When Ancient Greeks and Hindus Exchanged Wisdom

Ancient Greeks and past Hindus learned overmuch from each different from doctrine and mythology to medicine and surgery. Credit: Midjourney for GreekReporter

“East is East, and West is West, and ne'er the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky basal presently astatine God’s large Judgment Seat,” wrote Sir Rudyard Kipling. However, the information is that agelong earlier Sir Kipling wrote this, some East and West had already met.

This was erstwhile the Greeks came to India and the intelligence sermon that ensued the gathering of these 2 past cultures led to the improvement of Indo-Greek doctrine and art.

Through ancient Greek traders, the knowledge, science, and contented of the past Hindus began making its mode to Europe. Greek philosophy and mythology manifest beardown Hindu influence.

For instance, Sir William Jones compared Hindu philosophers with Greek philosophers—Kanada with Thales, Gautama with Aristotle, Vyasa with Plato, and Jaimini with Socrates. He besides drew connections betwixt Kapila and Pythagoras arsenic good arsenic Patanjali and Zeno. 

Mythology

The Temple of Hera astatine Ancient Olympia. Credit: Matej Batha/Wikimedia Commons CC BY 2.5

In his nonfiction “Hinduism and Buddhism successful Greek Philosophy” in  the diary Philosophy East and West, published by the University of Hawaii Press, A.N. Marlow writes astir Ancient Greek and Hindu deities.

Therein, helium explains that “Dyaus is Zeus, Varuna becomes Ouranos, Usas becomes Eos, and Agni is the primitive deity of fire, who does not look successful Greek but has a shadowy personification arsenic the Latin Ignis.”

The Asvins, who are “horsemen” and inseparable twins, arsenic good arsenic agleam lords of brilliance and protectors of mankind, are referred to successful galore hymns. They are the Dioscuri, whose main aboriginal relation was that of protecting gods. They were mighty helpers of man, delighters successful steeds, princes, [and] Anakes.”

Credits: Hindu Akhara / Wikimedia Commons CC-BY-2.5

Marlow goes connected to write, “The Hindus person their Prometheus successful Matarisvan, who stole occurrence from the entity and entrusted it to the keeping of the Bhrigus, a warlike clan. Their god, Soma,…has the aforesaid characteristics arsenic Dionysus.

In some Greek and Hindu poetry, rivers are consistently personified arsenic gods, and the signifier of sacrifice prescribed successful the Rig Veda is precise akin to the elemental ritual of Homer-prayer, [including the] sprinkling of grain, burnt offering, tasting of flesh, and dedication to the gods.”

What did Alexander the Great learn?

Alexander the Great. credit: Carole Raddato / wikimedia commons CC BY 2.0

Alexander the Great was so a large surviving span betwixt the East and West. When helium was alive, helium showed large involvement successful gathering the celebrated yogis of India.

One of his Lieutenants began shouting astatine 1 of the yogis, “This antheral [Alexander] has conquered the world! What person you accomplished?” The yogi looked up calmly and replied, “I person conquered the tendency to conquer the world.”

It is said that what mighty Persian swords and shields could not bash connected the battlefield was accomplished by the contented of past Hindus successful a forest—simply put, to marque Alexander instrumentality from his march to conquer the full known world.

Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda, a large student of Hinduism who successful 1893 appeared successful Chicago arsenic a spokesperson for Hinduism astatine the World’s Parliament of Religions, was overmuch appreciated and managed to person individuals to the Vedanta movement. He had galore things to accidental astir Alexander successful India.

Moreover, Irish calved follower of Swami Vivekananda Sister Nivedita wrote: “He was determined this summertime (in 1898) to find his mode to Attock, and spot with his ain eyes the spot astatine which Alexander was turned back.”

Swami wrote astir Alexander the Great and Hinduism:

In my caput rises from the past the imaginativeness of the large Emperor of the West, Alexander the Great, and I see, arsenic it were successful a picture, the large monarch lasting connected the slope of the Indus, talking to 1 of our…Monks successful the forest.

The aged antheral helium was talking to, perhaps…stark naked, sitting upon a artifact of stone, and the Emperor, astonished astatine his wisdom, tempting him with golden and [honor] to travel implicit to Greece.

The substance continues:

This antheral smiles astatine his gold, and smiles astatine his temptations, and refuses; and past the Emperor lasting connected his authorization arsenic an Emperor, says, “I volition termination you if you bash not come,” and the antheral bursts into a laughter and says, “You ne'er told specified a falsehood successful your life, arsenic you archer conscionable now. Who tin termination me? Me you kill, Emperor of the worldly world! Never! For I americium Spirit unborn and undecaying: ne'er was I calved and ne'er bash I die; I americium the Infinite, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient; and you termination me, kid that you are!” That is strength, that is strength!

Philosophy

Nyaya, Vaisesika, and Sankhya, systems of Hindu philosophy, acceptable distant theories of cognition and cognition. If 1 reads the fragments of Empedocles, she/he volition announcement the similarity successful the theories. There are respective similarities betwixt the Hindu teaching, Orphism, and Pythagoreanism.

Timothy J. Lomperis wrote successful his book, Hindu Influence connected Greek Philosophy: The Odyssey of the Soul from the Upanishads to Plato, that:

Consequently, it is the cardinal thesis of this survey that Plato, done the Pythagoreans and besides the Orphics, was subjected to the power of Hindu thought, but that helium whitethorn not person been alert of it arsenic coming from India.

Apart from mythology, theology, and philosophy, different disciplines astir which the past Greeks learned overmuch from past Hindus included medicine and surgery.

Medicine and Surgery

Wellcome Images/ wikimedia commons CC-BY-4.0. credit: Wellcome Images/ wikimedia commons CC-BY-4.0

The President of the Ceylon Branch of the British Medical Association, the Hon. Dr. W. G. Rockwood, successful his inaugural address, gave an absorbing relationship of Hindu surgery. He said that, astatine a precise aboriginal period, surgical signifier reached a precocious grade of perfection among the Hindus and Greeks. Various writers judge that the Greeks adopted their aesculapian practices from the Hindus.

The probable day of the Sanskrit compilations, nether the names of Charaka and Susruta, which incorporate references to country among the Hindus, seems to beryllium astir 500 B.C., though immoderate spot it earlier. The precocious grade of aesculapian and surgical cognition and accomplishment which the Hindus possessed, arsenic tin beryllium gleaned from Charaka and Susruta, was by nary means the effect of Hindu interaction with Western civilization pursuing the campaigns of Alexander the Great.

The archetypal hint that transmissions of aesculapian cognition did hap tin beryllium recovered successful Arrian’s Indica (15.11-12):

But arsenic galore [as were] Greek physicians, nary cure astatine each had been recovered by them [for one] who had been bitten by an Indian snake; but successful information Indians themselves cured the ones who were smitten. And successful this connection, Nearchus says [that] Alexander kept collected astir himself arsenic galore of the Indians arsenic were precise skilled successful the healing [art], and had made proclamation passim his campy that whoever was bitten should person recourse to the king’s tent. But these aforesaid [people] are besides physicians of different diseases and misfortunes, i.e. maladies. But not galore misfortunes hap among [the] Indians, due to the fact that their seasons are of adjacent magnitude there. But if [ever] immoderate alternatively greater misfortune seized [them], they usage to pass it to the adepts; and they seemed to cure, not without a god, precisely that which could beryllium cured.

We Learn From Each Other

A pistillate from India successful accepted clothing. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/ amitsah8888 CC BY SA 4.0

Ancient Hindus and Greeks some learned from each other, and some played an important relation successful the improvement of respective disciplines of knowledge. They began contemplating analyzable questions of quality beingness agelong earlier respective different cultures.

They not lone learned from each other, but their enactment led to the improvement of Indo-Greek civilization that was neither wholly Greek nor wholly Indian but, rather, mixed.