The Roots of Philosophical Thought in Ancient Greece and India by Giulia Massaro

Author:Giulia Massaro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ancient India, Ancient Greece, Philosophical Thinking
Publisher: Giulia Massaro
Published: 2020-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

How can speculation be understood within the Upanisadic context? Do the Upanisads suggest the origin of knowledge is found within the individual or within the Self or rather (perhaps counter-intuitively), is the knowledge of the Self found ‘without’. Many passages in the Upanisads suggest that the Self cannot be found through speculation or reasoning upon oneself, but only through access to the right teacher:

One cannot gain access to it

Unless someone else teaches it

For it is smaller than the size of an atom

A thing beyond the realm of reason

One can’t grasp this notion by argumentation

Yet it’s easy to grasp when taught by another.[166]

In order to understand the full implications of the curse of the shattered head it is important to understand how knowledge is defined - is it exclusively inherited from a teacher, or both inherited and intuited from the inner experience of the Self, or completely found within the Self? This question mirrors another question: are the speakers in the debate representing discourses they have directly inherited, or doctrines that they have inherited and assimilated to their own experience of Self. Or are they voicing their own opinions discovered through self-reflection? Particularly in the case of Yajnavalkya, it has to be asked - are his ideas the result of a withdrawing from all outside influences and direct speculation on the nature of the Self? Are they original to him? Or, are they part of a larger tradition, a lineage for which he is only the most authoritative representative?

If the Upanisads are read without the wider contextual knowledge of the ancient Indian educational system then this aspect of the debate in BU3 can be overlooked. Yohanan Grinshpon’s reading of BU3 suffers from an overestimation of the autonomy of Yajnavalkya, and does not acknowledge his continuity with the tradition that surrounds him. Grinshpon asserts:

Yajnavalkya is presented as a Vedic scholar of a certain independence; active, self-transforming, tapping his resources to obtain knowledge. In this there seems to lie the root of his self-confidence. He apparently can seek and find truth ‘by himself. [167]

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