The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c14.46

c14.46

In fact, the dialogues between Greek and Oriental sages were numerous and appear during certain periods in Greek literature; they should be considered together as has been done by the Father Festugiére and there is every reason to think that the majority of them, far from having been composed on the basis of original documents giving an account of real dialogues have been forged, in imitation of one another, during those periods when the vogue of the Orient called for placing the Greek and Oriental sagacity side by side. Similarly the hypothesis of the Father Festugiére (p. 36) that in the Orientalist circles to which he belonged, Aristoxenes thought of India, then better known thanks to the expedition of Alexander, is quite likely. In fact it is quite certain that during the time of Aristoxenes, India was quite in the news, this was approximately the time when Seleukos had sent Megasthenes to the court of Candragupta. But Father Festugiére adds that the anecdote of Socrates and the Indian, the result of the presence of the sage of India and of the sage of Greece “is already in favour of the Oriental wisdom, following a fashion which will prevail later during the Greeko-Roman epoch”, and he refers on this subject to his book, *La Révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste*¹, wherein he has studied the vogue of Oriental wisdom during the first centuries of the Christian era following the decline of ancient rationalism. On this point, however, one should hesitate to follow him. A fashion cannot be active several centuries before its existence; in order to link up the invention made by Aristoxenes of a dialogue between Socrates and an Indian with the Orientalist infatuation seen during the Greeko-Roman period, it should be supposed that in reality the fashion reputed to be that of this period had commenced much earlier. But in the attention paid by the Greeks to the Oriental doctrines must one explain everything by simple fashions. There is, in any case, another point of view where the Orientalist finds himself quite naturally placed and we should stop a moment to see what can be discovered through this point of view.