation (entering the liminal dream-state) and divination (apprehending the future and the past) to evoke the intuitive dimension of what he here blandly calls reason, which is in fact the organ of visionary perception. It would seem to be a rough description of Platonic concentration of awareness and meditation which are similar to yogic pratyhra and dhyna (180). These are the goals of the emotional and psychological training which comprise the theme of the impressive survey in chapter 25 of the Ethics of Imperturbability throughout the Greek and Indian traditions (597641).10

14 / John Bussanich McEvilley justly remarks that Socratesbecame the primary saint of the ethics of imperturbability in later Greek philosophy (599), though he seems reluctant to acknowledge that Platos portrait of Socrates as impervious to extremes of weather and to pains and pleasures and to his uncanny states of absorption provide just the sort of evidence we need to connect Socrates concrete behavior with his own comparison of the theoretical account of the six steps of the ladder of love in the Symposium with the stages of samdhi in Patajali. Socrates is another wise man in the tradition going back to Parmenides, Pythagoras, and Empedocles. But rather than asserting his own divinity as his predecessors had doneand his Neoplatonic successors like Plotinus and Iamblichus didPlatos Socrates denies that he is wise: like a midwife he assists at the birth of wisdom in others.11 Nevertheless, he offers guidance to become like God so far as is possible, the aim of the virtuous person who becomes just and pure, with understanding (Theaeteus 176b13).12 Though it is generally ignored by Platonic scholarship, the famous parable of the Cave hints at the intervention of the Platonic guru in the life of the cave-dweller in the ascent to the sun: when one of them was freed and suddenly compelled to stand up, turn his head, walk, and look up toward the light (515c5); if someone compelled him to look at the light itself (515d8); and if someone dragged him away from there by force, up the rough, steep path, and didnt let him go until he had dragged him into the sunlight (515e5). Interpreting passages like these not as mystical experience but as emotionally overwrought descriptions of ordinary reasoning processes is a distortion as McEvilley justly remarks (187). I would add that the teacher who drags the disciple does more than engage the student dialectically.

NEOPLATONISM AND VEDNTA

McEvilleys comparison of Neoplatonic and Vedntic mystical metaphysics is impressive but condensed. He sketches a few parallels between Tantra and theurgy (586) and between Plotinus spiritual exercises and Indo-Tibetan meditation techniques (58890), but he focuses more on doctrinal metaphysics than mystical experience or the divinization theme. Yet Plotinus Enneads alone comprise more evidence for the practice of meditation and the awakening of the higher aspect of mind than all the Greek philosophers before him taken together. He is clear about the importance of experience: whoever has seen, knows what I am saying (6.9.9). Plotinian metaphysics is heavily indebted to Plato and Aristotle, but much of his writing offers strikingly original accounts of

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 15 the immediate apprehension of transcendent realities. Once again McEvilley is preoccupied with establishing the Indian origins of Neoplatonic metaphysics to overcome what he sees as unjustified scholarly skepticism. His judgment that Plotinus was philosophizing in an Indianized tradition (550) because he is dependent on Plato and the Presocratics is dubious if my claim is true that the primary sources of Greek religious philosophy are local and experiential. He also seems unaware that many Neoplatonic scholars are familiar with Asian wisdom traditions and are sympathetic with the comparative approach he employs (see Bussanich 1997; Findlay 1967; Shaw 1995; Wallis 1976). Chapter 22, which is continuous with chapter 5 on Platos monism, is very informative about Neoplatonic and Vedntic views of the metaphysical structure of reality. Generally, McEvilley suggests that the hypotheses of Platos Parmenides , which provide the superstructure for Neoplatonic metaphysics, represent contracted and expanded aspects of the One and thus are analogous to nirgu~a and sagu~a Brahman (164). Specifically, he argues that Platos One (he has in mind, I think, the second hypothesis of the Parmenides ), Demiurge, and Indefinite Dyad (the passive, material principle) correspond to purua , vara , and prakti (or Upaniadic ka), respectively. McEvilley adeptly traces the close similarities between Platos cosmic theism, with its active creator-god crafting progressively differentiated levels of manifested reality, and the qualified nondualism of the Viidvaita Vednta. The distinction in the cosmic divinity of the Timaeus (the Demiurge) between world-soul and its cosmic body is like the Viidvaita idea that god is the worlds soul and the cosmos is his body (164). Platonic and Viidvaita ontology construe the relation between the real and the phenomenal in a similar vein: Plato explains the relation between transcendence and immanence as the interdependence of sameness/being/unity with difference/nonbeing/multiplicity as do the Viidvaitins, who in their concept of Bhedbheda assert that difference and nondifference are mutually entailing. Both also subsume the archaic pantheon of mythological divinities on the level beneath that of the supreme cosmic divinity. (Neoplatonists follow this pattern.) Despite the cogency of his analysis of Platos metaphysics, its doctrinal approach has the perhaps unintended effect of revealing the unsystematic character of Platos philosophy by drawing analogies with practically every school of Indian thought, orthodox and heterodox. Sometimes McEvilley links ideas that are dissimilar or he draws analogies imprecisely. For example, his comparison of Platos theory of explanation through universals with Sarvstavdin dharma-theory (167) seems to work on the level of intellectual training, but he neglects to mention that Plato has a realist theory of universals whereas the Buddhists are nominalists. In the case of orthodox schools he mixes and matches

16 / John Bussanich Skhyan and Vedntic ideas rather freely. In his comparison of Platos One to Skhyan purua and the Dyad to prakti, he does not address the difficulties that the One is not a self in any obvious way and prakti is not just a material principle of differentiation. In fact, it includes buddhi, which would seem to be similar to Platonic nous if anything; and the latter is a transcendent, active principle, closely related to the Demiurge and thus comparable to vara and not prakti. These issues remain unresolved perhaps owing to McEvilleys lack of clarity on important differences between Skhyan and Vedntic metaphysics. A similar pattern of insightful, broad cross-traditional comparisons combined with occasional missteps is evident in McEvilleys excellent discussion of Plotinus. Insofar as the Many appear to be transformations of the One and since transcendent principles contain immanent effects, Plotinus metaphysics (and the Neoplatonists in general) approximates Vedntic parinamavda and satkryavda (553). Moreover, since all the Neoplatonists are extreme realists he is right to doubt that the strongest forms of the my-doctrine, for example, akaras, correspond to the Neoplatonic attitude towards appearances. The shadows on the wall of Platos cave and the flickering insubstantiality of sensible particulars are not, it seems to me, the right ingredients for a radical doctrine of illusion. However, theres a bit more room for illusionism in Plotinus metaphysics. The productive power (dynamis) of the higher principles is similar to the divine creative power of akti (554); on the other hand, the theme of deceptive divine play does not fit well anywhere in the spectrum of Platonic theology, one of whose main principles is the truthfulness and unequivocal goodness of the gods. On the so-called positive and negative theologies in Plotinus, McEvilley articulates well the use of what he calls bipolar contradictions in both the Enneads and in the Upaniads, Brahmastras, and Viidvaita Bhedbheda. Thus, of the One Plotinus says it is none of existing things, yet it is all (VI.7.32) and it is both present and absent (V.5.9), and in the Upaniads the many is a part of brahman, yetbrahman has no parts (a Upaniad 2.3.43, 2.1.26) (556). However, all the Vedntic schools are, I think, more emphaticcally monistic than Plotinus metaphysics. This point is supported by the fact that neither Plotinus nor any of the later Neoplatonists explicitly identifies the soul with the One as, for example, in the Vedntic Brahman = tman identity. Plotinus does not even quite express the milder form of the paradox: the individual self is differentfrom Brahman but at the same time not different (a Upaniad 2.3.43). The differences between the two traditions are not simply or even primarily terminological, but I think it is revealing that Vedntins can draw a distinction between tman and jvtman which is unavailable to Platonists. And they readily conceive of Brahman as the Supreme Self. On this point

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 17 McEvilley bends and twists Plotinus ideas to fit Vedntic orthodoxy. First, to support his claim that something close to the Vedntic brahmtman formula appears in the Enneads he quotes passages like VI.5.12 (564) which mention the soul becoming the All. But here the all refers to intelligible reality, not the One. Indeed, for Plotinus, and arguably for Plato as well, the true self is nous or intellect, not the One. In the Greek idiom the ultimate goal is beyond the self. Second, McEvilley does not present a convincing defense of his claims that the One is a self and that apprehension of the One in Plotinus represents the attainment of ultimate self-knowledge. For Plotinus self-knowledge is perfected on the noetic level, where there is a perfect fit between thought and being (cf. especially V.3 and V.5). McEvilley implies that this highest knowledge is similar to Vedntic par vidy (560). But union with the One is a hyper-ontic state that is explicitly said to be beyond thought and knowledge, as he notes (561), so no type of vidy quite fits. I note, finally, that McEvilley agrees with the received view on which soul never achieves ultimate union with the One but is eternally condemned to transmigration and reincarnation (567n29; cf. contra Bussanich 1994). Oddly enough, here McEvilley misses an opportunity to recognize that on this point Plotinus is very close to the Advaita Vednta view that the liberated soul attains identity with the absolute. The fact that this review contains many criticisms, requests for expansion of key points, and occasional clarifications signals my admiration and gratitude for McEvilleys achievement. No other book offers so much illumination on the striking parallels between ancient Greek and Indian philosophy.

Notes 1. He also notes in passing (121) the importance of Wests comparison of the Upaniadic Path of Five Fires and the Paths of Gods and Fathers in his pathbreaking Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (1971: see especially 6200, 17300). 2. For example, in his most recent book, which McEvilley was not able to consult, Burkert stresses the difficulties of identifying specific borrowings, since among Iranian, Egyptian, and Pythagorean elements, the intermingling of similar motifs and tendencies is too dense, and the determining contacts go back too far as against the extant Greek texts, so that a neat sorting out of items and ways of transfer becomes impossible (2004: 113). On Egyptian religion the works of Assmann (2001) and Hornung (1996) are

18 / John Bussanich fundamental. 3. McEvilley acknowledges his indebtedness to West for this comparison, though he does not mention the extensive earlier scholarship cited by West. 4. Kingsley 1995 and 2003 demonstrate in massive detail how these two sides of Empedocles thought are interrelated. He shows how the supposedly scientific aspect of his thought, prominent in his poem On Nature, aims at teaching his pupil Pausanias the inner workings of the realm of nature so that he can make us of this magical esoteric lore to achieve enlightenment, the subject of his other poem Purifications. 5. See Kingsley (1995: 79132) for the Orphic-Pythagorean sources of the Phaedo myth and their combined impact on the later Neoplatonic commentators. 6. On Socrates religious experience, see Bussanich (2005). 7. Grinshpon (2003: 36) cites Hermann Oldenbergs view that the characters and their interchanges amount to only clumsy sketches of everyday life. The tendency to depersonalize the Upaniads is evident even in Halbfass India and Europe , which contains no references to its great spiritual heroes such as Uddlaka ru~i or Yjavalkya. 8. See, for example, Sulabhs Refutation of King Janaka in Mahbhrata 12.308 with Fitzgeralds study (2002). The literary approach to Plato is now almost a mass movement. For recent outstanding examples of the genre, see Blondell (2002), Kahn (1996). 9. In this respect they are similar to the Medieval scholastics. 10. The discussion of Hellenistic moral psychology is impressive (see further on this topic, Knuuttila 2004; Sorabji 2000). 11. I never express my own views about anything, because there is no wisdom in me.God compels me to attend the travail of others, but has forbidden me to procreate. So that I am not in any sense a wise man; I cannot claim as the child of my own soul any discovery worth the name of wisdom. But with those who associate with me it is different. At first some of them may give the impression of being ignorant and stupid; but as time goes on and our association continues, all whom the god permits are seen to make progress.and yet it is clear that this is not due to anything they have learned from me; it is that they discover within themselves a multitude of beautiful things, which they bring forth into the light. But it is I, with gods help, who deliver them of this offspring (Theaeteus 150cd). 12. More clearly than Plato, but in tune with Parmenides and Empedocles, the Neoplatonists promote divinization as an ideal capable of realization. Comparison of this theme with moka and jvanmukti in Indian traditions would have fit well into McEvilleys project.

The Roots of Plantonism and Vednta / 19 References Cited Assmann, Jan. 2001 [0000]. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (trans. David Lorton). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Blondell, Ruby. 2002. The Play of Character in Platos Dialogues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burkert, Walter. 2004. Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bussanich, John. 1994. Mystical Elements in the Thought of Plotinus (Appendix to II.36.1). Aufstieg und Niedergang der rmischen Welt 2.36.7: 530030. Bussanich, John. 1997. Plotinian Mysticism in Theoretical and Comparative Perspective. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 71, 00: 33965. Bussanich, John. 2005. Socrates and Religious Experience. In Rachana Kamtekar and Sara Ahbel-Rappe, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Socrates, 0000. Oxford: Blackwell. Clooney, Francis. 1993. Theology After Vednta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology. Albany: State University of New York Press. Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. 0000. A New Approach to the Vedas. City: Publisher. Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. 1977. Coomaraswamy: Selected Papers. Volume 2: Metaphysics (ed. Roger Lipsey). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. 2002. Perception of the Veda (ed. Vidya Nivas Misra). New Delhi: Manohar. Cooper, John M. ed. 1997. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett. Danilou, Alain. 1982 [0000]. va and Dionysos (trans. K. F. Hurry). The Hague: East-West Publications. Findlay, J. N. 1967. The Transcendence of the Cave. London: George Allen & Unwin. Fitzgerald, James L. 2002. Nun Befuddles King, Shows Karmayoga Does Not Work: Sulabhs Refutation of King Janaka at MBh 12.308. Journal of Indian Philosophy 30, 6: 64177. Grinshpon, Yohanan. 2003. Crisis and Knowledge: The Upanishadic Experience and Storytelling. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Halbfass, Wilhelm. 1988 [1981]. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany: State University of New York Press. Hornung, Erik. 1996 [0000]. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many (trans. John Baines). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kahn, Charles H. 1996. Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

20 / John Bussanich Kingsley, Peter. 1990. The Greek Origin of the Sixth-Century Dating of Zoroaster. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 53, 2: 24565. Kingsley, Peter. 1995. Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kingsley, Peter. 1999. In the Dark Places of Wisdom. Inverness: Golden Sufi Center. Kingsley, Peter. 2003. Reality. Inverness: Golden Sufi Center. Knuuttila, Simo. 2004. Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parker, Robert. 1995. Early Orphism. In Anton Powell, ed., The Greek World, 483510. London: Routledge. Schibli, Hermann S. 1990. Pherekydes of Syros. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shaw, Gregory. 1995. Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Sorabji, Richard. 2000. Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wallis, Richard T. 1976. NOUS as Experience. In R. Baine Harris, ed., The Significance of Neoplatonism, 12154. Albany: State University of New York Press. West, M. L. 1971. Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

JOHN BUSSANICH is Professor of Mexico. < >

at the University of New