The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c14.50

c14.50

In his article quoted above, *Gréce et sages orientaux*, Father Festugiére has made a *rapprochement* between the opinion credited to the Indian in the anecdote of Aristoxenes, that things human cannot be understood without knowing things divine, the theory of the *Ist Alcibiades* that knowing one's soul is to discover God and the assertion put in the mouth of the Brahmin Iarchas, in the Life of Appllionos of Tyana, that all knowledge depends on the knowledge of oneself and that to know oneself is to know God (p.38). These concordant opinions have appeared to him to be inseparable and he asks himself if the remarks ascribed to Iarchas did not derive from the idea expressed in the *Ist Alcibiades*, which could have been well known to Philostratos, the author of the life of Appllonios. This would be quite probable if India had been an imaginary country; in that case, the Greek authors could not but have sought inspiration from one another for talking of India. But the idea reported to have been expressed by the Indian of Aristoxenes and that of Philostratos is in conformity with the chief doctrine of the Upaniṣads according to which supreme knowledge consists in the identity of the *ātman*, the self with *Brahman*, God. The passages of Aristoxenes and Philostratos agree between themselves because they refer to the same truth and if Philostratos lends to a conventional Brahmin a veritable Indian doctrine, it is in no way because he was inspired by the *Ist Alcibiades*. From then on there is no problem of filiation between the three texts put near one another. Two of them echo the true information that came from India. Only the third, the passage of the Platonist dialogue, because of its concordance with others poses a problem, namely, that of finding out how this dialogue contains an idea which is found to be a classical idea of the Brahmanical philosophy elsewhere.