A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.s4.2.3

c5.s4.2.3

The present writer has proved in his essay on "the Comparative Study of Greek and Sanskrit" that the many great analogies of the entire grammatical structure of the two languages could hardly be explained except on the theory of a continued stay together of the two peoples, thus reinforcing from an altogether different point of view the truth of the Theory of Common Origin in certain departments of the two cultures.(3)Finally, there is the Theory of what we may call Independent Parallelism, which is of especial value to us in explaining the analogies of philosophical concepts. We have already noticed how the definitions of the primary substance in the two philosophies are identical; how the query of Hesiod at the beginning of his work corresponds almost exactly to the query at the beginning of the Śvetāśvataropanishad; how the conception of water as the "archē" in the Bṛihadāraṇyakopanishad has its counterpart in the theory of Thales; how the doctrine of air as the final absorbent in the Chhāndogya has its analogue in the theory of Anaximenes; how the Heracleitean conception of the exchange of fire for all things is to be met with in the Kaṭhopanishad; how the earth as the basis of the cosmos as we find it in the Muṇḍakopanishad is echoed in Hesiod; how the conception of Space as the fifth element recognised in the Taittirīyopanishad has its parallel in the theory of Philolaos;