Plotinus and the Orient: aoristos dyas
One form it was previously, which again became fourfold …
(Mahābhārata 12.321.16c)1
In his Vita Plotini, Porphyry tells us that, at the age of twenty-seven, Plotinus was seized by a passion for philosophy. Plotinus searched long for a teacher until he finally met Ammonius in Alexandria:
From that day he stayed continually with Ammonius and acquired so complete a training in philosophy that he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians. As the Emperor Gordian was preparing to march against the Persians, he joined the army and went on the expedition; he was already in his thirty-ninth year, for he had stayed studying with Ammonius for eleven complete years. When Gordian was killed in Mesopotamia Plotinus escaped with difficulty and came safe to Antioch.
(Porphyry, Plot. 3.14–23)2
Scholars have long wished to investigate the relationship between Plotinus and the Indian system of thought, but such research was limited to historical research or philosophical speculation.3 Thus far, no specific Indian text has been suggested where such a “system” – one that bears the closest resemblance to Plotinian thought – could be found.4
In this chapter, I introduce such a text: the Nārāyaṇīya, found in the Mokṣadharmaparvan or the soteriological portion of the Indian epic, the Mahābhārata. In eighteen short chapters,5 this text contains a combination of elements that were also essential for Plotinus’ thought:
• a soteriology oriented towards the One;6
• difficulty of seeing and describing this One;
• levels of Being;
• intense erotic love and its relationship to the One;
• an ontological hierarchy that serves upward as a soteriology and downward as a cosmology.
The entire discussion, moreover, displays a keen understanding of the properties of number, such as the completely transcendent one, the Indefinite Dyad, and the cosmological resonances of the numeric series 1, 2, 3, .… 7 A more relevant “Plotinian” Indian text cannot be wished for, nor does one exist.
The method I follow in this chapter is straightforward. I will present the text,8 its basic structure and philosophical project, and argue for why the Nārāyaṇīya provides a good basis for Plotinian–Indian comparative study. My discussion is divided into six sections. I first introduce the Nārāyaṇīya and then discuss relevant aspects of number in Greek philosophy from Pythagoras to Plotinus; thereafter, I return to philosophy of number in the Nārāyaṇīya.9 In two concluding sections, I then address the question of Plotinus’ Orientalism. The first of these reviews Bréhier’s reasons – made in his 1928 classic work La philosophie de Plotin, translated into English as The Philosophy of Plotinus (1958) – for attributing Oriental influences to certain aspects of Plotinus’ thought; the second then examines Bréhier’s sources for making these claims.10 Finally, I return to the question of Plotinian–Indian comparisons in the conclusion.
THE NĀRĀYAṆĪYA
The Nārāyaṇīya occurs in the Śāntiparvan, the twelfth major book of the Mahābhārata. The Śāntiparvan contains three sections: the Rājadharmaparvan (on the law of kingship), the Apaddharmaparvan (on the law of emergencies) and the Mokṣadharmaparvan (on the praxis of salvation). The Nārāyaṇīya appears in the last of these sections and marks the culmination of the epic’s cosmological, soteriological and literary programme.
The immediate context of the Nārāyaṇīya is an extended dialogue between the fallen Kuru patriarch Bhīṣma and the victorious king Yudhiṣṭhira regarding the various forms of dharma.11 This text is distinguished by the glorification of Nārāyaṇa12 as the supreme reality. It includes the divine sage Narada’s visit to the mystical island Śvetadvīpa (or the “White Island”) where Nārāyaṇa reveals himself in his universal form (viśvarūpa, 12.326.1c). The text is interesting as it provides not only a well-developed theology but also philosophical discussions on ontology, cosmology, etymology, divinity and ritual. A summary of the various descents of the One Being (ekaṁ puruṣaṁ, 12.326.31c) Nārāyaṇa into the cosmos can be found here13 – a theme that is richly developed in later sectarian texts, the Purāṇas.
Although a spate of philological scholars have insisted that the doctrine of Nārāyaṇa was introduced into the text by later dogmatic philosophico-religious interpolators,14 and that the text is nothing more than a transparent attempt to import “theology” into the Mahābhārata, a closer view reveals matters to be much more complex. The Nārāyaṇīya articulates a sophisticated philosophy of number, which, to be sure, is oriented towards the One Being called Nārāyaṇa here, but the text is anything but dogmatic. The difficulty in conceiving the one reality, the difficulty of articulating it and achieving it are problems the text struggles to articulate. These difficulties – along with the difficulties the very conception of one reality creates for cosmology in terms of how, then, such a plurality (as is implied in the idea of cosmology) can exist – are exposed in this text. To be sure, the text does recommend certain practices conducive to this vision, but I am chiefly concerned here with the philosophical problem of the One and its relation to the many. Although Nārāyaṇa is said to be this One, owing to his infinity, this conception appears with all the attendant philosophical problems. Nārāyaṇa must be the One, but also the several levels between the One and the many. Thus: a dyad, a doubling, a pair, a fourfold. These are the emanations of the One (note that this series always proceeds through doubling). At the head of the many is a series of numbers: one, two, three (eka, dvi, tri). The One of the former progression (that is, of the series which proceeds through ontological doubling) and the one of the numerical series are quite different. Throughout, the text attempts to hold together these two senses of “one” in their irreducible difference.15 The dyad, moreover, appears to be assigned a liminal role between the simple One and the many.16
This brief overview of the text already shows that number is the key concept in terms of which the Nārāyaṇīya must be understood. Before we look more closely at the Nārāyaṇīya, however, it is pertinent to recall the significance of number in Plotinian thought.
SIGNIFICANCE OF MULTIPLICITY FROM PYTHAGORAS TO PLATO
From the early Presocratics through Pythagoras and Plato, Plotinus inherits the central function of the philosophy of number in explaining both the multiplicity of beings and the relation of this multiplicity to the One.17 Slaveva-Griffin distinguishes three central philosophical functions fulfilled by number in ancient philosophy:
• a cosmogonic function that “searches for the origin of multiplicity from some physical or metaphysical source”;
• a cosmological function that “searches for a way to explain the innumerable diversity of material world in an orderly fashion”; and
• an epistemological function that “attempts to comprehend the visible and invisible constituents of the universe in a rational form” (Slaveva-Griffin 2009: 4).
Number is the crucial concept that mediates both between the move from the One to the many (cosmogony) and from the many to the One (cosmology). It allows these two to be held together in their irreducible tension. An epistemological investigation into the properties of numbers is thus not an enquiry undertaken for its own sake, but an attempt to understand the structure of reality in its outward pull away from the One and its inward pull towards the One.18 Besides the problem of the relation of the cosmogonic and the cosmological properties of number, however, there is a further problem that arises in relation the One: this is the problem of the polysemy of the term “one”, which Plato discusses in the Parmenides.
Pythagorean elements are interspersed throughout Plato’s dialogues, especially the Timaeus and Philebus, which Slaveva-Griffin discusses, and the Laws, Theaetetus and the Republic, which Rist (1967) analyses. However, I will focus here primarily on Plato’s dialogue Parmenides. While the Timaeus and Philebus focus on cosmogonic and cosmological themes and the latter three texts on the challenges to monism arising out of the problem of evil, the Parmenides is explicitly and technically ontological, setting for itself an investigation into the one, unity and multiplicity. The dialogue lists eight hypotheses, of which only the first two are of relevance to us here in the Plotinian framework. The first hypothesis, which speaks of the unity of the one as absolute, is most closely related to Parmenides’ Peri Physeōs. This conception of the One insists on its absolute, pure and simple unity and excludes any predicates – including the predicate that it is one! Plato felt this last deduction of the first hypothesis to be self-contradictory, and thus introduced the second hypothesis, which is of most relevance to our discussion. This second hypothesis introduces sophistication or qualification (one can hardly call it difference) into the One.19 The One, according to the deductions of this hypothesis, consists of both unity and being: to hen and ousia, to einai or to on. Slaveva-Griffin shows convincingly how this qualification of the One, “as unity and multiplicity interact at an ontological level, especially as represented in Plotinus’ concepts of the Indefinite Dyad and Intellect” (Slaveva-Griffin 2009: 6). In support, she cites Simplicius, Metaphysics 187a: “Alexander says that ‘according to Plato the One and the Indefinite Dyad, which he spoke of as Great and Small, are the Principles of all things and even the Forms themselves’ … It is very likely that Plato made the One and the Indefinite Dyad the Principles of all things, since this was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans whom Plato followed at many points.”20 Note, however, that Plato does not elaborate on the Indefinite Dyad as such, but the ‘unwritten doctrines’ of Plato, the agrapha dogmata, attest to this notion.21 Whatever the actual relationship between Plato’s written and unwritten doctrines may be, we can accept with reliable confidence that the concept of the Indefinite Dyad played a role in Plato’s conception of the “many” (Krämer 1990; Dillon 2003; Guthrie 1978: 418–42; Slaveva-Griffin 2009).
After Plato, the next thinker to consider is Speusippus, who renames Plato’s One and the Indefinite Dyad as One and Multiplicity (plēthos). He constructs a conceptual system in de Communi Mathematica Scientia.22 Slaveva-Griffin writes:
According to this system, the first level of reality that derives from the union of a One and Multiplicity is the first principle of number, which in turn unites with multiplicity once again to produce the sequence of numbers and geometrical figures … the One imposes limit and quality into Multiplicity, being infinite divisibility …. Aristotle interprets multiplicity quantitatively as multiplicity of units and number as a composition of units, while Speusippus and, in retrospect, Plato view them as ontologically primal.
(2009: 7)
Rist (1965: 330–31) approaches the same issue from an ethical rather than an ontological point of view, relying heavily on Aristotle. Rist’s ethical approach clarifies some of the background behind the issues of One, multiplicity and the Dyad, and how Aristotle’s materialistic interpretations of number were stirring debate, but Rist makes the same error as Aristotle of confusing one as a simple, undifferentiated one with one as the first of a series.23 To add to the problem of rescuing Parmenidean (or Platonic) monism, intellectual debates did not fail to exploit the analytic avenues opened. Thus, Rist takes Theophrastus’ comment on this Pythagorean structure seriously, and asserts that unlike the later Milesians, Pythagoras was a dualist. Here it is important for us that Rist’s interpretation explicitly hinges on the fact that “they [i.e. Plato and Pythagoras] … make a kind of opposition (antithesin tina poiousin) between the One and the Indefinite Dyad” (ibid.: 332).
In contrast to Rist’s views, I would like to suggest that there is an alternative way to think of the Indefinite Dyad in Plato, namely through holding apart the different sense of “one”, as is the case in the Nārāyaṇīya.24 As we have seen, the text distinguishes between two main senses of one: the One Being, which is without a second and yet somehow engenders a procession through doubling, is different from the one of the series eka, dvi and tri. Retaining this distinction between two senses of one, we can now better address the problem as defined by Rist. First, we should note that in the Nārāyaṇīya, the One does not become the many; it remains distinct from the numeric series identified with cosmology: Ekata, Dvita and Trita are the sons of the Creator; yet, when sage Nārada arrives at Śvetadvīpa, wishing to behold the One, he sees the entire cosmos of Becoming contained within the One. The Creator’s sons are less fortunate and are told that the One is seen through the dyadic beings of Śvetadvīpa being seen. Curiously, when Nārada returns to the Bādari hermitage of Nara-Nārāyaṇa, the sages, who were formerly a pair, now appear exactly as the dyadic beings of Śvetadvīpa. Distinguishing between the simple One and one as the first in a series would thus allow us to posit the Dyad without necessarily reverting to a dualistic ontology.25
With Xenocrates, we find a new way to conceive the relation of unity to multiplicity: Xenocrates genders the first two principles of the Monad and the Dyad: the Monad is considered masculine, and described as the Intellect. The Dyad is female, properly conceived of as the Indefinite Dyad owing to it containing multiplicity and unlimitedness.26 The “World Soul” is created through the union of these male and female first principles.27
With these comments on the significance of number in Greek philosophers, I would now like to turn to the Nārāyaṇīya.
PHILOSOPHY OF NUMBER IN THE NĀRĀYAṆĪYA
Although the Nārāyaṇīya appears to propound a number of doctrines, giving it a very diverse appearance, the text is actually held together by a very small number of philosophical themes. Key among these is the relation of the One to the many, as it ultimately contains the solution to King Yudhiṣṭhira’s incipient question regarding “infallible heaven”: since all of Becoming is subject to passing-away, this will require an ascent, in the intellect, to the One. Let us see how. The text opens with a question concerning the highest divinity; King Yudhiṣṭhira asks:
A householder or a student, a hermit or a mendicant,
If one wishes to obtain perfection, what god ought he adore?
How indeed can he obtain infallible heaven and [beyond it,] the ultimate good?
By following which injunction ought he to sacrifice to the gods and ancestors?
When liberated, where does one go? And what is the nature of liberation?
Having attained to heaven, what must one do so as not to fall?
Which god is the god of gods and the ancestor of ancestors?
And what transcends even him? Tell me all this, O grandfather!
(Mahābhārata 12.321.1–4, my trans.)
This question inaugurates a set of themes that inform the structure of the Nārāyaṇīya. Yudhiṣṭhira’s question circumscribes an area of philosophical enquiry. Part of the question is critical; it wants to separate the subject from āśramas, stages of life, and by implication varṇāśramadharma, the articulation of life according to one’s social function and age.28 Moreover, the question also separates out the attainment of heaven, and with it all finite goals, however lofty they may be. Specifically, the question is one of transcendence beyond heaven; it is what I have elsewhere called double transcendence, where heaven constitutes the first transcendence (see Adluri 2012a).
The question is one of perfection (siddhim āsthātum icchet, 1c), ultimacy (nihśreyasaṁ param, 2a) and also permanence articulated by concerns with stability (dhruvam, 2a) and immunity to fall (na cyavate, 3c). This set of ultimate concerns is posited in a twofold theoretical perspective, which can be named “cosmological–soteriological”.29 The cosmological aspect is the enquiry into the “god of gods” and the ancestor of ancestors and what goes beyond even that. Thus the question will seek a stepwise progression up to the creator god, and beyond that to the ontological concept of the “One”. This manifold question requires a manifold answer, but the essence of the question and the purport of the answer remain the ineffable One.30 The unity of the Nārāyaṇīya is the problem of the One.31 Thus, although Bhīṣma in his response touches upon many themes (including a visit by the divine sage Nārada to the mystical island Śvetadvīpa to view the One Being, here called Nārāyaṇa), these all pertain to the central and abiding question of this text: what is the relationship of the One to the many? It is this that makes the Nārāyanhíya the paradigmatic text for studying the relationship of Neoplatonism to Indian thought.32
In response to Yudhiṣṭhira’s enquiry, Bhīṣma states that the questions the king has raised concern a great mystery, but he knows of an ancient narrative (itihāsaṃ purātanam, 12.321.7a) concerning a conversation between sage Nārada and Nārāyanha. Sage Nārada, realizing that the highest Being has become four (ekā mūrtir iyaṁ pūrvaṁ jātā bhūyaś caturvidhā, 12.321.16c), goes to seek out two of these four, Nara and Nārāyaṇa. These two are a pair. When he reaches their retreat, he is surprised to find them engaged in worship. Surprised, Nārada asks Nārāyaṇa about the deity to whom he sacrifices: “You are glorified as the unborn, the sempiternal, the sustainer, regarded as immortal and unsurpassable. … To whom today do you sacrifice? – which god or which ancestor – we know not!” (12.321.24–6). Nārāyaṇa tells Nārada about a still higher form of his, known as Kṣetrajña (the Knower of the Field) or as Purus a (the Person or the Self). From this masculine Being proceeds the Unmanifest , Prakṛti, the womb of all beings.33 Nārāyaṇa tells the sage that they worship Prakhti “as deity and as parent”, and, beyond her, the Self. This Self, however, is not attainable except through intense intellectual effort (jñānayoga).34 Through this practice, unified souls (ekāntins) reach their goal of entering into the Self.35
Learning that the One is higher than the four, Nārada sets out to behold that highest Being. He describes his preparation (purification, austerity, truthfulness, study of the Vedas, devotion to God, and one-pointedness) and then sets out, via Gandhamādana, to Mount Meru.36 From the summit, he spies a wondrous site: Śvetadvīpa, or the “White Island”, a luminous abode inhabited by beings that are “Transcending senses and abstaining from food … unwavering and very fragrant … with tongues they lick the one who faces the universe, the sun” (12.322.8–12). But the most interesting thing about these beings is that they are dyadic. For example, each of these radiant beings is endowed with four testicles, sixty-four teeth, and one hundred lines on the soles of their feet. A clear numerology is being worked out here (with the usual number of testicles, teeth, etc. being doubled).
The text then tells us how, before Nārada arrived there, the three sons of the Creator, Ekata, Dvita and Trita, had previously come there to view the One Being. In spite of their askesis they failed, because they lacked intense love or bhakti. Literally translated, the names Ekata, Dvita and Trita mean Oneness, Twoness and Threeness. Nārada is luckier, but the vision he is granted of the One is a multiplicity, a vision of the “form of all beings”: viśvarūpa. This One Being, surprisingly, shimmers in various colours and is glorified with numerous names. The simple One, he is told, is beyond this cosmic form and is ineffable and incomprehensible. But the discourse that follows insists that cosmology and soteriology are intimately linked, and that the One being is to be experienced (rather than viewed) through exclusive and unwavering love or bhakti, and a philosophical system for this is expounded.
Even though scholars have long argued that bhakti is nothing more than a cult-emotive phenomenon, it is important to note that the Nārāyaṇīya does not so much recommend the practice of bhakti as it presents a philosophical argument for bhakti as a cognitive, epistemological-ontological stance towards the One.37 More importantly for my thesis here is to see that love or bhakti represents the soteriological “way up” from the many to the One corresponding to the cosmogonic “way down” from the One to the many. The significance of bhakti for our topic can be seen from the way bhakti relates to the project of the Nārāyaṇīya of universalizing the soteriological philosophy of the Upaniṣads. Biardeau has argued that bhakti does not simply replace sacrificial and Upaniṣadic values, but “englobes”38 these within a hierarchy of values.39 Thus, instead of seeing bhakti as a dogmatic, irrational element in the text, we must see it as central to the Nārāyaṇīya’s ontological, philosophical and numerological concerns.
Within the Nārāyaṇīya’s philosophical ontology, bhakti plays a crucial role in the soteriological ascent. This is evident from the way Nārada, whose role as Nārāyaṇa’s pre-eminent bhakta is well established from an early phase of Indian thought, becomes the paradigmatic figure of the narrative of ascent. Nārada’s journey to the White Island follows strict numeric order. He goes from the many beings to the One, guided by the question of who that highest Being is. First, he is introduced in the text as someone who has “wandered all the worlds” (nāradaḥ sumahad bhūtaṃ lokān sarvān acīcarat, 12.321.14a) and, when he arrives at the Bādari hermitage, he also wonders, “this is the complete abode in which all the worlds are established, / With the devas, asuras, gand-harvas, ṛṣis, kinnaras, and the snakes” (12.321.15c–16a). Then, thinking, “One form it was previously, which again became four-fold” (ekā mūrtir iyaṁ pūrvaṁ jātā bhūyaś caturvidhā, 12.321.16c), he desires to know who that highest Being is, whom the pair Nara-Nārāyaṇa worship. Thereafter, he goes from the pair to the dyadic beings of the White Island. When he arrives at the island, he is initially unable to view the One, as we might well expect. But the problem of the impossibility of actually “viewing the One” is elegantly side-stepped in the myth because when the One Being indeed manifests to him, it is precisely in the form of the universe! The emphasis here is on the ascending path of salvation and the numeric leap between the many and One, with special emphasis on the dyad. The accomplished dyadic beings are able to constantly behold the One, and salvation, in their case, seems to be a clear understanding of the dyadic nature of being an individual and being One.40
Not only the way up to One (soteriology) but also the way down from the One to the many (cosmology) is mythically inscribed in the narrative of the journey to the White Island.41 But whereas the way up is singular, the way down is of two kinds: the series of number denoting procession, and the second series, which denotes multiplicity.
The universe progresses according to the numeric order of one, two, three. But the same cannot be said of the One, which is nevertheless reflected in the multiplicity of the universe. Thus, the text refers to two additional series of “descent” of the One: the first is the vyūhas or hypostases of the One, the second his avatāras or incarnations. The logic of the reflection of the One in the universe is, as is the case of all reflections, one of duplication.42 The text mythically sets up the following steps for such a “descending reflection” of the One in the many:
1. Nārāyaṇa is, first, the “eternal Soul of the universe”; that is, one without a second.
2. Along with Nara, he forms a pair; that is, the one of a pair.
3. Nārāyaṇa is one of the fourfold of division, which is still not the same as the one of the numerical series (note that the number three, which constitutes the first genuine multiplicity, does not occur here).
There is no doubt here that the One is proceeding not through a numerical progression of the One to two and then to three. The fourfold form unambiguously points to doubling: one, two, four. The distinction we made earlier between duplication and numeric progression is borne out, the latter belonging exclusively to a cosmology. This fourfold duplication via the dyad is called the vyūha doctrine. But when the One manifests theistically in the universe, Nārāyaṇa takes on a soteriological form as Hari or Kṛṣṇa and these descents are then listed as incarnations or avatāras. Thus, the way up is bhakti, while the way down is cosmogonic procession for the universe and the One is reflected in it as the vȳuhas and somehow theistically descends into the cosmos as avatāra. If we lay this out schematically, then we see that there are three senses of one, each heading a different series, as shown in Table 6.1.
This dyadic logic has parallels in Neoplatonic thought. Although Rist has argued that once Plato grants the Dyad he abandons his commitment to a philosophical monism, matters are obviously much more complex. The Dyad seems to function in an entirely different ontology than in the numeric series of one, two, three. In the Nārāyaṇīya, when Nārada returns from viewing the One on Śvetadvīpa, Nara-Nārāyaṇīya, who were formally a pair, now appear to him as a dyad. But the crucial experience he has undergone in the meantime has been divine grace, the complement to bhakti, and it is this that enabled him to see the One.43 The dyad, then, is not a merely logical and theoretical construction in the scheme of procession from the One to the many, but, it seems, a necessary step to preserve the relationship of the One to the many, thus making the soteriological goal of the system of emanation feasible.44
Table 6.1 The three series of “one” in the Nārāyaṇīyas philosophical ontology.
Procession |
Vyūha doctrine |
Cosmology |
ONE |
ONE (as Vāsudeva) |
MANY |
ONE: Nārāyaṇa |
Pradyumna |
One: Ekata |
Double: Nara-Nārāyaṇa pair |
Saṁkarṣaṇa |
Two: Dvita |
Fourfold: Nara-Nārāyaṇa plus Hari and Kṛṣṇa |
Aniruddha |
Three: Trita |
In contrast, the sons of the Creator are said to have failed to see the One because they lacked the necessary bhakti. Although we could interpret this theistically as a doctrinal commitment to “devotion”, such an interpretation risks missing out on the philosophical and ontological significance of the concept. Although usually translated as “devotion” or “love”, bhakti derives from the root bhaj which has a rich range of semantic meanings including “to divide”, “to distribute”, “to allot or apportion to”, but also “to grant”, “to bestow”, “to furnish”, “to supply” and “to obtain as one’s share”, “to receive as”, “to partake of”, “to enjoy” and “to possess” (Monier-Williams 1899, s.v. “bhaj”). It is thus implied in the very act of the reversal of the process of exteriorization through which the fall away from the One occurs.45 Rather than bespeaking merely the loving relation of the devotee to his or her god, bhakti, then, becomes a basic term for explicating the relationship of the One to the many. More importantly, we should note that bhakti is placed entirely on the side of the series that proceeds by ontological doubling (the leftmost column of Table 6.1). The cosmological series (the rightmost column) is cut off from the One not because it is a multiplicity, but because it is unable to intuit the One in this multiplicity. Nārada’s bhakti precisely consists in seeing the One even when the vision he is granted is that of all forms (viṣvarūpa). On returning to the Bādari hermitage, he is questioned by Nara-Nārāyaria about whether he was able to see the One and he tells them that, when he saw the One, he also saw the two of them by the god’s side (12.331.38a). Thereupon Nara and Nārāyaṇa, in turn, reveal to Nārada that he was beheld by them on Śvetadvīpa (12.332.22a)! Thus, it is not just Nārada who beheld a multiplicity in the body of the One, but that multiplicity existed and was part of the One. But in the meantime, the vision of the One in its numeric possibilities has had the effect of rendering Nārada single minded (12.331.51c) and he declares his intent to spend his days in askesis at the hermitage of the two gods and they worship him in turn.46
It is thus clear that we should be on our guard against easy dismissals of the Nārāyaṇīya as a theological work without any philosophical significance. In spite of its mythological presentation, the text does not simply recommend a form of ritual or worship of a particular sectarian deity. Rather, in the very depictions of Nārada’s journey, the vision of the One, and its complex quartets and triads of beings the text is struggling to articulate deeper ontological, cosmological, anthropological and ethical concerns. Thus, Greek thought is more theological than we are comfortable with, and Indian theology is more philosophical than we are accustomed to believe.
PLOTINUS’ ORIENTALISM
According to Wolters (1982), the theory of an Oriental source for Plotinus’ thought, especially concerning the One, can be traced back to the work of Bréhier. Wolters specifically has in mind Bréhier’s argument, made in his The Philosophy of Plotinus, that, “we find at the very center of Plotinus’ thought a foreign element which defies classification. The theory of Intelligence as universal being derives neither from Greek rationalism nor from the piety diffused through the religious circles of his day” (Bréhier 1958: 116). It is not necessary here to trace the further reception of this thesis in Neoplatonic studies, except to note that what is at stake in the debate is not the possibility of Hellenistic, Alexandrine or Jewish influence upon Plotinus, but, specifically, Indian philosophy as a source of influence on Plotinus (see Gregorios 2002).
As Gregorios notes, the problem of Plotinus’ “Orientalism” is not the problem of Plotinus’ Oriental sources, which are, in any case, not in doubt among scholars,47 but the question of whether there is a specifically foreign element in Plotinus’ thought, and that means an element alien to the spirit of Greek rationality (or, at least, to that spirit as it was understood in nineteenth-century philosophy). Here is where an engagement with Bréhier’s thesis might profitably begin. Specifically, we shall ask how Indian philosophy was understood by Bréhier such that it could appear as the counter-concept to Greek rationality.48 Further, we shall ask what it reveals about our own philosophical prejudices that Plotinus’ thought of the One could appear inconsistent with his systematic philosophy and why, when it comes to the choice between these two, we are quicker to surrender the former (seeking a foreign origin for it) than the latter.
Concerning Plotinus’ thought of the One, Bréhier argues that “the source of the philosophy of Plotinus” must be placed “beyond the Orient close to Greece, in the religious speculation of India, which by the time of Plotinus had been founded for centuries on the Upanishads and had retained their vitality” (Bréhier 1958: 117). At the outset, he rejects Greek and Near Eastern philosophy as the source of this thought, as he considers it incompatible with Plotinus’ systematic philosophy (identified with the hypostases of the Soul and Intelligence). Thus he speaks of a “double aspect” to “Plotinus’ notion of Intelligence” comprising “an articulated system of definition notions” and a “universal being in [which] … every difference is absorbed”. Whereas the former is conducive to “a knowledge of the world and [holds] that reality can be grasped through reason”, the latter seeks only “the mystical ideal of the complete unification of beings in the Godhead” (ibid.: 106). The former is the product of “Plotinus’ exegesis of … Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics” (ibid.). The origins of the latter, in contrast, lie in “new mental habits, born of religious beliefs the origin of which is in the Orient, outside of Hellenism” (ibid.: 107).
Bréhier develops the contrast between these two systems along three lines: (1) concerning the way Plotinus addresses the problem of the constitution of individual consciousness, (2) concerning the relation of the individual soul to the One, and (3) the way Plotinus conceives of the universal character of Soul.
Concerning the first, Bréhier argues that “the Plotinian concept of the relation of the individual to the universal being” is “quite different” (from the Greek concept). “It is no longer a rational unity which he is seeking but a mystical unification in which individual consciousness is to disappear” (ibid.: 110). This has both epistemological and ethical consequences. Epistemologically, we are no longer dealing with “a rational knowledge but [only] with an experience”. “The ‘true knowledge’ of which Plotinus speaks … is only an immediate intuition of beings” (ibid.). Ethically, the Plotinian ideal of ecstatic union with the One “differs in principle from all the philosophical systems and religions of his time because of the almost complete absence of the idea of a mediator or savior destined to bring man into relation with God …. The very idea of salvation, which implies a mediatory sent by God to man, is foreign to him” (ibid.: 112).
Concerning the second, Bréhier argues that Plotinus, “in piling up contrasts between the reality accessible to Intelligence and the boundless reality in which ecstatic love loses itself”, ultimately ends up “sever[ing] every bond which connected the first with the second” (ibid.: 156). The result is a hypertrophied intellectualism in which (according to Bréhier) no bridge is possible between the rationalism of the Plotinian system and its suprarational mysticism (ibid.: 148). Indeed, Bréhier argues that Plotinus, by premising his entire system upon the principle of the One, jeopardizes his entire systematic project (ibid.: 154).
Finally, concerning the third, Bréhier argues that Plotinus’ understanding of Soul defies rational explanation. All difference being “absorbed” in “universal being”, the “distinction between subject and object [too] comes to an end”. In place of an “articulated system of definite notions”, a “knowledge of the world”, we find only the “mystical ideal of the complete unification of beings in the Godhead” (ibid.: 106). Thus, through a kind of hypertrophied intellectualism, Plotinus’ rational philosophy ultimately goes over into its very antithesis: mere intuition and mere feeling of oneness with the totality of beings. “Intellectualism”, says Bréhier poignantly, “has destroyed itself through its own exaggeration” (ibid.: 103).
The contrast between rationalism and irrationalism is absolute as Bréhier understands it (ibid.: 158; cf. also 156). Further, by destroying the notion of difference, irrationalism simultaneously makes ethics impossible. “Knowledge of the self possesses no ethical character in [Indian] philosophy” (ibid.: 128). It impinges upon the relation of the individual to the supraindividual reality. Although a “subject of knowledge”, the self in this conception “nevertheless experiences nothing pertaining to the life of a moral person”. Hence, the relation of this person to God cannot be “the trusting attitude of the faithful believer” “The ascetic is merely endeavoring to remove every veil that separates him from Brahman” (ibid.: 128–9). Irrationalism replaces (the desire for) knowledge with “an obscure emotion, a vital feeling without form, [or] an intangible Stimmung” “Real knowledge consists then not in classifying forms and in grasping their relations, but, on the contrary, in going beyond every finite form”. Thus Bréhier argues that brahman (and mutatis mutandis the Plotinian One) is “not an object of knowledge”. Even if knowledge of a certain kind is necessary to attain it, “this knowledge has nothing to do with understanding and erudition”: “Knowledge of the Veda is required to lead to it. Meditation and ascetic practices are required. The identity of the self with the universal being is not a rational conclusion reached by the intellect, but a sort of intuition due to the practice of meditation” (ibid.: 125).
The philosophical system motivated by a yearning for unity is “opposed to the Hellenic and Judeo-Christian ideal”. “In opposition to Greek philosophy”, it implies “no attempt at a rational explanation of things”. The connection between (the desire for) rational explanation and creation is very strong as Bréhier sees it. He argues that in the philosophical speculations of the Indians,
what corresponds to rational explanation is at best a theory of emanation, which Oldenberg points out as a tendency in the philosophy of the Upanishads. Things will be only the unfolding and expansion of forces that are united in the universal being. This dynamism, the notion of the development of one and the same life, is very far from the rational order of forms sought by the Greek philosopher.
(Ibid.: 128)
Finally, in its insistence on the identity of the individual and the whole, mysticism destroys the possibility of (rational) religion. Not only is “the very idea of salvation, which implies a mediator sent by God to man” (ibid.: 112) “foreign” to Plotinus, but “piety, in the usual sense of the word”, is also “absent in him” (ibid.: 113).
Mysticism, understood as the longing for union with the One or for a trans-personal experience of the One, thus leads step-by-step away from the goals of rational (Greek) philosophy. It is in this sense that it introduces an “Oriental” element into Plotinus’ thinking. Bréhier sees this longing as paradigmatically embodied in the philosophical speculation of the Upaniṣads: “The common and rather monotonous theme of all the Upanishads is that of a knowledge which assures the one possessing it peace and unfailing happiness. This knowledge is the consciousness of the identity of the self with the universal being” (ibid.: 123). Hence, if we detect an Oriental element (in the first sense) in Plotinus’ thought, it must follow that there is an Oriental element (in the second sense) in his thought. The question of Plotinus’ Orientalism thus becomes the question of the irrationalism of Indian philosophy.
BRÉHIER’S SOURCES
Although scholars have rarely raised the question of the sources of Bréhier’s views of Indian thought, it is not difficult to show that Bréhier is, in fact, recapitulating a debate concerning the charge of pantheism filtered through the work of the leading German Indologist of the day, Hermann Oldenberg (1854–1920). Thus, we should first look at Bréhier’s reliance upon Oldenberg and then at the historical context of Oldenberg’s own work, especially as this was influenced by the Pantheismusstreit of the nineteenth century.
In his book on Plotinus, Bréhier cites only two sources for Indian philosophy. The first is Deussen’s translation of the Upaniṣads (Deussen 1897); the second is Oldenberg’s introductory text on the philosophy of the Upaniṣads (Oldenberg 1915). This constitutes the sum total of his knowledge of Indian philosophy. He is neither aware of the Upaniṣads first hand nor that there are complex debates concerning their correct interpretation and ultimate purport within the Indian tradition nor that the philosophy of the Upaniṣads is not simply reducible to a pantheistic or monistic doctrine. To be sure, the Upaniṣads speak of an ultimate reality known as brahman (a neuter singular term meaning “being”), but they do not arrive at brahman dogmatically. Further, it is by no means clear that by positing brahman or by upholding it as the ultimate real they imply a denial of phenomenological reality; that is, the universe of change and plurality. Thus, Bréhier is clearly following not the texts themselves (which always require an exegete, no less than Plotinian philosophy requires a master), but a naïve (and polemically motivated) reading of Indian thought when he presents Indian philosophy as the counter-concept to the rational philosophy of the Greeks. In this, he follows the lead of the German scholars, whom he explicitly thanks for “singularly increas[ing] our knowledge of the philosophy of India through their translations and commentaries” (Bréhier 1958: 123). Further, the idea of commonality between Plotinus and Indian philosophy is not Bréhier’s own, but was suggested to him by these thinkers.
Along with the names of Spinoza and Schelling, it is that of Plotinus which occurs most often in the works of Deussen and Oldenberg. Identity in the philosophy of Schelling, the union of the soul with God in the intellectual love in Spinoza, are conceptions closely related to the identity of the self with the universal being in Plotinus. They are found in the Upanishads.
(Bréhier 1958: 123)
Of the two, Oldenberg is by far the more important for Bréhier’s work, both in terms of the number of references to his work and the central place assigned to his work. Deussen, by contrast, plays a relatively minor role. Bréhier only occasionally cites his translation of the Upaniṣads in support of a point made in Oldenberg. Indeed, Bréhier does not appear to have read the Upaniṣads independently. As he notes:
The state of mind implied by such an idea has been described very definitely by Oldenberg: “In India,” he writes, “the sense of personality does not acquire its full force. Moreover, a permanent and positive existence within fixed limits is not attributed to things. This is because, for Indian thinkers, life is not dominated by activity, which is conditioned by the individual and fixed nature of resisting objects. What prevails is the impatience of an intellect which cannot grasp rapidly enough a unity through the knowledge of which the entire universe is known …. The eye is closed to appearances and their color and detail. One seeks to understand how the vital stream, which is unique in all things, springs forth from its obscure depths.”
(Ibid.,123)49
Bréhier’s reliance on secondary sources is problematic inasmuch as neither Deussen nor Oldenberg were philosophers. Their grasp of Indian philosophy was weak and filtered through Orientalist lenses. Neither had studied Neoplatonism in depth. By training, both were Sanskritists. In addition, Deussen had studied some classical philology, but Oldenberg’s specialization was what he called “the comparative study of religions”. While Deussen made some efforts to learn Indian philosophy first hand (developing a friendship with Swami Vivekananda, for example), Oldenberg neither knew nor cared for Indian intellectual traditions. Indeed, he was frankly dismissive of the tradition, which he labelled as “Indian-knowledge [Inderwissen]” (Oldenberg 1906: 5). Deussen and Oldenberg also had only the haziest ideas about Western philosophy. Drawing their ideas about philosophy from the prevailing Kantianism of the time, they understood philosophy to mean systematic philosophy and rationalism as opposed to mysticism and to pantheism. From the perspective of their Western, nineteenth-century presuppositions, the Upaniṣads (which appear to preach a doctrine of identity with the One) seemed the most obvious instantiation of a non-rational, experiential philosophy urging the loss and merging of individual consciousness into the One. The contrast they drew between philosophy and religion, which Bréhier also borrows from them, was a relic of nineteenth-century neo-Kantianism. In ancient philosophy, there was no systematic distinction between philosophy and theology. As recent scholarship has shown, Platonic philosophy relied upon many sources, including the mystery religions, and its epistemological concerns cannot be separated from soteriological ones (see, above all, the articles in Adluri 2013). The same holds true, perhaps to an even greater degree, of the Neoplatonic tradition.50
Philosophically, too, Oldenberg could not appreciate the complexity or depth of the Upaniṣads, which he held rather to be evidence of the rise of pantheistic doctrines in India, occluding the original rationalistic and monotheistic spirit of Aryan religion. In his book Die Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfänge des Buddhismus (Oldenberg 1915), he propounded a four-stage development of Indian thought: (1) primitive worship of natural forces, leading to (2) the development of ritual techniques and magical incantations for controlling these forces; thereafter to (3) ideas of the unity and connectedness of all beings; and, finally, (4) to the emergence of a mature philosophy centring in the question of the relationship of the plurality of beings to brahman or the One. This development contrasted with what Oldenberg, borrowing a page from Comte, saw as the natural evolution of human culture: from fetishism to polytheism and, finally, to monotheism. In the first phase, Oldenberg saw the incipient beginnings of a monotheistic religion, especially with the emergence of Vedic deities such as Indra:
There is Indra – originally, it appears, a storm god – fond of intoxicants, ready for war and conqueror of foes. Agni – Fire – the divine friend and guest of humans. Varuna – in prehistoric times, as one may suppose, a moon god – the one who sees through and punishes even the most deeply hidden sins.
(Ibid.: 12)
To be sure, alongside simple feelings of awe and reverence, there also existed commerce between humans and gods:
The effective means of securing the grace of these gods for oneself are, closely related to each other, prayer and sacrifice, in which – the main idea of Vedic sacrifice at least may be expressed thus – the human gives to god so that he may give to him in turn, [he may] spare and protect him.
(Ibid.: 12–13)
Yet, under the influence of the Brahmans, ideas of reciprocity gave way to control and reverence for the gods to the domination of the priestly caste. As Oldenberg notes:
in these gods [that is, the Vedic deities], the element of personhood, which, previously, in human existence and therefore also in religious existence played a minor role, begins to celebrate its triumph. Naturally, [it was] not an uncontested triumph, and even less was it a final triumph.
(Ibid.: 13)
Gradually, with the rise of Brahmanism, Indian thought took a different turn:
The turn towards magic instead of the worship of gods becomes even more pronounced, as succeeding generations of Brahmans, who now possessed a completed system of sacrificial rituals and prayers, now took up the next task, of explaining all this [that is, the sacrificial ritual, gods, being and existence] in their own way so as to secure all power in the hands of the knower. …
Here we have reached the point where we encounter the Brahmanic science of sacrifice, which requires our attention as the foundation and breeding ground of the great pantheistic speculation.
(Ibid.: 16)
Concerning pantheism, Oldenberg raises all the charges already familiar to us from the preceding section against it: pantheism is opposed to the spirit of rationality, it is antithetical to the true religion (which Oldenberg, in keeping with the climate of his time, considered, naturally, to be Christian monotheistic faith), it is destructive of individuality and individual responsibility, and, finally, it does not permit the development of an appropriate feeling of dependence and devotion towards God. Indeed, Oldenberg associates pantheism with the Brahmans’ desire to feel themselves superior to the (intra-cosmic) gods and coeval with the godhead. Finally, there is the ethical aspect of power, control and riches which accrue to one who can thus command the gods.
From ethnographic and sociological perspectives as well, Oldenberg saw pantheism as a fatal choice. Although the earliest Aryan races had had an intimation of the notion of personhood, both at the level of the human and at the level of the deity, under the influence of the climate and racial admixture, they lost interest in a personal (and ethical) religion. For instance, Oldernberg argued that
many think of the higher classes of the Aryan Indians, who, as is well known, entered India from Iran perhaps a thousand years earlier, as not as yet all too seriously affected by racial admixture with the despised dark skinned aboriginals: even today, in many places Brahmans of a purely or almost purely white type have preserved themselves.
(Ibid.: 4)
However,
the nature and the climate of India, the easy domination of the native population, the absence of great historical battles created an atmosphere of undisturbed peace for the Brahmans. There flourished the tendency to reflection, to nurturing complicated knowledge, to the play of a fantasy that lost itself ever more uncontrollably in monstrosity and the monstrous.
(Ibid.)
It is not necessary to trace further here how Oldenberg sees the development of pantheism in India from the earlier to the later Upaniṣads and from the later Upaniṣads to the earlier and later schools of Sāṁkhya philosophy. This periodization of Indian culture, as I have argued elsewhere, becomes problematic once one sees that it is based upon an a priori theory of Indian history and not sustained by objective historical investigations. In any case, the salient point for us is not the later history of philosophical pantheism in India, but to understand the narrative of origins surrounding this concept – a narrative that first explains why pantheism was seen as a corruption rather than an enrichment of Indian thought.
Unaware of these issues or of the Pantheismusstreit that is at the back of Oldenberg’s criticisms,51 Bréhier ends up transferring the full weight of Oldenberg’s antiphilosophical prejudices into Plotinian–Indian studies. In doing so, he completely overlooks the fact that the thought of the One, in Plotinus no less than in Indian philosophy, is rigorously grounded in the principle of non-contradiction. It is not, as he so eloquently says, the destruction of intellectualism through its exaggeration, but the principle of all explanation and intellection, and has been so in the Western tradition since Parmenides.52 To reject Plotinus’ Orientalism is therefore only a partial solution; in truth, anyone wishing to reject this aspect of Plotinus’ thought must then also go back to Plato and Parmenides and explain how and why Being should not be a criterion of knowledge.53
The question of Plotinus’ Orientalism thus cannot be settled by geographic or historical investigations, because the question is fundamentally not a positive question. It is a conceptual question inasmuch as it pertains to our definitions of “Occidental” (or “Greek” or “Western”) and “Oriental”. And these are terms, as Gregorios rightly sees, that are not defined in terms of geographic boundaries, but in terms of intellectual, cultural and political identities.54 But, as I have shown in the positive portion of my chapter, there is another way to read Indian philosophy: one that begins not with a priori ideas of philosophy and narratives of historical decline, but with an enquiring, philosophical mind.
Although the field of Mahābhārata studies is not without its own problems,55 there is much to be gained by a philosophical comparison of Plotinian thought with the Indian epic. Hitherto, the majority of scholars have focused on the different schools of Vedānta, but these philosophical schools are highly systematic and technical, responding to various internal dialogues and debates. The Mahābhārata, in contrast, undertakes a fresh and highly original response to the problem of the One and the many. Further, whereas the Upaniṣads were esoteric texts, and thus guarded within a lineage of pedagogical succession, the Mahābhārata was freely circulated and actively propagated. Its popular form makes it a much more likely candidate than the Upaniṣads for discussion in ports such as Alexandria. The epic therefore offers us a fresh perspective for investigating the question of Plotinus’ relationship to Indian thought. The Nārāyaṇīya, in particular, does not merely offer a “parallel” to Plotinus’ work, one that can serve as a locus for further research. In presenting these dyadic beings, the Nārāyaṇīya, as I have shown, provides a way for us to understand a very obscure component of Neoplatonist philosophy: the Indefinite Dyad. By focusing on substantive philosophical topics and on specific texts, we make much greater headway than when we rely on broad crosscultural comparisons and jingostic prejudices.
What emerges, then, once we set aside our prejudices regarding Indian thought, is that a philosophical reflection on number appears to encounter similar kinds of problems in both Plotinus and the Indian text. These problems, which now need to be taken up in future research, may be summarized as follows:
• The One as the ultimate arche or principle.
• The unity of the One is a problem, closely tied to cosmogony and cosmology and thus multiplicity.
• The unity of the One is also essential, as it offers the very rationale for a soteriology.
• Both in the Greek and in the Indian texts discussed here, cosmogony is the exact obverse of a soteriological ascent.
• Multiplicity is conceived of primarily as capacity for division, and secondarily as numeric progression.
• The Dyad as the first tremor (!) in the One is a complex, obscure but inescapable step in the relationship between the One and the many.
• Gender as an ontological category that allows us to conceptualize the relation of the One and the many in their unity and difference.
Finally, it bears repeating that studies of Indian and Neoplatonic thought, even if comparative, cannot simply rely on the presentations of traditions found in the work of the doxographers. Even when doxographers are not motivated by the kinds of ideological agendas as Oldenberg and the entire German text-historical school (for instance, Paul Hacker) were, their work is insufficient to penetrating the philosophical proximity of these traditions. It has been well said by Abrams that
Characteristic concepts and patterns of Romantic philosophy and literature are a displaced and reconstituted theology, or else a secularized form of devotional experience, that is, because we still live in what is essentially, although in derivative rather than direct manifestations, a Biblical culture, and readily mistake our hereditary ways of organizing experience for conditions of reality and the universal forms of thought.
(1973: 65)
Nowhere is this perhaps as true as in philosophy, where nineteenth-century prejudices still impair our ability to enter into dialogue with the ancients. From Garbe to Oldenberg and Hacker, the history of Indological writing on Indian philosophy has been a history of error, where Kantian systematic philosophy was made normative for philosophy in general and all Indian schools evaluated and arranged as they approximated or failed to approximate this ideal.56 But if we begin again, with Parmenides and Plato (and Plotinus) rather than with the nineteenth-century philologist-historians, we find that the two philosophical cultures are closer than they initially appear. It is in this sense that I wish to describe the relationship of Plotinus to the Orient in terms of the aoristos dyas.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank Joydeep Bagchee for his assistance with the research into Bréhier’s sources, especially his translations of Oldenberg. I also wish to thank the editors of the volume, Svetla Slaveva-Griffin and Pauliina Remes, for their careful reading and philosophically inspiring comments. I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of my advisor, Dr Madhavi Kolhatkar, with the translations of the text.
NOTES
1. My translation; the numbers refer to the Critical Edition text by Sukthankar (1933–66); thus, “12” refers to the parvan or major book (the Śāntiparvan), “321” to the adhyāya or chapter in that book (in this case, the first chapter of the Nārāyamya, which occurs from chapter 321 to 339 in the Śāntiparvan), “16” to the verse in that chapter and “c” to the hemistich.
2. All translations of Plotinus heareafter are taken from Armstrong (1966–88).
3. For a recent and fairly balanced view, see Lacrosse (2001). Older treatments, especially of the basic points of philosophical proximity identified by scholars, can be found in Wolters (1982) and Tripathi (1982).
4. Among the candidates proposed have been the Upaniṣads (either individually or as a group), the Bhagavadgītā, Buddhist texts such as the Uttaratantra or Ratnagotravibhāga and Abhidharma literature; for general discussion, see Hatab; for the Upaniṣads as source of influence, see Rosán (1982) and also Armstrong & Ravindra (1982); for the Bhagavadgītā as source of influence, see Sharma (1982); for the Uttaratantra or Ratnagotravibhāga as source of influence, see Wallis; and on Abhidharma literature, see Rodier (1982). All are in Baine Harris (1982). However, discussions of these texts rely on broad comparisons of the two traditions or on finding specific parallels between Neoplatonism and one or more texts. A rigorously Plotinian text in terms of its structure has not been proposed as yet.
5. As Hiltebeitel (2011a) notes, the number eighteen is significant. The Mahābhārata and the Bhagavadgītā are both divided into eighteen sections, either books (as in the case of the Mahābhārata) or chapters (as in the case of the Bhagavadgītā). Further, the great war lasts eighteen days and eighteen armies are said to take part in it. The number eighteen has canonical significance in the Northern Recension, which organizes the epic into eighteen parvans; the Southern Recension, by contrast, features twenty-four parvans. In the Northern Recension texts, the Bhagavadgītā, which occurs in Book Six of the epic (the Bhīṣmaparvan), and the Nārāyaṇīya, which occurs in Book Twelve (the Śāntiparvan), divide the text into three sections of six books each. This triadic division, as I have argued elsewhere, is significant: the Bhagavadgítā represents the apex of the pravṛtti or cosmological narrative of the epic, the Nārāyaṇīya the culmination of its nivṛtti or soteriological trajectory.
6. Plotinus, Enn. V.3[49].17 and Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1 both attest to this quest for simplicity as the dominant concern of the philosophical enterprise.
7. The Nārāyaṇīya does not use the term “Indefinite Dyad”, of course. But, as I demonstrate in the course of this chapter, it is clearly acquainted with the concept of the dyad as a stage intermediate to the One and a true plurality. In any case, what is essential for us here is not the question of primacy, whether historical or intellectual, but to learn to see the philosophical problems the two texts or traditions are struggling with. In this, reading the Nārāyaṇīya alongside the Enneads and the Enneads alongside the Nārāyaṇīya can be a way of illuminating both.
8. Nārāyaṇīya, Mahābhārata chapters 12.321–39; an English translation (of the Vulgate) can be found in Ganguli (1891); a more recent French translation (also of the Vulgate) is available in Esnoul (1979). I am currently completing a translation of Nārāyaṇīya based on the text of the Critical Edition. All translations in this chapter are my own.
9. There have been relatively few studies on number as compared to other Plotinian topics. Here I rely on the work of Slaveva-Griffin (2009) and Radke (2003) for making number central to my enquiry.
10. We should take Bréhier’s work seriously, because, as Wolters shows in his article (see note 3 above), the thesis of Oriental influence on Plotinus goes back to Bréhier. Bréhier first articulated the thesis in his 1921–2 lectures at the Sorbonne and publicized it in 1928 (English trans. 1958). Wolters notes that, prior to Bréhier’s work, “every leading Plotinus scholar of the twentieth century downplay[ed] any but Greek factors in accounting for the development of Plotinus’s thought” (Wolters 1982: 296). Thus, the question of Bréhier’s sources for making these claims plays a not insignificant role in how we approach the question of Plotinus’ Orientalism.
11. The term dharma (variously translated as “law”, “ordinance”, “duty”, “virtue”, etc., see Monier-Williams 1899, s.v. “dharma”) refers primarily to prescribed duties, obligations and/or laws within a definite social order. However, it is also hypostatized to an abstract concept, to Law or Justice personified, and, ultimately, into a cosmic principle and a deity. But here what Yudhiṣṭhira specifically has in mind is the dharma of the four classes and that appropriate to each of the four stages of life (student, householder, forest dweller and renunciate) or varṇāśramadharma. The question concerns the duties and actions proper to each stage of life so as to attain the final good.
12. Nārāyaṇa first appears as a name of the Puruṣa (the Primal Being or the Primal Man) in Satapatha Brāhmaṇa 12.3.4.1 and 13.6.1.1 (Puruṣa Nārāyaṇa). Biardeau traces the name to Puruṣāyaṇa in the Prasna Upaniṣad (6.4) based on the synonymy of nara and puruṣa which permits the substitution of one by the other; the term may then mean “made of those who direct themselves toward Nara/Puruṣa”. In the Mahābhārata, Nārāyaṇa is often used, doubtless because of its etymological and philosophical richness, as the name of the Supreme Being and two etymologies are proposed for the name. One etymology links him to the primeval waters on which Viṣṇu/Nārāyaṇa is said to sleep during the stage of cosmic reabsorbtion (cf. Mahābhārata 3.187.3: āpo nārā iti proktāḥ saṁjñānāma kṛtaṁ mayā / tena nārāyaṇo ’smy ukto mama tad dhy ayanaṁ sadā); the other, to mortal man of whom he is the refuge or shelter (Mahābhārata 12.328.35ab: narāṇām ayanaṁ khyātam aham ekah sanātanaḥ and see also 12.328.35c–e linking both notions). See Biardeau (1991) and, on the notion of periodic periods of emission and absorption of the universe from the One, see note 29 below.
13. The text discusses two types of manifestations, which have become famous in later literature as the four vyūhas (caturvyūha) and the ten avatāras (dasāvatāra). The Nārāyaṇīya contains the earliest reference to the caturvyūha doctrine, although the text does not refer to Nārāyaṇa’s forms by this name (with the exception of 12.336.53, where Vaiśaṁpāyana mentions that some worship Nārāyaṇa as having one form, others as having two, others as having three, and yet others as having four forms [caturvyūha, 53d]). Rather, Nārāyaṇa is spoken of as being of quadruple form (caturmūrtiḥ, 12.321.8a; cf. also 12.326.67c and 12.327.95c); although of one form previously, he has become fourfold (ekā mūrtir iyaṁ pūrvaṁ jātā bhūyaś caturvidhā, 12.321.16c; cf. also 12.326.93a: caturmūrtidharo hy aham). These forms are referred to as his Vāsudeva, Saṁkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna and Anniruddha forms and identified with the kṣetrajña (the knower of the field), jīva (soul), manas (mind) and ahaṁkāra (ego), respectively. Collectively, these entities are referred to as his fourfold form (mūrticatuṣṭayam, 12.326.43e). The caturvyūha doctrine becomes famous in later texts and iconography, especially those attributed (I believe, mistakenly) to the Pāñcarātra sect. (Because references to Nārāyaṇsa’s fourfold forms in the Nārāyaṇīya often occur in conjunction with root bhū plus the prefix prādur meaning “to become manifest”, it is also common to refer to the manifestations as Nārāyaṇsa’s prādurbhāvās and the doctrine as the prādurbhāvā doctrine.) However, there is no doubt that the intellectual roots of the later practice of depicting Vāsudeva in fourfold form can be traced back to the Nārāyaṇīya; see Srinivasan (1979). The Nārāyaṇīya again provides us with the earliest list of the ten incarnations of Nārāyaṇa, but whereas the vyūhas have a role in cosmogenesis (at the end of the fourfold division of Nārāyaṇa, Brahmā the creator appears and, acting under Nārāyaṇa’s direction, creates the universe), the incarnations are intracosmic events. This difference in status is also reflected in the word “avatāra” which is derived from avataraṇa meaning “descending, alighting” (from avatṝ meaning “to descend”); see Kuiper (1979).
14. See the articles in Schreiner (1997). For my criticisms of this approach, see Adluri (forthcoming).
15. Indian philosophy knows of several senses of “one”. Brahman is said to be ekam eva advitīyam (one only, without a second; Chāndogya Up. 6.2.1); in the Puruṣa Sūkta hymn of the Rg Veda, we find a reference to “that One” (tad ekam, ṚV 10.9.3), who is prior to the distinction between being and non-being; ṚV 1.164.46 also refers to truth being one only (ekam sat). Likewise, the Nārāyaṇīya is rich in usages of “one”, including references to Nārāyaṇa as ekaṁ puruṣaṁ (12.326.31c), to Rudra and Nārāyaṇa as “one being manifesting as two” (sattvam ekaṁ dvidhākṛtam, 12.328.24a), and to Nārāyaṇa as the One (ekaṁ 12.328.35c, 12.339.9c).
16. In chapter 3, the three sages Ekata, Dvita and Trita (whose names literally mean “Oneness”, “Twoness” and “Threeness”) are unable to see the One, but they are told that the One Being is seen through the dyadic beings of Śvetadvīpa being seen (12.327.47c); likewise, when Nārada returns to the Bādari hermitage, having seen Nārāyaṇa in his universal aspect, Nara-Nārāyaṇa, who were formally a pair, now appear to have the characteristics of the Śvetadvīpa dyadic beings (12.331.25c–30a).
17. Slaveva-Griffin (2009: 3–4): “From the sixth century B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E., from the early Presocratics to the late Neoplatonists, every philosophical school has striven to explain the tangible order of multiplicity. … The understanding of the universe as a unity of one and many begins with the early Presocratics’ search for the primary originative substance (archē) as the source and the unifying element of physical reality. Next, the Pythagoreans postulate that numbers organize the universe in one harmonious unity, which is interwoven by unlimited (apeira) and limiting (perainonta) elements.”
18. The Nārāyaṇīya refers to these two aspects of reality as praṛtti and nivṛtti dharmas. The question of their interrelation is a major theme not only of this text but also of the Sanskrit epic as a whole.
19. For an interesting solution to this problem, see Miller (1986). Miller argues that the “contradiction” in fact calls for a philosophical “decision”.
20. Simplicius, in Metaph. 187a; translated and cited in Slaveva-Griffin (2009: 6, n. 16).
21. Although nowhere in the Parmenides is the aoristos dyas mentioned, this has not prevented scholars from seeking to associate the term with Plato. Szlezák (2010) reviews the evidence for ascribing a Platonic origin to the term, including the testimony of ancient authors.
22. Merlan (1953: 98–140) argues that chapter 4 of this work is a fragment of Speusippus; his claim has been widely accepted (the exception being Tarán). For Dillon’s defence of Merlan against Tarán, see Dillon (1984; 2003: 41–2).
23. Rist (1965: 332), and see ibid.: 331: “If we enquire into the precise reason for the positing of the Dyad, we are faced with at least apparent difficulties. Merlan points out that in Apuleius and Plutarch passages can be found which suggest that some Platonists were asking themselves, What is the principle of differentiation within the Ideal World? and, under Aristotelian influence, were giving the answer, Matter. But this was not apparently Plato’s reason for introducing the Dyad in the first place. The problem of the distinction between Ideas seems to have caused him little inconvenience; although as early as the Protagoras he was concerned about the relation of various virtues with one another (329d–333b). The difficulty which Plato seems rather to have wished to solve is the old Parmenidean one about the origin of plurality itself. The first hypothesis of the second part of the Parmenides shows that if Unity be understood in the strict Parmenidean sense and be considered entirely in isolation, then nothing whatever can be said of it. Presumably, therefore, in the world of reality as well as the world of λόγοι, if the Platonic Good, or One, be considered by itself, then for all that it is the source of Being in some sense (R. 509), yet no other Beings (Forms) can exist unless there is some kind of substrate or ἐκμαγεῖον (Met. 988), or what you will, in the intelligible world, in which or on which the One can impose itself as Limit upon the Unlimited. Aristotle’s whole account of the Idea-Numbers depends on the assumption that Plato expects that by positing the One and the Dyad he can account for the existence of more than one Form. He does not deal with the question: What is the difference between Forms? He contents himself with explaining that there is a difference between Forms, that there are, say, two Forms, the Ideal Two and the Ideal Three, and that these are not merely two different names referring to the same thing.”
24. Plotinus was also interested in this problem and proposes a solution along the lines of the Nārāyaṇīya in Enn. VI.6[34].9 where the problem of the confusion between the arithmetical and ontological conception of the Indefinite Dyad is clarified and solved by introducing a distinction between substantial and monadic number. I thank the editors for this clarification.
25. Incidentally, this solution was already suggested by some Middle Platonists (Eudorus, Pythagoreans apud Sextus Empiricus, Math. 10). I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
26. See Plutarch, de An. Procr. 1012d–1013b and de Def. Orac. 409e; cf. Dillon (2003).
27. This is important for us, because unimpeded by a masculine biblical monotheism, Indian thought fully exploits the distinction, enantiomorphism and unified dualism of gender. The male–male pair of Nara and Nārāyaṇa already sits in dynamic tension with the Puruṣa-Prakṛiti male–female pair in the cosmogony of the Nārāyaṇīya. But once the One is gendered in relation to the many, and moreover deified, how is the One, as simple and untouched by predicates, to be described? Indian texts provide two solutions. First is the identification of the One as feminine. This ascendancy of the feminine is seen in a later text known as the Devī Purāṇa, where the One is primarily female. Second, in the more abstract philosophical systems, the One is de facto male, and matter is considered subordinate and feminine. While one simplistically attributes the empirical malfeasance of gender, seen across all cultures, to ontology, the reality depicted in texts shows an unmistakable playfulness regarding gender, deploying its uses in ontology with utmost seriousness. Thus, we already have a gender reversal in the Nārāyaṇīya. Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa, manifestations of Nara and Nārāyaṇa, also “switch” genders in the epic; Arjuna in the Virāṭaparvan and Nārāyaṇa in the Ādiparvan.
28. Indian thought traditionally divides social functions into four varṇas (literally, “colours”, but used with the general meanings of “kind, sort, character, nature, quality”): royal (military), sacerdotal, commercial or agricultural, and the menial classes. The varṇa scheme is crossed with a second social division, āśrama or the articulation of life according to age, to produce the concept of varṇāśramadharma. For a good survey of the concept, see Klostermaier (2007: 288–97); a comprehensive treatment can be found in Kane (1941).
29. These two concerns are ultimately one for Indian thought, for, as Biardeau (1968: 39) has shown, cosmology is but the reverse of the process of reabsorption by which a yogin absorbs the sensory world into himself. In Indian thought, the Puruṣa himself is conceived of as a yogin, specifically “un yogin cosmique, un mahāyogin” who lets the world emerge periodically from himself by turning outward. One consequence of this conception, as Biardeau correctly noted (1968: 109), is that “individual salvation [now] has to be integrated into this rhythm [of the periodic emission and reabsorption of the universe by the Purus a] and must also translate in its own way the hierarchy of the values which the successive levels of the cosmogony brought to light”. Cosmology and soteriology are thus intimately connected in the Nārāyaṇīya, just as, in Plotinus, the soul’s ascent cannot be understood independently of the process of emanation by which it descends.
30. When Nārada initially asks Nārāyaṇa about whom he sacrifices to, Nārāyaṇa responds that this topic is not to be revealed (avācyam), the secret of the eternal self (ātmaguhyaṁ sanātanam, 12.321.27a). It is said to be subtle (sūkṣmam), inconceivable (avijñeyam), unmanifest (avyaktam), immovable (acalaṁ), permanent (dhruvam, 12.321.28a), and transcending the senses and the primordial elements (indriyair indriyārthaiś ca sarvabhūtaiś ca varjitam, 12.321.28c). Earlier, Bhīṣma had said that this secret could not be stated by logic alone (na hy eṣa tarkayā śakyo vaktuṁ, 12.321.5c), but was to be had through divine grace (devaprasādād, 6a) alone. Nārāyaṇa, too, confirms that it can be revealed only to one of devoted mind (bhaktimataḥ, 12.321.27c).
31. The demonstration of the unity of being is ultimately based on the principle of non-contradiction, and is a well-known aspect of Mahābhārata ontology. See Gītā 2.16: nāsato vidyate bhāvo.
32. The Nārāyaṇīya sees knowledge of the One not only as the ultimate import of this text, but explicitly as the goal of all previous texts, including the Vedas (see lines 12.321.41a–42c). Thus, there is good reason to take the Nārāyaṇīya not as an isolated example, but as the fulfilment of a long tradition of a philosophical ontology, whose roots are to be found in the monistic speculations of the Vedas, especially the Puruṣa Sūkta and Nāsadīya Sūkta hymns of the Ṛg Veda (ṚV 10.90 and 10.129) and, of course, the Upaniṣads.
33. The exact passage reads: “From him [Puruṣa] has arisen the Unmanifest, composed of the three guṇas, O best of the twice-born. / Unmanifest, established in manifest forms, She who is Prakṛiti unchanging. / Know her to be the womb of us both. He who is the soul of all subtle and corporeal being, / Is worshipped by us both. He indeed is the one who is conceived as deity and as parent. / There is thus no other parent or deity beyond him, O twice-born one” (Mahābhārata 12.321.29e–31a).
The change of gender (from the masculine Puruṣa to the feminine Prakṣti and back to the masculine Puruṣa) is also in the original and appears intentional; Puruṣa and Prakṣti, the male and female principles, appear to be conceived of as a dyad. Note also that brahman as an impersonal term for the One is a neuter singular noun, but, when conceived theistically as the Supreme Being Nārāyaṇa, is represented as male. In cultic and theurgic practice, God often appears either as male with a female consort or, less often, explicitly as the androgyne (for example, Śiva as Ardhanārīnśvara), where the distinction between the male and female aspects is often interpreted as the difference between Being and its State of Being. Thus Indian thought in general is well aware of gender as a way of thinking about the unity, difference and co-belonging of the One and the many.
34. Literally, the text says that he “can be viewed by the discipline of knowledge” (drśyate jñānayogena āvāṁ ca prasṛtau tataḥ, 12.321.40a).
35. Literally, the text says that to those who are established in oneness with him even in this world (ye tu tadbhāvitā loke ekāntitvaṁ samāsthitāḥ, 12.321.42a), he, that Being (taṁ [puruṣaṁ], 12.321.41a), grants the supreme state (ādyaṁ gatiṁ 12.321.41c): they enter into him (te taṁ praviśanty uta, 12.32142c).
36. Every aspect of Nārada’s journey, beginning with his double ascent from Mount Gandhamādana to Mount Meru, is significant. As Mabbett notes (1983: 66), Mount Meru is “much more than a feature on the cosmographic map. A map is a misleading metaphor, for a map is two-dimensional. Meru rose up in a third dimension; in doing so, it pierced the heavens; in piercing the heavens, it transcended time as well as space; in transcending time it became (in Mus’s sense) a magical tool for the rupture of plane. This is evident in the many layers of symbolism that exchange Meru for the cosmic man, for the temple at the center of the universe, for the office of kingship, for the stūpa, for the maṇḍala, and for the internal ascent undertaken by the tantric mystic. Meru is not, we must recognize, a place, ‘out there,’ so to speak. It is ‘in here’.”
37. Under the influence of the text-historical school, bhakti was rapidly demoted from a philosophical concept to a sociological category. This view of bhakti, which I call the “cult-emotive approach”, wherein bhakti stands in stark contrast to the rational enterprise of systematic philosophies, especially Advaita Vedānta, does not allow us to fully frame the question of love for the One or to appreciate the symbolic and philosophical genius of the epic. Seen from the “cult-emotive” perspective, bhakti appears as a state of irrational passion or rapture, while the crucial ontological insight into the relation of the One and the many encapsulated in it is lost. A better way to regard bhakti is that proposed by Biardeau (1989: 15), who has argued that “Orthodox Brahmanism, which is closer to the Revelation, is not the ancestor of modern Hinduism; it is its permanent heart, the implicit model for or/and against which bhakti, tantrism and all their sects have been constituted”. In contrast to the excesses of the German historico-critical approach, nearly all of which is now of merely antiquarian interest, Biardeau provides a superb theoretical framework for understanding bhakti. She sees bhakti as essentially a philosophical structure, integrating the enduring cosmological and soteriological questions as developed within the texts of the tradition. Her insights have been developed further in the work of Hiltebeitel (2011b), who makes a rigorous case for the Mahābhārata as a work of bhakti through and through.
38. The term is Biardeau’s; see Biardeau & Malamoud (1976).
39. Biardeau (1989: 27) rightly draws attention to the cognitive, intellectual aspect of bhakti; bhakti cannot be reduced to mere religious fervour (ibid.: 114) or a feeling directed towards one monotheistic god, especially the sectarian gods (Biardeau 1989: 107–8; 1968: 104, n.1). Biardeau & Malamoud (1976: 89) question and reject both the discontinuity between smṛti sectarianism and Upaniṣadic traditions as well as those allied with Brahmanic sacrifice (ibid.: 89–106, see also 89, n. 1). Boldly breaking with nearly two centuries of entrenched prejudices regarding bhakti, Biardeau demonstrates the wide-ranging significance of bhakti within Hinduism. For her, rather than speaking of a “bhakti religion”, it makes more sense to speak of a “universe of bhakti” (Biardeau 1989: 79–80), where bhakti is to be understood as a cognitive framework for a set of values. Thus, she notes of bhakti that it constitutes “a grandiose edifice, stupefying in its coherence and unity” (ibid.: 106).
40. In this latter sense, number is being understood ontologically, not arithmetically. The dyadic beings are somehow able to bridge individuality with identity or oneness, which they of course do through their intense love or bhakti for the One. The soteriology the epic proposes, therefore, is very much a matter of what is practicable and experienceable here and now and thus with this elucidation of bhakti Yudhiṣṭhira’s opening question (how are members of all four classes and not just the Brahman renunciate to experience salvation?) is answered.
41. This is of course mythic; the actual experience of this is repeatedly stated to be a matter of philosophical praxis involving both discriminative intelligence (Sāṁkhya) and certain kathartic practices which form part of Yoga.
42. In reflection, there is always a doubling of the original: as original and its image. This property of reflection comes in use for explaining the process of emanation of the world from the One, especially for a monistic ontology such as Advaita Vedānta, which cannot acknowledge that the One (as cause) undergoes a real transformation in producing the universe (its effect) (this is the pariṇāmavāda of the Sāṁkhya school). Rather, Advaita will either argue for the world as an illusory transformation of the cause (vivartavāda) or as a reflection produced by the One (pratibimbavāda), a reflection of course having no real existence independent of its original. In this context it is interesting to note that Plato too uses the language of images and mimesis (see R. 595a–598d and Ti. 37d) to describe the generation of the cosmos. For a discussion of the former, see my “Warrior and Art Critic: Plato’s Republic 10”, paper presented at the 7th Annual Conference of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, Krakow, Poland, 2009.
43. This is expressed repeatedly in the text, with varying emphasis on the element of grace (devaprasāda) (12.331.14a: devaprasādānugataṁ vyaktaṁ tat tasya darśanam) or bhakti (12.332.3: nāsya bhaktaiḥ priya-taro loke kas cana vidyate / tataḥ svayaṁ darśitavān svam ātmānaṁ dvijottama).
44. The dyad is not simply inserted in between the One and the many as some sort of ad hoc abstract solution to bridging the difference or gap between them. Rather, the epic seems to see dyadic existence as a real, existent possibility: as the Śvetadvīpa narrative shows, it is that state in which a direct experience of the One (while still being other than the One, but liminally so) becomes possible. Without these beings, neither would Nārāyaṇa appear nor would Nārada’s soteriological journey to the One be complete. Thus, the dyad becomes a necessary step for making the soteriological goal of the system of emanation possible.
45. Obviously, there are certain parallels to the Plotinian tolma here, but these must remain the subject of a future paper.
46. A careful and close reading of the text thus refutes the Orientalist prejudice that bhakti is a relationship of subordination to a god experienced as higher and as absolutely other. Instead, as I have been arguing, it becomes the principle of organization of the left-hand side of the table, where the one’s various manifestations are not at odds with the idea of its unity.
47. Ammonius Saccas, Nemesius and Philo are all Oriental philosophers, whose influence upon Plotinus is attested to in his own writings.
48. Curiously, Armstrong (1936), who otherwise rejects Bréhier’s arguments for Indian influence upon Plotinus, nonetheless accepts the latter’s thesis of an opposition between a “rational” and an “irrational” element in Plotinus’ thought.
49. Bréhier cites and translates Oldenberg (1915: 39).
50. A different approach to refuting Bréhier was undertaken by Rist, who argued that the mysticism of Plotinus was of the theistic sort (by which he meant that the soul, even when it attains union with God, does not lose its self-identity). According to Rist, since the mysticism of the Upaniṣads, in contrast, is of a monistic nature, the question of the Upaniṣads as a source of influence upon Plotinus can be set aside. See Rist (1967: 214, 229).
51. Although Oldenberg may have been responsible for framing the evolution of Indian philosophy in terms of the pantheism debate, he was not responsible for the debate itself, whose origins lie, rather, in the Pantheismusstreit of the nineteenth century. Herling (2009: 89) offers a useful summary: “In essence, the so-called Pantheismusstreit began when minor philosopher F. H. Jacobi revealed a confession made by Lessing, one of the leading lights of the German Enlightenment, late in his life: he (Lessing) was committed to the philosophy of Spinoza, and in the discourse of the day, that made him a pantheist, an irrationalist, and (ultimately) an atheist …. Reactions to Lessing’s confession piled up quickly (Mendelssohn and Kant himself were famous respondents). Jacobi himself clearly had a philosophical agenda in making the revelation public: he was inspired (like Herder) by his friend Hamann and by his own Lutheran commitment …. The key point is that Jacobi thought all philosophical perspectives, including those of the Aufklärer, ended in Spinozist pantheism if the centrality of faith and revelation did not undergird them: only faith and revelation could provide the transcendent anchor for reason, lest it slip off into the mechanistic determination of a Leibniz or Spinoza, and subsequently into the dangerous thought that God is everywhere (and thus nowhere).”
52. Similarly, Ciapalo (2002) argues, against Bréhier, that even though Plotinian thought culminates in the mystical, nondual experience of union with the One, there is no reason to seek Oriental sources for it; “Plotinus’ account of the final stage of the soul’s ascent to and unification with the One … [is] the conclusion of a long and careful deductive argument whose major premise is that first principle mentioned earlier – to be real is to be one” (ibid.: 76). For him, “what is most interesting” about Plotinus’ thought “is that he is thoroughly Greek in his approach to philosophical problems. Namely, he is eminently rational” (ibid.: 77). If he is nonetheless “led by the relentless application of his logic to eventually draw conclusions that themselves defy complete penetration by human reason” (ibid.) this is not, as Bréhier thought, rooted in his Orientalism, but in the “fundamentally universal” nature of human experience.
53. As Schmitt (2012) has recently argued, the concept of rationality of ancient philosophy was based upon the insight that, in order to be known, a thing had to be some definite thing, and that means some one thing. It is in this sense that Platonic philosophy considered both being and unity to be the most fundamental criteria for knowledge. Modernity, however, rapidly sets itself apart from this Seinsphilosophie. Instead, it proposes that the criterion for something to be known is its conformity to its representation in consciousness.
54. In Oldenberg’s case, Indian philosophy in general, and the Upaniṣads in particular, offered a convenient mirror to reflect back cherished ideas of the critical nature of Orientalist scholarship. Filtered through the lenses of his nationalism and Aryanism, the history of India appeared as a history of terminal decline, ending only with the advent of Western critical scholarship. For a more comprehensive look at Oldenberg’s work, especially as concerns the latter portion of the claim, see Adluri & Bagchee (2014).
55. For a good overview of the history of Mahābhārata scholarship, see Hiltebeitel (2012); also Adluri (2010).
56. For my comments on Garbe’s work, see my online review of Nicholson on H-Net (Adluri 2012b).