some remarks about a meeting between socrates and an indian

Some Remarks about a Meeting between Socrates and an Indian 247

Some Remarks about a Meeting between Socratesand an Indian

(Aristoxenus fragment 53)

by Joachim Lacrosse (Cambridge/Brussels)

Abstract: This article aims at discussing the origin of an Indian argument quoted bya member of the Peripatetic school at the end of the 4th Century BC. Aristoxenus 53rd

fragment tells the surprising story of a (fictitious) meeting between Socrates and anIndian in Athens. Challenging Socrates and his definition of philosophy as investi-gations about human life, the Indian argues that it is not possible for anyone tounderstand human matters ( ) without considering divine ones( ). This argument, even though it clearly belongs to internalGreek philosophical debates, echoes the genuine and typically Indian axiom thatknowledge of the human self is knowledge of God and vice-versa, which is one of themajor commonplaces in traditional Brahmanic thought. By discussing successivelythe historical context of the fragment, some related Platonic passages and someIndian parallels on the issue, the article shows that Aristoxenus fragment is one ofthe first and only texts, historically, in which a typical Greek philosophical argumentis challenged by an authentic Indian proposition translated into an argument basedon Greek conceptual categories.* 0

Introduction: Aristoxenus Fragment 53

The fragment I would like to consider in this article is presumablyextracted from a biography of Socrates1 written at the end of the4th Century BC by Aristoxenus of Tarentum, a member of the Peripa-tetic school with a Pythagorean background and called the Musicianby the members of the Lyceum.2

0 I am grateful to David Sedley and Geoffrey Lloyd for their comments, as well asto Ross Perlin for improving my English.

1 Hirzel 1890, 426428, followed by Festugire 1971b, 189 n.2, wrongly supposesthat this fragment may have been quoted from a full dialogue between Socratesand an Indian, although Aristoxenus is known to have a penchant for writingbiographies: see the fragments of Aristoxenus Life of Socrates in Wehrli 1960,2427 = fr. 5160.

2 See Wehrli 1960, 4748 and ff., Lynch 1972, 78, and Centrone 1989.

*

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248 Joachim Lacrosse

Aristoxenus 53rd fragment (Wehrli) has been transmitted to us viaEusebius (Praep. Ev. 11.3.8), who is himself quoting the 1st CenturyAD3 Peripatetic Aristocles of Messene (F1.8 Chiesara)4. It tells the sur-prising story of a meeting between Socrates and an Indian in Athens.

The starting point (11.3.7) is a summary of Platos opinion about therelationship between knowledge of human matters and knowledge ofthe divine: for Plato, according to Aristocles, it is impossible to under-stand () human things ( ) without a knowledge ofdivine things ( ). Aristocles refers this proposition to the ofthe Indians that can be found in Aristoxenus passage:

(11.3.8) Aristoxenus the musician says that this argument comes from the Indians( ). For indeed, one of these men met5 Socrates inAthens and inquired from him about what kind of activity he was pursuing asa philosopher ( ). Socrates answered that it con-sists in investigations about human life ( ! ). The Indianstarted to laugh at him, saying that it is not possible for anyone to understand human matters ( ) without considering divine ones( ). (11. 3. 9) Whether this is true or not, no one can say forsure [].

It is worth noticing that Aristocles, or maybe Aristoxenus himself (whois notorious for his anti-Socratism as well as his anti-Platonism6), isintroducing here an implicit disagreement between Socrates and Plato,by saying that the latter agrees with the Indians while the former doesnot.

However, the main issue I would like to discuss is the origin of theIndians argument, which is meant as a challenge to Socrates and hisdefinition of philosophy as investigations about human life: $% .

In other words, I would like to raise the question of whether it makesany sense that the proponent of the argument challenging Socratesdefinition of philosophy in this fragment is said to be an Indian, and notsomeone from any other country or philosophical school. For that pur-pose, two specific points in our passage have to be interpreted:

3 On the dates of Aristocles, see Follet 1989, 382, and Chiesara 2001, xvi ff.4 Fr. 53 = Wehrli 1960, 25 (and the commentary, 6566). The same passage can

also be found in Breloer/Brmer 1939, 16, and in Chiesara 2001, 10f., with a veryshort commentary, 67.

5 As Festugire 1971b, 189 n. 4, notes, the verb & can suggest that themeeting occured not only once, but several times (cf. Apol., 41 b 2).

6 See Centrone 1989, 592.




1) : does the genitive mean thatPlatos thesis about the relation between human affairs and the divine issupposed to come from the Indians, or does it mean that it is to befound as well in what the Indians say about the relation between and ? In other words, is Aristocles (or Aristoxenus)talking about an Indian influence on Plato, or is he just making achallenging comparison between Socratic and Indian views on thematter discussed in his previous summary of Platos philosophy?

2) : is the Indian asking Socratesin which activities philosophy in general consists, or in which particularkind of philosophy he is involved? In other words, what are the terms ofthe opposition: philosophy and something else (Indian wisdom, forinstance), or two different kinds or definitions of philosophy, the So-cratic and the Indian ones?

To interpret these points, let us consider successively (A) the histori-cal context of the fragment, (B) some Greek parallels on the issue,(C) some Indian parallels in both Greco-Roman and original Indianaccounts.

A. Historical Context: After Alexanders Indian Campaign

The meeting between Socrates and an Indian is generally consideredfictitious, and Aristocles suggests himself in the first line of 11.3.9 thatit is unlikely that Socrates really met an Indian in Athens (whether thisis true or not, no one can say for sure). Almost all modern scholarsconsider it obvious that the meeting is not authentic.7 One notable ex-ception is Filliozat, who thinks it is historically possible because of thepaths of diffusion made possible by the Persian Empire.8 However, tosupport this possibility, Filliozat claims only that no positive argumenthas been given by the others to prove that the meeting was impossible.He also claims that the historical truth of Aristoxenus story is not themain point to consider, as regards the reliability of its account on In-dian philosophy a point which I will discuss later in this article.

7 See Hirzel 1890, 419, Brhier 1928, 132, Jaeger 1934, 165 and n. 1, Bidez 1945,123f., Festugire 1971b, 188, Sedlar 1981, 14, Halbfass 1988, 16, Karttunen 1989,110f., Chenet 1998a, 1298, and Chiesara 2001, 67. Surprisingly, Aristoxenusfragment 53 is not quoted in McEvilley 2002.

8 Filliozat 1981, 100 (see the full quotation further in section C). See also Conger1952, 104ff., and Tola / Dragoneti 1982, 168ff.




Even if it is unlikely that the story of a meeting between Socrates andan Indian has any historical truth, one may ask whether there is any sig-nificance in the barbarians coming from India and not from any otherbarbarian or Eastern country. On this point, most scholars refer to an-other account telling the story of a meeting, between Socrates and abarbarian from Syria,9 and consider that it belongs, along with Arist-oxenuss fragment 53, either to the Platonic fascination for barbarianwisdom10 or to the common Hellenistic topos of a meeting between aGreek and an Oriental.11

For another example of such a meeting between a Greek philosopherand an Oriental, in the Peripatetic school, see the interesting fragmentfrom Clearchus treatise On sleep, about the (presumably fictitious too)meeting between Aristotle and a Jew (Flavius Josephus, Against ApionI.175183). It is worth noticing that Clearchus supposes that the Jewsoriginate from the Indian Kallanoi, a hapax legomenon related to thename of the famous Indian philosopher Kalanos who resisted Alexanderthe Greats desire to take him back to Greece by commiting suicide.12

These parallels would tend to suggest that the Indian in our fragmentis merely the representative of a barbarian or Eastern point of view,not a specifically Indian one. Yet if one looks at the texts quoted aboutthe meeting between Socrates and the Syrian, they do not pose anydefinite challenge to Socrates, as Aristoxenus fragment does. Thus,although Aristoxenus story may certainly be related to a kind of Hel-lenistic fascination for Eastern wisdom in general, it is distinctive chall-enging a Greek argument with a counter-argument that is supposed tooriginate specifically from India.

9 Ps.-Arist. in D.L. 2.45 (fr. 32 Rose). Jaeger 1934, 165, surpisingly makes nodifference between the Indian and the Syrian, by saying that both passages(Aristoxenus fragment 53 and Ps.-Aristotles fragment 32) mention the visit ofthe Indian to Athens.

10 Jaeger 1934, 165: This sounds apocryphal, but it is simply the legendary formu-lation of the view, universal in the later Academy and summed up in the Epinomisas a programme for religious reform, that in future Oriental astralism and theol-ogy would have to be combined with the Delphic religion of Hellas, if the Greekswere to make religious progress.

11 See Hirzel 1890, 429431, and Festugire 1971b, 188. Wehrli refers also to Arist-oxenus fragment 13 (about the Chaldeans).

12 About this fragment and this hapax legomenon, Kallanoi, one could askwhether the Jew met by Aristotle, according to Flavius Josephus, could not havebeen the Indian Kalanos himself in Clearchus original version. There are somearguments to support this surprising hypothesis, as I plan to demonstrate in aforthcoming article.




The question is thus: what is an Indian argument in Aristoxenussview? Even without considering the content of the argument, as I willdo later, it seems that the historical context in which Aristoxenus wrotehis biography of Socrates is important in understanding the fact that hementions an Indian challenging Socrates, and not a Chaldean, a Syrian,a Jew, a Persian or any other barbarian.

Indeed, Aristoxenus fragment was possibly written just afterAlexanders Indian campaign. Among the companions of Alexanderwere supposed to be philosophers from several Greek schools: Pyrrhothe Sceptic, Anaxarchus the disciple of Democritus, Onesicritus theCynic, Callisthenes the nephew of Aristotle, etc. This last was, likeAristoxenus himself, a member of the Lyceum, and may perhaps havereturned from his Indian travel when Aristoxenus was writing his Lifeof Socrates.

Moreover, the other confrontations between a Greek and a barbar-ian philosopher to be found in Greek literature are mainly concernedwith Indians. Each time, as Festugire (1971a, 1971b) has pointed out,it is the Indian, not the Greek, who is the winner of the wisdom contest.In Aristoxenus fragment too, the laugh of the Indian is obviously thelaugh of the victor. Festugire does not seem to think that the (usually)Indian nationality of the opponents is relevant in itself, analyzing itonly in the context of the Hellenistic fascination for Eastern wisdom ingeneral.

But one could perhaps move a step further and claim that the reasonwhy it is the Indians, more than other barbarian or Eastern philos-ophers, who challenge Greek arguments on philosophical issues byusing counter-arguments, is that the Greeks were aware, though in avery general and distorted way, of the development and richness ofphilosophical arguments in India at that time.13

The stories about Indian philosophers told by Alexanders com-panions and by Megasthenes in Aristoxenus time treat mainly of theIndians ascetic practices and customs, and it would be difficult todemonstrate any massive transmission of information about any actual

13 The philosophical debates and use of sophisiticated arguments (in particular, be-tween Buddhist and Hindu philosophers) are a characteristic of Indian philoso-phy, especially at that time. Bronkhorst 1999 and 2005 has tried to demonstratethat these developments may be the result of Greek influence after Alexanderscampaign, related to the presence of Greek kingdoms in India. Whatever onethinks about this hypothesis, the use of a specific kind of sophisticated argumentis already a characteristic of older Indian literature, for example in many pas-sages of the upanisads.




doctrine. The Greeks had no access either to the Sanskrit language orBrahmanic initiation.14 Onesicritus, according to Strabo (Geogr. XV.64)reports that three different interpreters were required for the conver-sations between Brahmins and Greek philosophers, and he comparesit, interestingly, with defective water canalizations. Obviously, therewere several communication obstacles to any discussions between Greekand Indian philosophers.

On the other hand, there also exist a few Greco-Roman accountsdealing with authentic Indian doctrines, though only in a very generaloutline. This point is hardly admitted by modern scholarship, despiteevidence in support of it. For instance, as Dumzil (1983) has shown,in the traditional story of the conference between Alexander and tenBrahmins,15 almost all the answers given by the ten Brahmins to Alex-anders questions may correspond to known Indian philosophical doc-trines.

Even if one considers only the accounts which are contemporarywith Aristoxenus fragment (mainly in Megasthenes), some authenticIndian doctrines can already be found there, although of very generalnature.16 There are also more obvious examples in later Greco-Romanaccounts,17 but texts contemporary with Aristoxenus fragment seemsufficient to prove that Greeks, in the Hellenistic period, had at leastsome information about Indian views on different matters, and were

14 See Filliozat 1981, 118, and Chenet 1998a, 12921293.15 We have seven versions of that legendary meeting, the first one being on a

papyrus from the 1st Century BC (Pap. Berol. 13044). See Breloer/Bmer 1939,68ff.

16 For examples, see Megasthenes shortlist of philosophical doctrines commonto both Greek and Indian philosophies, in Strabo, Geogr. XV.1.59: the concep-tion of a divine principle that pervades the whole world, the doctrines of wateras first principle, of the four elements and the fifth nature, the belief in trans-migration of the souls and judgment of their actions; XV.1.60 on the functionalcomplementarity of kings and philosophers; Onesicritus in Strabo, Geogr.XV.1.65 about the removal of pleasure and pain from the soul as the aim of philo-sophical discourse.

17 For examples, see Apuleius, Flor. 6.58, on the three social functions incorpor-ated by the caste system: philosophers, warriors and producers. See Philostratus,Vit. Apoll. III.34; Bardesanes in Porphyry, De abst. IV.17.3, on the vedic mythof the universal Father and Mother and Bardesanes in Porphyry (376F Smith,in Stobaeus I.3.56) on the related Sivat conception of the Supreme God asAndrogynous. See Alexander Polyhistor in Clement of Alexandria, Strom.III.6.60.2ff. (223228); Bardesanes in Porphyry, De abst. IV.17.1, 3 and 710;Jeronimus, Adv. Jov. I.41, on the opposition between brahmanism and sra-manism (buddhism or jainism).




thus able to use those views as arguments for challenging Greek philo-sophical ideas.18

Finally, if it is unlikely that Aristoxenus story is historically accurateand that Socrates actually met an Indian in Athens, the story was,nevertheless, written in a context of discovery of Indian philosophers,mainly considered for their way of life and customs, but sometimes fortheir philosophical doctrines as well. Some accounts from that timetransmit authentic Indian doctrines, though in very general outline andwith certain distorsions from the Greek mirror. I will ask later whetherthis could be the case with Aristoxenus fragment. First, however, letus look at Greek debates on the matter discussed by Socrates and theIndian.

B. Literary Context:Some Parallel Platonic and Greek Passages

Modern scholarship has shown, in many different ways, that Aristox-enus fragment 53 and the Indian argument it contents ( $% ) are relatedto internal Greek philosophical topics and polemics. Behind theIndian argument lies a typical Greek problem. According to a certainview, then, this argument need have nothing to do with India.

There was a certain ambiguity in Greece as to decide whether oneshould start by knowing oneself or by knowing the gods, or God.19 Totake one example, if one looks at the Stoics interpretation of the Del-phic maxim know thyself , they express both the idea that the way toknow oneself is to know God and the converse that to know God onemust know himself.20

On the other hand, it is said in the Epinomis 988a, in relation toOriental wisdom:

18 Onesicritus (in Strabo, Geogr. XV.1.65), though not specifically adressing Indiandoctrines or arguments, is already proposing a kind of challenging comparativ-ism between Greek and Indian views on the relationship between and%. The Brahmins radical ascetic practices are challenging the parallel teach-ings of Pythagoras, Socrates and Diogenes.

19 I leave here aside the question of the various meanings covered by the words in the passages quoted.

20 On this point, see Wilkins 1979, 45 and 8788.




Let none of the Greeks fear that, being mortals, they cannot busy themselves withdivine matters ();21 they must hold entirely the opposite view, that the divineis never either unintelligent (() or in any ignorance of human nature(! %), but knows that if it teaches us we shall follow its guidanceand learn what is taught us.

This ambiguity is obvious in the Platonic passages which help make upthe background to Aristocles introduction to the Indians argument inAristoxenus.

First, there is evidence that Aristocles is referring in the Indians argument toPhaedrus 270c, especially the fact that the comparison with medicine is quoted at11.3.7: just as physicians, when treating some part of the body, must first be con-cerned with the whole body, anyone who wants to understand earthly matters mustknow the nature of the whole. That is almost exactly what Plato says in Phaedrus270c, referring to Hippocrates:22

Socrates: Do you think one can understand ()) properly the nature ofthe soul without understanding the nature of the whole () * %!)?

Phaedrus: If Hippocrates the Asclepiad is to be trusted, one cannot even know thenature of the body without this method.

The second passage to which Aristocles 11.3.7 refers implicitly, by distinguishing thegood that is our own and that of the whole, is Laws 631b:

There are two kinds of goods ( ), human () and divine(), the former depending on the latter.

Another Platonic, or pseudo-Platonic text to consider is, of course,23 the First Alci-biades, in which Socrates shows Alcibiades that knowledge of the soul supposesknowledge of the god in the soul. The dialogue culminates in the thesis that the Del-phic maxim know thyself can be realized only through the self-contemplation ofNous in the mirror of the knowledge of God (132e 133c). In that context, it is worthmentioning Hirzels audacious argument against the authenticity of the dialogue.Hirzel claims that the First Alcibiades was written with the sole aim of defending So-

21 Jaeger 1934, 164: According to the popular Greek view the knowledge of thedivine, the Gnosis of the Orientals, is a thing that must be for ever unattainable tomortals; and unhappy is the man who plagues his head with the search for theforbidden fruit.

22 The interpretation of this passage and its reference to Hippocrates is very dis-puted. See Joly 1961 and Lombard 1999.

23 Boyanc 1963 also refers Aristocles passage to the Alcibiades 133c, but Chiesara2001, 66 n. 12, thinks (without any argument) that the comparison is not perti-nent, despite the interpretation of the passage in Clement of Alexandria (Strom.1.60).




crates against the Indian argument in Aristoxenus fragment 53 and, therefore, canbe dated to the end of the 4th Century BC!24

Other Platonic passages may be recalled to throw light on Aristoxenus fragment:Timaeus 90a-d, where it is advised to imitate the circular movements of the worldsoul25 (in passing, one may also recall that the general presentation of the Timaeusstarts from the divine before proceeding to human matters); Theaetetus 176b, aboutbecoming God (+! ,) as far as possible;26 etc. Modern scholars also men-tion other Greek texts such as Aristotles Protrepticus (whose demand that humanaction be based on the knowledge of God reappears in Eth. Eud. 1249b1321),27

SVF I.486 and III.584,28 Arius in Stob. 2.7.4a (II.12), Alcinoos, Didask., 17,29 etc.To conclude this point, it is obvious that Aristoxenus fragment 53 and Aristocles

quotation of it are both related to internal Greek philosophical debates and polemicsabout the relation between knowledge of the human self and knowledge of the divine.Aristoxenus is trying to belittle Socrates and Plato by creating a major disagreementbetween them on the matter, while Aristocles is quoting Aristoxenus in the context ofa general summary of Platos philosophy.

There is no point, of course, in denying this entirely Greek aspect ofthe fragment and of the Indian argument it contents. Nevertheless, thequestion remains: does this fact exclude the possibility that it may alsoecho back some authentic Indian views on the same issue? Is therenecessarily any contradiction between the entirely Greek literary con-text of the argument and its possible (and alleged) Indian origin?

The work of most scholars implies that the Greek context excludesan Indian origin. But if there is some evidence that this argument,related to an entirely Greek literary context, could also originate fromIndia, as Aristoxenus declares and as the historical context makes pos-sible, there would be a real meeting in our text, if not between Socratesand the Indian, at least between Greek and Indian propositions on therelation between human matters and divine ones. The Indian propositionwould be, at the same time, required by the Greek debate and translateditself into a Greek argument. Let us now, finally, discuss this crucialpoint.

24 Hirzel 1890, 423ff., followed by Bidez 1945, 122124. The authenticity of theFirst Alcibiades was firstly condemned by Schleiermacher in 1836, and then,among others, by de Strycker in 1942. See the discussion in Denyer 2001, 14ff.,who supports the authenticity of the Alcibiades but doesnt discuss Hirzelsthesis.

25 On this, see Lee 1976.26 On this, see Sedley 1999.27 Jaeger 1934, 165 n. 1.28 Wehrli 1967, 66.29 Chiesara 2001, 66.




C. Presumed Original Context:Knowledge of the Human Self as Divine in Ancient Brahmanic Thought

Aristoxenus passage is not the only one in Greek literature to mentionan Indian doctrine related to knowledge of the human and the divine.If one looks at all the Greco-Roman accounts of Indian philosophy,30there is another, later passage which is also relevant for our current dis-cussion, namely Philostratus Life of Apollonius of Tyana 3.18, whichincludes the following section in a dialogue between the Neopythago-rean philosopher Apollonius and the Indian Brahmin Iarchas:

[] Apollonius then asked him whether they knew themselves also, expecting thatlike the Greeks they would think self-knowledge ( ) somethingdifficult to achieve. But to Apollonius surprise Iarchas corrected him andsaid: We know everything because we first know ourselves ( ,&$ / ). None of us would embark on this kindof philosophy without first () knowing himself. And Apollonius remem-bered what he had heard from Phraotes, how he who would become a philosophermust examine himself before making the attempt; and he therefore acquiescedin this argument, for he was convinced of its truth in his own case also. He nextproceeded to ask who they thought they were, and Iarchas replied, Gods.Why?, asked Apollonius. Because we are good men.

As regards the Greek polemics we have mentioned in section B, Iarchasthesis in Philostratus (where human self-knowledge is the starting point)is different from the Indians argument in Aristoxenus (where there isno priority given to either knowledge of human or divine matters). Butboth conclusions express the same basic thesis: for the Indian, to knowoneself as a human being is, in contrast with the Greeks opinion, some-thing completely impossible to achieve without knowledge of the divine,because to know oneself is to know the divine and vice-versa.31

This shows that some, even if relatively few, of the Greco-Romanauthors may have been aware of the existence of an Indian doctrineabout the identity of the individual self with the divine principle.32 As

30 See Breloer/Brmer 1939.31 Brhier 1928, 132f., and Festugire 1971b, 193, are the only scholars to see the

closeness of both Aristoxenus and Philostratus passages, but they do not stressthe priority given to human self-knowledge in Philostratus, in accordance withPythagorean initiation.

32 Brhier 1928, 132, remarks that the argument of the Indian in Aristoxenus pas-sage is in accordance with the general idea of the upanisads about the identityof the individual principle, the atman, and the universal principle, the brahman.In Filliozats criticism (1981, 99), however, he seems to confuse the atman and theindividual ego.




Filliozat points out, the doctrinal information involved in Aristoxenusfragment 53, even if not the claim that a meeting between Socrates andan Indian took place, ascribes to the Indian something that was in factthe general Indian view on the matter discussed.33 We may add that Ar-istoxenus Indian, because he gives priority neither to human self-knowledge nor to knowledge of the divine, is closer to the Indian viewthan Philostratus passage, where human self-knowledge is still de-clared prior () to knowledge of everything.

It is undoubtedly true (a matter of fact which has been, however, ig-nored by modern scholarship) that the idea expressed by AristoxenusIndian is, indeed, one of the most universal axioms in Brahmanicthought,34 which makes no distinction between religion as knowledgeof God and philosophy as knowledge of the human self. In the Vedictexts, words like atman (self) and purusa (man) refer to bothhuman embodied soul and the divine principle.35

33 Filliozat 1981, 100: Personne na donn dargument positif contre lauthenticitdu texte dAristoxne. Il a paru que son inauthenticit allait de soi. Mais la doc-trine brahmanique de linsparabilit ontologique de lhomme et du cosmostant la plus ancienne, la plus abondamment atteste et la plus largement rpan-due de toutes les doctrines de ce genre, il parat difficile de dnier a priori auxGrecs la facult de lavoir connue dans une priode o beaucoup dentre euxvivaient sous le gouvernement perse en mme temps que beaucoup de brh-manes, puisquAlexandre a trouv ces derniers tout installs dans le territoireindien prcdemment perse quil a envahi. Dailleurs, mme si lon refuse lideque Socrate ait pu converser avec un Indien, il nen reste pas moins quAristoxnesavait, en inventant la rencontre, quelle napparatrait pas invraisemblable sescontemporains et quil y plaait lexpression dune doctrine authentique. Nousnavons pas besoin aujourdhui de la date dAristoxne pour connatre lantiquitde celle-ci, mais nous pouvons, pour lessentiel doctrinal, sinon pour le fait, jus-tifier Aristoxne.

34 It is worth noticing that, in the Buddhist Questions of Milinda II.1, which depictsas well a confrontation between a Greek (the King Menander = Milinda) and anIndian (the Wise Nagasena), the most difficult point to accept for the Greek isprecisely the negation of the individual self. Just as (but for opposite reasons) theBuddhist monk is making the Greek king ridiculous by demonstrating that hisindividual ego is non-existent (there is no essential Nagasena, no Ego Nagasena),the (presumable) Brahmin depicted by Aristoxenus is laughing at a Socrates whoclaims to make inquiries on human things without a prior knowledge of God.The typically Greek conception of a human and rational soul is challenged by theidea of divine emptiness in the Buddhist context and by that of divine fullness inthe Brahmanic context. See the interesting comparison between First Alcibiadesand the Questions of Milinda in Festugire 1971a, 165ff.

35 Halbfass 1991, 268.




To take an early example, in Aitareya Aran yaka36, II.1.8., one can read this quo-

tation from Mahidasa Aitareya: I know myself as far as I know the gods, and Iknow the gods as far as I know myself.37

The same idea is to be found in several passages of the upanisads: the individualand transmigrating souls self-knowledge leads ultimately to the recognition of itsidentity with the divine and universal Being and Unity. This idea is expressed by In-dian traditions as the identity of the individual self (jiva) with the universal Self(atman), principle of mans life and individual consciousness, which is itself one withthe brahman, principle of all things. The different levels of Reality have to be under-stood like the different steps of an inner spiritual experience. The path of this experi-ence leads from the belief in the existence of empirical world and individual ego,a state of metaphysical ignorance called avidya, which consists in the overdetermi-nation (adhyasa) of the Reality by name and form (namarupa), to the recognitionof the divine Unity as the very essence of this illusory empirical world and individualego.38

Socrates claim that his philosophy deals with human affairs wouldbe, in the Brahmanic view, paradigmatic of such ignorance of the divinepresence in the human self. Comparing Greek and Indian conceptionsof self-knowledge, Chenet interprets Indian philosophy as la ral-isation intgrale du projet de la connaissance de soi39. The questionWho am I? is different from the question What is Man?, which is aquestion about the essence of mankind. There are, indeed, very fewtexts in Indian thought which are concerned with Man as a peculiarcategory different from other living beings.40 This path of self-knowl-edge is also different from any psychological or subjectivist introspec-

36 Probably written between 700 BC and 550 BC (Keith 1909, 25). All Brahmanictexts quoted here are prior to 4th Century BC and based on much older oral tradi-tion.

37 From Chenets translation (1998a, 85; 1998b, 1316). Keiths translation (1909,210) is: I know myself as reaching to the gods, and the gods as reaching to me.

38 Cf. Chandogya-up. III.14.14; Man dukya-up. 12; Isa-up. 16; Katha-up. V.812.See also Radhakrishnans introduction (1953, 52103).

39 Chenet 1998a, 84f.; 1998b, 1316.40 Halbfass 1991, 267: Traditional Indian thought seems to be preoccupied with

the atman, that self and immortal priciple in man which it also finds in animalsand other forms of life; manusya, man as homo sapiens, seems to be insignificantcompared to this self in man and other beings. However, in some texts like Aita-reya Aran yaka XI.3.2, Man is considered to be superior to other living creaturesbecause of his ritual powers and unique access to the sacred texts. While man hasa special relationship with those cosmic and divine forces invoked in the rituals,he is said to be the nearest to the Lord of Creatures (prajapati). On this, seeHalbfass 1991, 267273.




tion, because the answer to the question Who am I?, as given by Chan-dogya-up. VI.8.7, is: That art thou (tat tvam asi).41

This means that the cosmic Self, and even the gods Self, is under-stood to be of the same character as the individuals Self, as is said inBr hadaran yaka-upanisad I.4.10:

Whoever knows I am brahman of himself becomes this all (aham brahmasmiti saidam sarvam bhavati); even the gods cannot prevent him, for he becomes theirSelf (tasya ha na devas ca nabhutya isate, atma hy esam sa bhavati). So whoeverworships another divinity, thinking that he is one and it is another, he knows not.

All this goes to show that Aristoxenus fragment rightly points out theopposition between Socratic philosophy as a merely rational andhuman enterprise, on the one hand, and Indian wisdom, on the otherhand, which leaves religion and philosophy, metaphysics and ethics,God and man undivided.42 Despite the fact that it is related to someinternal Greek debates on the matter, it seems likely that Aristoxenusfragment also echoes the genuine and typically Indian axiom thatknowledge of the human self is knowledge of God and vice-versa. Ifthere were some thinkers in Greece, such as Plato and Aristotle, to sup-port the view that one may not understand human matters withoutknowledge of divine matters, the same view is much more radical anduniversal in ancient Brahmanic thought, and it is hard to think aboutAristoxenus and Philostratus mention of it as a mere coincidence.

Conclusion

To sum up, I have claimed in section A that, even if it is unlikely that the story of ameeting between Socrates and the Indian is historically true, it can still be remarkedthat Aristoxenus fragment 53 belongs to a period of discovery of Indian philos-ophers in the Hellenistic world, just after Alexanders Indian campaign.

In section B, I have discussed Greek parallels to the Indian thesis and seen that itclearly belongs to internal Greek philosophical debates, a fact which does not ex-clude the possibility that it may also echo an authentic Indian doctrine.

Finally, in section C, I have shown how closely the Indians argument challengingSocrates view of philosophy fits within the overall pattern of Indian, especiallytraditional Brahmanic, views on the matter discussed.

41 Radhakrishnan 1953, 459: That means God having the entire universe as hisbody, thou means God having the individual soul as his body. The principle ofGod is common to both. See Brown 1966, 3436. See also Aitareya Aran yakaII.2.4.6 (What I am, he is; what he is, I am).

42 Halbfass 1988, 8; see also Chenet 1998a, 1298.




Let us now return to the two interpretative problems I have posed inthe Introduction.

1) : it seems unlikely that Platos prop-osition itself would have been directly taken from Indian philosophers,who are never mentioned in any Greek account before Alexanderscampaign. It is much more likely that Aristoxenus would have made acomparison between Platonic and Indian views on the matter.

What about the origin of this Indian argument? I have argued thatthere is a possibility of this basic Indian doctrine having been trans-mitted in a very general shape to the companions of Alexander (Callis-thenes?) at Aristoxenus time. Of course, there is no definite evidenceabout whether Aristoxenus could have been aware of this Indian doctrineand, if so, how. Nothing is to be found about it in the Greco-Romanaccounts of India following Alexanders campaign (e.g. Onesicritus orMegasthenes) and, as we have seen, one has to wait for PhilostratusLife of Apollonius (3rd century AD) to have the next and only otherGreek account which with some clarity mentions that precise thesis asspecifically Indian.

However, it has to be admitted that Aristoxenus short account aboutknowledge of human things as knowledge of divine things in Indianthought, while it is connected with Platonic issues by Aristocles (andperhaps by Aristoxenus himself), is very close to the Indian traditionas well. For this reason, it is not absurd at all to suppose that the idea ofan identity between the human self and the divine, which is one of themajor commonplaces in Indian thought, was known as such (not withany detailed knowledge, but as a philosophical commonplace) by Arist-oxenus at the end of the 4th Century BC.

This is, as we have seen, the claim of Filliozat, who seems to be right as far as thisgoes. In my opinion, however, knowledge of this Indian philosophical commonplaceseems more likely to be the result of Alexanders Indian campaign rather than of thepaths of diffusion made possible by the Persian Empire, as there are no testimoniesabout Indian philosophers before that time. For Halbfass (1988, 16) too, it seemslikely that the Aristotelian Aristoxenus, who also had Pythagorean connections,introduced the story shortly after Alexanders Indian campaign as a device for criti-cizing the Socratic idea of philosophy.

While there is no contradiction between the fact that Aristoxenusfragment is obviously related to some internal Greek philosophicalpolemics and the fact that it is giving a real account of one of the mostbasic Indian philosophical doctrines, my conclusion on that point isthus that we are dealing with a philosophical capture: the authentic




Indian proposition is used as an argument to throw light on a specificGreek debate, and it is translated into Greek conceptual terms for thatpurpose. This kind of philosophical capture is one of the most fasci-nating problems related to intercultural transmission in the ancientworld and it seems to me that it deserves much more consideration frommodern scholarship.

2) : for Halbfass (1988, 16), itseems obvious that the Indian does not know what philosophy is; heasks Socrates what kind of activity he is pursuing as a philosopher.

But the text is not so clear and one has to consider the fact that Aris-tocles is proposing a kind of ancient comparativist account of theIndians, on the one hand, and of Socrates and Plato (who cannot besuspected of not being a philosopher), on the other. Following this, onecould perhaps submit another reading of it: behind the oppositionbetween Socrates and the Indian (himself related to Plato here) wouldlie the opposition between two tendencies in Greek philosophy (exemp-lified by Socrates and Plato), and, at the same time, between Greek andIndian philosophies as such. If this reading of the fragment is right, itwould be the first time in the history of European philosophy thatsomeone acknowledges Indians to be philosophers with the same dig-nity as the Greek philosophers they challenge.43

Be that as it may, Aristoxenus fragment 53 is, at least, one of the firstand only texts, historically, in which a typical Greek philosophical ar-gument is challenged by an authentic Indian proposition translatedinto an argument based on Greek conceptual categories.

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43 As Festugire has shown (1971b, 189 n. 4), the method of inquiry adopted by theIndian (as well as the Jew in Clearchus fragment quoted hereover) is exactly thesame as the Socratic one: first, examine the person to be challenged (&0);second, inquire from him about the secret of his method (& &).




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some remarks about a meeting between socrates and an indian

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