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Indian civilization is distinctive for its antiquity
and continuity. Apart from its own vitality, the continuity of Indian
civilization is largely due to its ability to adapt to alien ideas, harmonize
contradictions and mould new thought patterns. Her constant contacts with the
outside world also gave India the opportunity to contribute to other
civilizations. Whilst other ancient civilizations have long ceased to exist,
Indian civilization has continued to grow despite revolutionary changes. The
ancient cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia have not survived. But in
India today, Hindus seek inspiration from concepts similar to those originally
advanced by their ancestors.
Jawaharlal Nehru says in his book The Discovery of
India " Till recently many European thinkers imagined that everything
that was worthwhile had its origins in Greece or Rome. Sir Henry Maine has said
somewhere that except the blind forces of nature, nothing moves in this world
which is not originally Greek."
However, Indian contacts with the Western world date back to prehistoric times. Trade relations, preceded by the migration of peoples, inevitably developed into
cultural relations. This view is not only amply supported by both philological
and archaeological evidence, but by a vast body of corroborative literary
evidence as well: Vedic literature and the Jatakas, Jewish chronicles, and the
accounts of Greek historians all suggest contact between India and the West. Taxila was a great center of commerce and learning. "Crowds of eager
scholars flowed to it for instruction in the three Vedas and in the eighteen
branches of knowledge." Tradition affirms that the great epic, the
Mahabharata, was first recited in the city." (An Advance History of India,
R. C. Majumdar, H. C. Raychanduri p.64) Buddha is reputed to have studied in
Taxila. Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy owe their origin to Indian thought
and spirituality.
Alexander's raid, which was so significant to Western historians, seemed
to have entirely escaped the attention of Sanskrit authors. From the Indian
point of view, there was nothing to distinguish his raid in Indian history.
Jawaharlal Nehru says, " From a military point of view his invasion, was a
minor affair. It was more of a raid across the border, and not a very successful
raid at that."
Indian
Thought and the West
 Dr.
S. Radhakrishnan, has said,
"The
Europeans are apt to imagine that before the great Greek thinkers, Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle, there was a crude confusion of thought, a sort of chaos
without form and void. Such a view becomes almost a provincialism when we
realize that systems of thought which influenced countless millions of human
beings had been elaborated by people who never heard the names of the Greek
thinkers."
(source:
Eastern
Religions and Western Thought - By Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
p. 350).
There has been too much inclination among Western
writers to idealize the Greeks and their civilization, and they have tended to
discover too much of the contemporary world in the Greek past. In fact almost
everything was traced to ancient Greece. In all that concerned intellectual
activity and even faith, modern civilization was considered to be an overgrown
colony of Hellas. The obvious Greek failings, their shortcomings and the
unhealthy features of their civilization, was rationalized and
romanticized.
In the words of Sir
Charles Eliot, who affirms that "it is
clearly absurd for Europe as a whole to pose as a qualified instructor in
humanity and civilization. He writes: "If Europeans have any superiority
over Asiatics it lies in practical science, finance and administration, not in
philosophy, thought or art. Their gifts are authority and power to organize; in
other respects their superiority is imaginary."
(source: Hinduism and Buddhism
- By Sir Charles Elliot Curzon
Press ISBN 0700706798 volume I (1920), pp. xcvi and
xcviii )
Modern research, however, has marred
this comforting image and is helping to put Greek culture into its proper
historical perspective showing that, like any other culture, it inherited
something from preceding civilizations, profited from the progress of its
neighboring cultures (like India and Persia) and, in turn, bequeathed much to
later generations.
 We
are not completely in the dark on the question of Indian influence on Greece.
Speaking of ascetic practices in the West, Professor
Sir Flinders Patrie (1853-1942) British archaeologist and
Egyptologist, author of Egypt and Israel
(1911) observes:
" The presence of a large
body of Indian troops in the Persian army in Greece in 480 B.C. shows how far
west the Indian connections were carried; and the discovery of modeled heads of Indians
at Memphis, of about the fifth century B.C. shows that Indians were
living there for trade. Hence there is no difficulty in regarding India as the
source of the entirely new ideal of asceticism in the West."
(source: Eastern
Religions and Western Thought - By Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
p. 150).
Gods of heaven
It is significant to note that
although the Indians and Greeks (Yavanas) had come from the same Indo-European
stock, they met as strangers in the sixth century B.C. Persian Empire. Soon,
however, the cousins became associates in a a common cultural enterprise.
Similarities in language, associated by similarities in religious beliefs,
indicate that these two peoples must have either been in close contact at some
early period or have had a common origin, even though neither had any
recollection of those times.
For example, the gods of heaven
(Varuna - Ouranos;
Dyaus - Zeus ) and the dawn (Ushas - Aurora) were common to the Greeks and
Indians. The most prominent characteristics of the gods of both races was their
power of regulating the order of nature and banishing evil. The Olympian
religion of the Greeks and Vedic beliefs had a common background. The Greek
concept of logos was very close to the vedic Vac, which
corresponds to the Latin Vox.
Greek Gods
of heaven.
Refer to Christian
persecution against the Hellenes -
ethnicoi.org.
The Rape of the
Ancient Greeks - Lessons for Hindus
Watch
Scientific
verification of Vedic knowledge
***
 Both Greeks and Romans habitually
tried to understand the religions of India by trying to fit them as far as
possible into Greco-Roman categories. Deities in particular were spoken of, not
in Indian but in Greek terms and called by Greek names. Thus Shiva was
identified as 'Dionysos', and Hare Krishna as ' Hercules'.
In a passage of the
Rig
Veda, Vac is praised as a divine being. Vac is
omnipotent, moves amongst divine beings, and carries the great gods, Mitra,
Varuna, Indra and Agni, within itself. The doctrine of Vac teaches that
"all gods live from Vac, also all demi-gods, animals and people. Vac is the
eternal being, it is the first-born of the eternal law, mother of the Vedas and
navel of immortality." Vedic Aryans attached such great importance to the
spoken word that one who could not correctly pronounce Sanskrit was called barbar
(meaning stammering).
The Greek barbaroi had the same meaning. The brisk intercourse between
India and Greece is attested by the fact that a special rule was inserted in the
great grammar of Panini to distinguish three feminine forms of yavana: a Greek
woman was yavani, the curtain was yavanika, and the Greek script was yavanani. There is
also a striking similarity between the social life described in the Homeric
poems- the Illiad and Odyssey- and that found in the Vedas. Homeric gods, like
the heroes who believed in them, often rode in the horse driven chariots. Horse-chariotry
was a feature of the life of the Indo-European people. The Homeric idea of a
language of the gods is also found in Sanskrit, Greek, Old Norse, and Hittite
literatures. Some scholars, like Fiske, have even asserted that elements of the
Trojan war story are to be found in the war between the bright deities, and the
night demons as described in the Rig Veda. It is clear from Homer that even they
used articles of Indian merchandise which were known by names of Indian origin,
such as Kassiteros (Sanskrit, Kastira), elephas (Sanskrit, ibha), and
ivory.
Alain
Danielou (1907-1994), son of French aristocracy, author of numerous books on philosophy, religion,
history and arts of India, remarks that: "the Greeks were always
speaking of India as the sacred territory of Dionysus and historians working
under Alexander the Greek clearly mentions chronicles of the Puranas as sources
of the myth of Dionysus." He quotes Clement of
Alexandria who admitted that "we the
Greeks have stolen from the Barbarians their philosophy."
***
The Greek Philosopher Saint: Apollonios in In India 
 Philostratos
says Apollonios (6th century BCE) of Tyana thought Indians had influenced
Pythagoras. So going to India was an effort to improve his moral education. He
followed the road of Alexander the great to India, probably entering the country
through the Khyber Pass and going to Punjab, where he met the wise men of India
on a forested hill not far from the Ganges River.
He delighted in their company and their lengthy
discussions.
He said: “I saw the
Indian Brahmins living on the earth and not on it, walled without walls, and
owning nothing and owning everything.”
Clearly, Apollonios was impressed by the
spiritual power of the Brahmins who had foreseen his coming. He spent four
months with them. They lived exemplary lives very close to the gods. They ate
what he ate and shared his love for the natural world.
But what impressed Apollnios the most was the
Indians contact with Hellenic culture. The Indian wise men spoke Greek, and were
well versed in the Greek philosophical tradition and Greek culture. Both the
Indian philosophers and Apollonios worshipped the gods and a supreme god, a
divine being like Zeus, who was the father of the gods and humans. The wise men,
however, described themselves as gods in the sense of being good.
(source:
The Passion of
the Greeks:
Christianity and the Rape of the
Hellenes
- By Evaggelos G. Vallianatos
p. 57).
Alexander's Insignificant
Raid
The Alexander
mythos
 Alexander is supposed to have invaded
the Punjab in 326 B.C. Every schoolboy is taught and is expected to know, that
he invaded India's Northwest. Strangely, this
event, so significant to Western historians, seemed to have entirely escaped the
attention of Sanskrit authors. Nowhere did Sir
William Jones, (1746-1794),who came to India as a judge of the Supreme Court at
Calcutta and pioneered Sanskrit studies, find
any mention of Greeks or any sign of Greek influence.
(source: India
Discovered - By John Keay p. 33).
British historian Vincent
A. Smith, conservatively appraised the impact of Alexander's invasion
as follows:
"The
Greek influence never penetrated deeply (into the Indic civilization)...On the
other hand, the West learned something from India in consequence of the
communications opened up by Alexander's adventure. Our knowledge of
the facts is so scanty and fragmentary that it is difficult to make any positive
assertions with confidence, but it is safe to say that the influence of Buddhist
ideas on Christian doctrine may be traced in the Gnostic forms of Christianity,
if not elsewhere. The notions of Indian philosophy and religion which filtered
into the Roman empire flowed through channels opened by Alexander."
(source:
In
Search of The Cradle of Civilization: : New Light on Ancient India - By
Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak & David Frawley
p. 252-253).
Even
more than the Vedas and the Epics, Sindh figures very prominently in, of all
places, the annals of Sikander that is Alexander. British
historians used to talk of Alexander as ``the world conqueror'' who ``came and
saw and conquered'' every land he had visited. He is still advertised
in Indian text-books as the victor in his war with India's Porus (Puru).
However,
the facts as recorded by Alexander's own Greek historians tell a very different
tale. And Marshal
Zhukov, the famous Russian commander in
World War II, said at the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun, a few
years back, that India had defeated Alexander.
Alexander
fared badly enough with Porus in the Punjab. Indeed, Porus put him on the spot
when he told him: ``To what purpose should we make war upon one another. if the
design of your coming to these parts be not to rob us of our water or our
necessary food, which are the only things that wise men are indispensably
obliged to fight for? As for other riches and possessions, as they are accounted
in the eyes of the world, if I am better provided of them than you, I am ready
to let you share with me; but if fortune has been more liberal to you than to
me, I have no objection to be obliged to you.'' Alexander had no reply to the
questions posed by Porus. Instead, with the obstinacy of a bully, he said: ``I
shall contend and do battle with you so far that, howsoever obliging you are,
you shall not have the better of me.'' But Porus did have the better of
Alexander. In the fighting that ensued, the Greeks were so terrified of Indian
prowess that they refused to proceed farther, in spite of Alexander's angry
urgings and piteous lamentations. Writes Plutarch, the great Greek historian:
``This last combat with Porus took off the edge of the Macedonians' courage and
stayed their further progress in India.... Alexander not only offered Porus to
govern his own kingdom as satrap under himself but gave him also the additional
territory of various independent tribes whom he had subdued.'' Porus emerged
from his war with Alexander with his territory doubled and his gold stock
augmented. So much for Alexander's ``victory'' over Porus. However, what was to
befall him in Sindh, was even worse. In his wars in Iran. Afghanistan, and
north-west India, Alexander had made so many enemies that he did not dare return
home by the same route he had come. He had, therefore, decided to travel via
Sindh. But in Multan the Mallas gave him hell.
(source: Alexander's
Waterloo in Sindh - By K R Malkhani).
 According
to Indian historian Dr. R. C. Majumdar,
"The invasion of Alexander has been recorded in minute details by the
Greek historians who naturally felt elated at the progress of their hero over
unknown lands and seas. From the Indian point of
view, there was nothing to distinguish his raid in Indian history.
It can hardly be called a great military success as the only military
achievement to his credit were the conquest of petty tribes and States by
installments. He never approached even within a measurable distance of what may
be called the citadel of Indian military strength, and the exertions he had to
make against Poros, the ruler of a small district between the Jhelum and the
Chenab, do not certainly favor the hypothesis that he would have found it an
easy task to subdue the mighty Nanda empire."
According to Paul Masson-Oursel and
others, "The importance of this Indian campaign of Alexander has been
exaggerated. It had no decisive influence on the destinies of India, for its
results were short-lived.
H. G. Rawlinson, refers to the invasion, " had no
immediate effect, and passed off like countless other invasions, leaving the
country almost undisturbed."
Vincent A. Smith " India remained unchanged. She was
never Hellenised. She continued to live her life of splendid isolation, and forgot the
passing of the Macedonian storm. No Indian author, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain,
makes even the faintest illusion to Alexander or his deeds."
(Source: Ancient India - By V. D. Mahajan 1994.
published by S. Chand & Company New Delhi. p. 265-268)
Jawaharlal Nehru in
his book Discovery of India says,
" From a military point of view his invasion, was a minor affair. It was
more of a raid across the border, and not a very successful raid at that."
He met with such stout resistance from a border chieftain that the contemplated
advance into the heart of India had to be reconsidered. If a small ruler on the
frontier could fight thus, what of the larger and more powerful kingdom further
south? Probably this was the main reason why his army refused to march further
and insisted on returning."
(source Discovery
of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru p. 114-115).
 Another
myth is propagated by the Western historians that Alexander was noble and kind
king, he had great respects for brave and courageous men, and so on. The truth
is other-wise. He was neither a noble man nor
did he have a heart of gold. He had meted out very cruel and harsh treatment to
his earlier enemies. Basus of Bactria fought tooth and nail with Alexander to
defend the freedom of his motherland. When he was brought before Alexander as a
prisoner, Alexander ordered his servants to whip him and then cut off his nose
and ears. He then killed him. Many Persian generals were killed by him.
The murder of Kalasthenese, nephew of Aristotle, was
committed by Alexander because he criticised Alexander for foolishly imitating
the Persian emperors. Alexander also murdered his friend Clytus in anger. His
father's trusted lieutenant Parmenian was also murdered by Alexander. The Indian
soldiers who were returning from Masanga were most atrociously murdered by
Alexander in the dead of night. These exploits do not prove Alexander's kindness
and greatness, but only an ordinary emperor driven by the zeal of expanding his
empire.
(source:
Alexander, the Ordinary
- By Prof. Dinesh Agarwal).
Alexander’s
raid of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, finally turned out to be a overthrow of
the Achaemenid dynasty, usurpers of the Assyrian Empire. Unable to make headway
into India, as the
Indian Brahmins had helped and influenced Indian
princes
to organize and support
the Indian war against Alexander.
Greek sources cite, after this realization, at ‘The City of Brahmans’, Alexander
massacred an estimated 8000-10,000 of these non-combatant Brahmans.
Alexander’s
massacres in India, a
colonial historian informs us
(without naming a source),
earned him an “epithet
… assigned (to)
him by the Brahmins of India, The Mighty Murderer.” This Indian Brahmanic
characterization of Alexander,
commonly taught to English
schoolchildren and present in English college texts,
as The Mighty Murderer, curiously disappeared from Western-English texts soon
after 1860 – and
instead now
“a positive rose-tinted aura surrounds Alexander” … !
Since Indian texts were completely silent about the very existence of Alexander,
colonial Western historians had a free run. Using hagiographic Greek texts as
the base, Alexander became the conqueror of the world.
(source:
The Alexander mythos - 2ndlook.wordpress.com).
The religious scripture of ancient Iranians was the
Avesta. The Avesta available today is only a fraction of what existed thousands
of years ago. When Alexander captured Iran
(Persia) in 326 B. C. after a bloody war, he destroyed each copy of the Avesta
available. After return of political stability
Persian priests tried to salvage the Avesta and much had to be written
from memory. Another cruel legacy of Alexander.
(source: Vedic
Physics - By Raja Ram Mohan Roy p. 8)
Marshal Zhukov, the
famous Russian commander in World War II, said at the Indian Military Academy,
Dehra Dun, a few years back, that India had defeated Alexander
Indian Philosophy
By contrast, philosophical thought in
India in the sixth century B.C. had become quite mature. It had reached a stage
which could have been arrived at only after long and arduous philosophical
quest. Jainism and Buddhism, the latter enormously influential in Indian and
neighboring cultures, had emerged by this time. But even before their advent,
the philosophical reflections of the early Upanishads (900-600 B.C.) had set forth the fundamental
concepts of Hindu thought which have continued to dominate the Indian
mind.
It is perhaps necessary to point
out that there has often been a wide divergence between Indian and Western
interpretations of Indian thought. Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
once even declared that a true
account to Hinduism may be given in a categorical denial of most of the
interpretation that have been made by Westerners or Western-trained
Indians.
 The tradition of Indian philosophic
thought is as complex as it is long. The complexities of Indian philosophy have
arisen through centuries of deep reflection on the many aspects of human
experience, and, in the search for some reality behind the external world,
various methods have been restored to ranging from experimental to the purely
speculative. It is the oldest philosophical tradition in the world is to be
traced in the ancient Vedas. Although the religious and philosophical spirit of
India emerges distinctly in the Rig Veda, the Upanishads are its most brilliant
exposition, for the Vedic civilization was naturalistic and utilitarian,
although it did not exclude the cosmological and religious speculation.
Older than Plato or Confucius, the
Upanishads are the most ancient philosophical works and contain the mature
wisdom of India's intellectual and spiritual attainment. They have inspired not
only the orthodox system of Indian thought but also the so-called heterodox
schools such as Buddhism. In profundity of thought and beauty of style, they
have rarely been surpassed not only in Indian thought but in the Western and
Chinese philosophical traditions as well.
The Upanishads have greatly
influenced Indian culture throughout history and have also found enthusiastic
admirers abroad. Schopenhauer was almost lyrical about them.
Max
Muller said: " The Upanishads are the ....
sources of .....the Vedanta philosophy, a system in which human speculation
seems to me to have reached its very acme." The Upanishads are
saturated with the spirit of inquiry, intellectual analysis, and a passion for
seeking the truth.
 India, is the home of philosophy.
Certainly India is a country where philosophy has always been very popular and
influential. An American scholar has stated that teachers of philosophy in India
were as numerous as merchants in Babylonia. The sages have always been heroes of
the Indians. If philosophy did emerge in India earlier than in Greece, and if
the two countries were in close contact soon after this emergence, it is
not unlikely that Indian thought had some influence on Greek philosophy.
Indian Inspiration of Pythagoras
The similarity between the theory of
Thales, that water is the material cause of all things, and the Vedic idea of
primeval waters as the origin of the universe, was first pointed out by Richard
Garbe. The resemblances, too, between the teachings of Pythagoras (ca. 582-506
B.C.) and Indian philosophy are striking. It was Sir William
Jones, the founder
of comparative philology, who first pointed out the pointed out the similarities
between Indian and Pythagorean beliefs. Later, other scholars such as Colebrooke,
Garbe, and Winternitz also testified to the Indian inspiration of Pythagoras.
Professor
H. G. Rawlinson writes: " It is more likely that Pythagoras was
influenced by India than by Egypt. Almost all the theories, religions,
philosophical and mathematical taught by the Pythagoreans, were known in India
in the sixth century B.C., and the Pythagoreans, like the Jains and the
Buddhists, refrained from the destruction of life and eating meat and regarded
certain vegetables such as beans as taboo" "It seems that the
so-called Pythagorean theorem of the quadrature of the hypotenuse was already
known to the Indians in the older Vedic times, and thus before Pythagoras
(ibid). (Legacy of India 1937, p. 5).
Professor
Maurice Winternitz is of the same opinion: "As regards
Pythagoras, it seems to me very probable that he became acquainted with Indian
doctrines in Persia." (Visvabharati Quarterly Feb. 1937, p. 8).
It is also the view of Sir
William Jones (Works, iii. 236), Colebrooke
(Miscellaneous Essays, i. 436 ff.). Schroeder (Pythagoras
und die Inder), Garbe (Philosophy
of Ancient India, pp. 39 ff), Hopkins
(Religions of India, p. 559 and 560) and
Macdonell (Sanskrit Literature,
p. 422).
(source: Eastern
Religions and Western Thought - By Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
p. 143).
Ludwig
von Schröder German philosopher, author of the
book Pythagoras
und die Inder (Pythagoras and the Indians), published in 1884, he
argued that Pythagoras had been influenced by the Samkhya school of thought, the
most prominent branch of the Indic philosophy next to Vedanta.
(source:
In
Search of The Cradle of Civilization: : New Light on Ancient India - By
Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak & David Frawley
p. 252). Refer to
The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes – By
Evaggelos G. Vallianatos - Reviewed by Christos C. Evangeliou -
indianrealist.wordpress.com
Watch
Scientific
verification of Vedic knowledge
"Nearly all the philosophical and mathematical
doctrines attributed to Pythagoras are derived from India."
Orphic
religion, Pythagorean philosophy, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism and several others not
so well-known have been influenced by the Samkhya-Vedanta thought of India. In
pre-Christian centuries Persia served as a middle ground between India, and
Greece. It is known that Indian archers with their long bows, one end of which
was planted in the ground, fought in Darius's war against Greece. Brahmins and
Buddhists were in Greece before Socrates. Later Alexandria became a great center
of commerce and learning, where Buddhists and Brahmins congregated and where
Neo-Platonism was born. The great astronomical observatory at Ujjayini (now
Ujjain) in central India was linked to Alexandria in Egypt. The
first Greek book about India was perhaps written by Scylax,
a Greek sea-captain whom Darius
commissioned to explore the course of the Indus about 510 B.C. (Herodotus, iv.
44 ).
An American
Mahant: Rama-priya Das poses in a yoga posture. His body is covered with ashes
from holy sadhu-fires. A bead (made of sacred tulsi wood) hangs on a thread
around his neck and over his left shoulder he wears a string which may only be
worn by ‘twice-born’, high-caste Hindus and sadhus of this sect.
(image
source: Sadhu:
Holy Men of India - By Dolf Hartsuiker.
***
Vitsaxis
G. Vassilis, in his book Plato
and the Upanishads, argues that exponents of literature, science,
philosophy and religion traveled regularly between the two countries. He points
to accounts by Eusebius and Aristoxenes, of the visits of Indian sages to Athens
and their meetings with Greek philosophers. And reference to the visit of
Indians to Athens is found in the fragment of Aristotle preserved in the
writings of Diogenes Laertius who was also one of Pythagoras’ biographers.
The
essence of Socratic and Platonic philosophy has remained unintelligible in the
West because of lack of insight into Indian thought. Plato's view of Reality is
the same as that of the Upanishads. His method of attaining knowledge of the
Good is that of Vedanta. In the Phaedo, Plato describes silent meditation
as withdrawal of the senses from their objects and as stilling the processes of
mind.
The
Greek theoria of the Pythagoreans, of Socrates and Plato, from which the
world 'theater' comes is the vision or darshana of the Upanishads.
Plato
mentions that philosophic wisdom can only be communicated directly from a
teacher to disciple, like lighting one lamp by another. The Timaeus
indicates after the manner of the Upanishads that the receiver of philosophic
truth must be a fit person - fit by character and not by reason of intellect
alone. Platonic thought is so un-Greek in the sense in which Greek thought is
generally taken, namely, purely rationalism, that some philosopher, such as Nietzsche, have called it " un-Hellenic."
According
to Voltaire, "The Greeks, before the time of Pythagoras, traveled into India for
instruction. The signs of the seven planets and of the seven metals are still
almost all over the earth, such as the Indians invented: the Arabians were
obliged to adopt their cyphers."
(source: The Philosophy of
History p. 527).
Some
sources even credit Pythagoras
with having traveled as far as India in search of knowledge, which
may explain some of the close parallels between Indian and Pythagorean
philosophy and religion. These parallels include:
- a
belief in the transmigration of souls;
- the
theory of four elements constituting matter;
- the
reasons for not eating beans;
- the
structure of the religio-philosophical character of the Pythagorean
fraternity, which resembled Buddhist monastic orders; and
- the
contents of the mystical speculations of the Pythagorean schools, which bear
a striking resemblance of the Hindu Upanishads.
According to Greek tradition,
Pythagoras, Thales, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus and others undertook
journey to the East to study philosophy and science. By the time
Ptolmaic Egypt and Rome’s Eastern empire had established themselves just
before the beginning of the Common era, Indian civilization was already well
developed, having founded three great religions – Hinduism, Buddhism and
Jainism – and expressed in writing some subtle currents of religious thought
and speculation as well as fundamental theories in science and medicine.
(source:
The
crest of the peacock: Non-European roots of Mathematics - By
George Gheverghese Joseph p.
1 - 18). For more refer to chapter on Hindu
Culture1).
Pythagoras
was particularly influenced by Indian philosophy. Professor
R. G. Rawlinson remarks that:
"almost all the
theories, religious, philosophical, and mathematical, taught by the Pythagorians
were known in India in the sixth century B.C."
Even
Aristotle, the great rationalist and empiricist, upheld so strongly by teachers
of philosophy in the West, is not fully understood. Aristotle speaks of
intellect in the same sense as do the Upanishads- intellect which is not
thinking logically but which grasps truth immediately. The Indian term for
intellect is buddhi, the purest understanding.
The thought of Plotinus is Hindu. Eusebius in his biography of Socrates, relates
an incident recorded in the fourth century B.C. in which Socrates met a Brahmin
in the agora or the market place. The Brahmin asked Socrates what he was doing.
Socrates replied that he was questioning people in order to understand man. At
this, the Brahmin laughed and asked how one could understand man without knowing
God.
The
Socrates conception of freedom and virtue is that of the Upanishads. Socrates
defined virtue as knowledge. Virtue is character, the realization of the essence
of man. Know thyself, which is exactly the same as the Upanisadic command, Atmanam
biddhi. In the Gita, knowledge or wisdom is defined as character. Virtue,
comes from the Vedic word vira (hero, man).
Greek
philosophy began in Asia Minor and Greek writers refer to the travels of
Pythagoras, and others, to the East to gain wisdom. According to his biographer Iamblichus,
"Pythagoras traveled widely, studying the esoteric teachings of
the Egyptians, Assyrians, and even Brahmins." According to Gomprez,
"It is not too much to assume that the curious Greek who was a contemporary
of Buddha, and it may be of Zoraster, too, would have acquired a more or less
exact knowledge of the East, in the age of intellectual fermentation, through
the medium of Persia."
Pythagoras's
theorem discovered in India in 800 BC according to renowned
historian Dick
Teresi. author and coauthor of several books about
science and technology, including The
God Particle. He is cofounder of Omni
magazine and has written for Discover, The New York Times
Magazine, and The Atlantic Monthly.
"Two
thousand years before Pythagoras, philosophers
in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar
system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive
object, had to be at its center."
"Our
Western mathematical heritage and pride are critically dependent
on the triumphs of ancient Greece. These accomplishments have
been so greatly exaggerated that it often becomes
difficult to sort out how much of modern math is derived from
Greece and how much from...the Indians and so on.
"Our modern numerals 0
through 9 were developed in India. Mathematics existed long
before the Greeks constructed their first right angle. On the
other hand George Cheverghese Joseph
(author of The
Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics)
points out that the early Indian
mathematics contained in the Sulbasutras (The Rules of the Cord)
contain their own version of the Pythagorean theorem as well as
procedure for obtaining the square root of 2 correct to five
decimal places. The Sulbasutras reveal a rich geometric
knowledge that preceded the Greeks."
(source:
Lost
Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - By Dick
Teresi p. 32). For more on Dick
Teresi refer to chapter on Quotes301_320).
 Vivekananda said that Samhkya was the
basis of the philosophy of the whole world. " There is no philosophy in the
world that was not indebted to Kapila. (Kapila is the founder of the Sankhya
philosophy). Krishna says in the Gita that, among the perfected sages, he is
Kapila. Pythagoras came to India and studied his philosophy and that was the
beginning of the philosophy of the Greeks. Later it formed the Alexandrian
school, and still later the Gnostic."
Panini, who
speaks of the Greek script as yavanani lipi.
The Prakrit equivalent of yavana, viz. yona, is used in the inscriptions of
Ashoka to describe the Hellenic princes of Egypt, Cyrene, Macedonia, Epirus, and
Syria.
"It is believed that the Dravidians
from India went to Egypt and laid the foundation of its civilization there. the
Egyptians themselves had the tradition that they originally came from the South,
from a land called Punt,
which an historian of the West, Dr. H.R. Hall,
thought referred to some part of India.
The Indus Valley civilization is,
according to Sir John Marshall who was in charge of the excavations, the oldest
of all civilizations unearthed (c. 4000 B.C.) It is older than the Sumerian and
it is believed by many that the latter was a branch of the former.
Some people called the Brahui who
dwell in Baluchistan which is at present a part of Pakistan, still speak the
Dravidian language. It is likely that their ancestors were the people who sailed
across the narrow waters at the entrance of the Persian Gulf to Oman and then to
Aden along the southern littoral of Arabia, crossing over to Africa at the
narrow strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, near Somaliland and proceeding north along the
Nile Valley."
(Source: The Bhagvad
Gita: A Scripture for the Future
- Translation and Commentary by Sachindra K. Majumdar p. 28).
 "We hear of Arabian trade with
Egypt as far back as 2743 B.C. probably as ancient as was the trade with
India."
(source: The Story of
civilizations - Our Oriental Heritage ISBN:
1567310125 1937 vol. 4 p. 157).
Klaus K.
Klostermaier, in his book A Survey of Hinduism
pg 18 says:
"For several centuries a lively
commerce developed between the ancient Mediterranean world and India,
particularly the ports on the Western coast. The most famous of these ports was
Sopara, not far from modern Bombay, which was recently renamed Mumbai. Present day Cranganore in
Kerala, identified with the ancient Muziris, claims to
have had trade contacts with Ancient Egypt under Queen Hatsheput, who sent five
ships to obtain spices, as well as with ancient Israel during King Soloman's
reign. Apparently, the contact did not break off after Egypt was conquered
by Greece and later by Rome.
According to I .K. K. Menon:
"there is
evidence of a temple of Augustus near Muziris (Cranganore, Kerala) and a force of 1200 Roman soldiers
stationed in the town for the protection of Roman commerce." Large hoards
of Roman traders, who must have rounded the southern tip of India to reach that
place."
(Note: The ancient Alexandrian port
of Muziris, now Cranganore, Kerala is where the Romans built a temple to
Augustus in the first century.)
Thus, both upon archaeological and
historical grounds, India is the mother of civilizations. Material skill and
spiritual ideas spread from the Indus valley to Nineveh and Babylon, to the
entire Middle East, to the Nile Valley and thence to Greece and Rome.
Other Indic Influences:
American mathematician, A.
Seindenberg has demonstrated that the Sulbhasutras,
the ancient Vedic mathematics, have inspired all the mathematic sciences of the
antique world from Babylonia to Egypt and Greece". "Arithmetic
equations from the Sulbhasutras were used in the observation of the triangle by
the Babylonians and the theory of contraries and of inexactitude in arithmetic
methods, discovered by Hindus, inspired Pythagorean mathematics." writes
Abraham Seidenberg.
In astronomy, too, Indus were precursors: Jean-Claude
Bailly (1736–93)
18th century French astronomer and politician. His works on astronomy and on the
history of science (notably the Essai sur la théorie des satellites de
Jupiter) were distinguished both for scientific interest and literary
elegance and earned him membership in the French Academy, the Academy of
Sciences, and the Academy of Inscriptions. Bailly
had already noticed that:
"the Hindu astronomic systems were much more
ancient than those of the Greeks or even the Egyptians the movement of stars which was calculated by Hindus 4,500 years ago, does
not differ even by a minute from the tables which we are using today." And
he concludes: "The Hindu systems of astronomy are much more ancient than
those of the Egyptians - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their
knowledge." There is also no doubt that the Greeks heavily borrowed
from the "Indus."
Alain Danileou
(1907-1994), son of French aristocracy, author of numerous books on philosophy, religion,
history and arts of India, including Virtue,
Success, Pleasure, & Liberation : The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of
Ancient India. He was perhaps the first European to boldly proclaim his
Hinduness. He settled in India for fifteen years in the study of Sanskrit. He
had a wide effect upon Europe's understanding of Hinduism. He has remarks
that:
"the Greeks were always speaking of India as
the sacred territory of Dionysus and historians working under Alexander the
Great clearly mention chronicles of the Puranas as sources of the myth of
Dionysus." Alain Danielou quotes Clement of
Alexandria who admitted that "we the
Greeks have stolen from the Barbarians their philosophy."
We know that the Greeks had translated the
Bhagvad-gita and French philosopher and historian Roger-Pol
Droit writes in his classic "L'oubli de
l'Inde (India forgotten) "that there is absolutely not a shadow
of a doubt that Greeks knew all about Indian philosophy."
 William
Jones (1746-1794) came to India as a judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta. He
pioneered Sanskrit studies. A linguist of British India,
his admiration for Indian thought and culture was almost
limitless. He noted that "the
analogies between Greek Pythagorean philosophy and the Sankhya school, are very
obvious."
(source: Arise
O' India - By Francois Gautier ISBN
81-241-0518-9 Har-Anand Publications 2000. p. 21-22).
Jean-Paul Droit, French philosopher, and Le
Monde journalist, recently wrote in his book "The
Forgetfulness of India, that:
"The Greeks loved so much Indian
philosophy that
Demetrios Galianos
had even translated the Bhagavad-Gita"
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Scientific
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The Roman Empire -
A Gangster State?
According to Peter
Beckman, author of 'A History of Pi: " While Alexandria had become the world capital of
thinkers, Rome was becoming the capital of thugs. Rome was not the first state
of organized gangsterdom nor was it the last; but it was the only one that
managed to bamboozle posterity into an almost universal admiration. Few rational
men admire the Huns, the Nazis or the Soviets; but for centuries, schoolboys
have been expected to read Julius Caesar's militaristic drivel. They have been
led to believe that the Romans had attained an advanced level in the sciences,
the arts, law, architecture, engineering and everything else.
 It is my opinion that the alleged
Roman achievements are largely a myth; and I feel it is time for this myth to be
debunked a little. What the Romans excelled in was bullying, bludgeoning,
butchering and blood bath. They enslaved peoples whose cultural level was far
above their own. They not only ruthlessly vandalized their countries, but they
also looted them, stealing their art treasures, abducting their scientists and
copying their technical know-how, which the Romans' barren society was rarely
able to improve on.
Then there is Roman engineering: The
Roman roads, acquaducts, the Coliseums. Warfare, alas, has always been
beneficial to engineering. In a healthy society, engineering design gets smarter
and smarter; in gangster states, it gets bigger and bigger.
The architecture of the Coliseums and other places of Roman entertainment are difficult to judge without recalling
what purpose they served. It was here that gladiators fought to the death; that
prisoners of war, convicts and Christians were devoured by a many as 5,000 wild
beasts at a time; and that victims were crucified or burned alive for the
entertainment of Roman civilization. When the Roman screamed for ever more
blood, artificial lakes were dug and naval battles as many as 19,000 gladiators
were staged until the water turned red with blood. The only Roman emperors who
did not throw Christians to the lions were the Christian emperors. They
(Christians) threw
the pagans to the lions with the same gusto and for the same crime - having a
different religion.
Romans were not primitive savages,
but were sophisticated killers. The Roman contribution to sciences was mostly
limited to butchering antiquity's greatest mathematicians, burning the Library
of Alexandria. and it demonstrates an abysmal ignorance of sciences. Pliny
tells us that in India there is a species of men without mouths who subsist by
smelling flowers.
Yet most historians extol the
achievements of Rome. "it accustomed the Western races to the idea of a
world-state, and by pax romana....."
(source: A History of Pi
- by Peter Beckan St. Martin's Press; ; 19th edition (August 1976)
0312381859 p. 55-59).
Top of Page
 Did You Know
Iron with Mettle
 Ancient India developed advanced
metallurgical technology that made it possible to cast a remarkable iron pillar,
dating to about 300 B.C.E. Still standing today in Delhi. This solid shaft of
wrought iron is about 24 feet high and 16 inches in diameter. It has been
exposed to weather and pollution since its erection, yet shows minimal
corrosion, a technology lost to current ironmakers. Even with today's advances,
only four foundries in the world could make this piece and none were able to
keep it rust-free.
The earliest known metal expert (some 2,200 years ago) Rishi Pantanjali. His book
Loha
Shastra, "metal manual" describes in detail
metal preparation.
The pillar is a solid shaft of
iron sixteen inches in diameter and 23 feet high. What is most astounding about
it is that it has never rusted even though it has been exposed to wind and rain
for centuries! The pillar defies explanation, not only for not having rusted,
but because it is apparently made of pure iron, which can only be produced today
in tiny quantities by electrolysis! The technique used to cast such a gigantic,
solid pillar is also a mystery, as it would be difficult to construct another of
this size even today. The pillar stands as mute testimony to the highly advanced
scientific knowledge that was known in antiquity, and not duplicated until
recent times. Yet still, there is no satisfactory explanation as to why the
pillar has never rusted!
(source: Technology
of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients - By David Hatcher
Childress p. 80)
Refer to Delhi
Iron Pillar - By Prof. R. Balasubramaniam - Professor
Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engng Indian Institute of Technology,
Kanpur 208016. Contributed to this site by Prof. R. Balasubramaniam.
URL : http://home.iitk.ac.in/~bala
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Scientific
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The
iron pillar near Qutub Minar at New Delhi is in the news, thanks to the research by Prof.
R. Balasubramaniam of IIT, Kanpur and his team of metallurgists. The
pillar is said to be 1,600 years old. A protective layer of `misawite'
— a compound made up of iron, oxygen and hydrogen on the steel pillar, which
is said to contain phosphorus -
is claimed as the
reason for the non-corrosive existence.
(source:
Iron
pillar and nano powder - http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/seta/stories/2002082900020200.htm
For more information refer to
chapter on Hindu
Culture).
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