it have been forgotten that in the Dialogues between Milinda and Nâgasena we have a well authenticated case of a Greek king (Menandros), and of a Buddhist philosopher, discussing together some of the highest problems of philosophy and religion. All this is true, and yet we are as far as ever from having discovered a Greek or Indian go-between in flagrante delicto. We have before us ever so many possibilities, nay even probabilities, but we could not expect any bona fide historian to accept any one of them as a proof of a real influence having been exercised by Greece on India or by India on Greece, at a time when Greek philosophy and religion might still have been amenable to Eastern guides, or Indian schools of thought might have gratefully received fresh impulses from the West. Though the literature of India has no trustworthy chronology, still, unless the whole structure of the literary development of India is once more to be revolutionised, we can hardly imagine that the occurrence of such names as Bodda and Zarades (Zoroaster) among the followers of Mani, or that of Terebinthos the pupil of Scythianos', the very founder of the Manichaean sect in Babylon, would help us to discover the secret springs of the wisdom of Kapila or Buddha Sakya Muni. They may point out whence these heresiarchs derived their wisdom, but they leave the question which concerns us here totally untouched. Görres, in spite of all his mysticism, was right when he looked for a similarity It has been suggested that Scythianos may have been an adaptation of Sakya the Scythian, a name of Buddha, and Terebinthos may contain traces of Thera (elder). All this is possible, but no more. in technical terms in order to establish an Indian influence on Greek or a Greek influence on Indian philosophy. His principle was right, though he applied it wrongly. It is the same as in Comparative Mythology. There may be ever so many similarities between two mythologies, such as changes of men and women into animals or plants, worship of trees and ancestors, belief in spirits and visions in sleep or dreams, but one such equation as Dyaus = Zeus, is more convincing than all of them taken together. If people ask why, they might as well ask why the discovery of one coin with the name of Augustus on it is a more convincing proof of Roman influence in India than the discovery of ever so many pieces of uncoined gold. To return to the origin of the word Brahman. Tempting1 as the distant relationship between Bráhman and Brih, in the sense of speech, with verbum and Word may be, we could not admit it without admitting at the same time a community of thought, and of deep philosophical thought, at a period 1 There is a curious passage in Bhartrihari's Brahmakânda which seems to identify Speech and Brahman. See Sarvadarsana-sangraha, Bibl. Ind., p. 140:— Anâdinidhanam brahma sabdatattvam yad aksharam, Brahman without beginning or end, which is the eternal Is changed into the form of things, like the evolution. of the world. Equally strong is the statement of Madhava himself, Sphotàkhyo niravayavo nityah sabdo brahmaiveti, "The eternal word which is called Sphota and does not consist of parts, is indeed Brahman.' previous to the Aryan Separation; and we certainly have no evidence sufficiently strong to support so bold a hypothesis. What we may carry away from a consideration of the facts hitherto examined is that in India itself Bráhman, as a name of the πρῶτον κινοῦν, need not have passed through a stage when Brahman meant prayer only, and that Bráhman, prayer, could not have assumed the meaning of the object of prayers, that is, the Universal Spirit, who never required any prayers at all. In order to show what direction the thoughts connected with Vâk took in the Veda, I shall first of all subjoin here a few passages from the hymns, the Brahmanas and Upanishads : Vâk, speech, speaking in her own name, is introduced in hymn X, 125, also in Atharva-veda IV, 30, as saying: 'I. I wander with the Vasus and the Rudras, I wander with the Adityas and the Visve Devas, I support Mitra and Varuna both, I support Agni and the two Asvins; 2. I support the swelling (?) Soma, I support Tvashtri and Pûshan and Bhaga. I bestow wealth on the zealous offerer, on the sacrificer who presses Soma. 3. I am the queen, the gatherer of riches, the knowing, first of those who merit worship; the gods have thus established me in many places, staying with many, entering into many. 4. By me it is that he who sees, he who breathes, he who hears what is spoken, eats food; without knowing it, they rest on me. Hear, one and all! I tell thee what I believe. (?) 5. I, even I myself, say this, what is good for gods, and also for men; whomsoever I love, him I make formidable, him I make a Brahmán, him a Rishi, him a sage. 6. I bend the bow for Rudra (the storm-god) that his arrow may strike the hater of Brahman; I make war for the people, I have entered both heaven and earth. 7. I bring forth the (my?) father (Dyaus) on the summit of this world, my origin is in the waters, in the sea; from thence I spread over all beings, and touch yonder heaven with my height. 8. I indeed spread forth like the wind, to lay hold on all things, beyond the sky, beyond the earth; such have I become through my greatness.' I ask is there any trace in these utterances of the thoughts that led in the end to the conception of the Greek Logos? There is another hymn (X, 71) which is very obscure and has for the first time been rendered more intelligible by Professor Deussen (A. G. P., p. 148), where we meet with some important remarks showing that language formed an object of thought even at that early time. But here also there is nothing, as yet, approaching to the conception of the Word as a creative power. We meet with such observations as that words were made in the beginning in order to reveal what before had been hidden. This is, no doubt, an important thought, showing that those who uttered it had not yet ceased, like ourselves, to wonder at the existence of such a thing as language. The struggle for life that is going on among words is alluded to by saying that the wise made speech by mind (Manas), sifting as by a sieve the coarsely ground flour. The power of speech is greatly extolled, and eloquence is celebrated as a precious gift. All men shout when the eloquent man appears, holding the assembly subdued or spellbound by his words (Sabhâsaha), nay he is supposed to remove all sin and to procure sustenance for his friends. The knowledge of all things or, as Deussen says, the knowledge of the origin of things, is taught by the Bráhman. We meet with passages of a very similar character, in various parts of the Brahmanas. One of the most startling is found in a verse inserted in the Purushahymn, as given in the Taittirîya-âranyaka (III, 12, 17), 'I know that great sun-coloured Purusha, when on the verge of darkness, he, the wise, rests, addressing them, after having thought all forms, and having made their names.' Here we have only to translate forms by edn, and names by Xóyou, and we shall not be very far from the world of thought in which Plato and Aristotle' moved. But although we can discover in this hymn an appreciation of the mysterious nature of speech, we look in vain for the clear and definite idea that language and thought are one, which can be so clearly read in the Greek word Logos, both word and thought, nor do we find more than slight anticipations of the Neo-platonist dogma that the creation of the universe was in reality an utterance of the hidden thoughts and words of the Deity. Mind and Speech. The following passages will give some idea of what was thought in India about mind and language and their mutual relation. They may be 1 See Deussen, 1. c., p. 290. |