SV: Origins of the "double-truth"

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Lars Martin Fosse <lmfosse at ONLINE.NO> wrote:

>Bjarte Kaldhol here raises an interesting question: to what extent is India
>the "mother" of Greek ideas?

...

>which India also is part. As for 2), we have to consider the likelyhood
>that Indian Brahmins were willing to share their more or less secret wisdom
>with mlecchas. Some Indian ascetics apparently were (e.g. the
>"gymnosophists" that were in contact with Alexander the Great), and

1. We also have to consider to what extent is India defined as
the land east of the Indus river, and at what period of time.

2. At what period of time and in what regions is mleccho-phobia
significant? Perhaps Brahmins in Kuru-Pancala in the 5th-6th
centuries BCE did not consider all Central Asians mlecchas.
There was, after all, some continuity with the then populations
of Central Asia through the Gandharans and the Uttara-kurus.
An idea can travel from one point to another via a number of
intermediaries.

3. Still, re: transmigration/metempsychosis/reincarnation, it
remains to be proved that it is a uniquely Indian religious idea
that went west. Indeed, it seems like a very "natural" belief
about life and death. Even Judaism has room for it. There is a
debate going on in Israel and the USA, about reincarnation and
the Holocaust. The Reform Jews have serious problems with the
idea, while the Orthodox Jews seem to accept it.

Vidyasankar
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