István Perczel: Greek Philosophy in India? On the Track of Porphyry’s Lost Treatise On the Eternity of the World

Abstract: For long, similarities between Neoplatonist philosophical thought and Indian philosophy have intrigued the minds of the historians of philosophy. Particularly famous is the thesis of Emile Bréhier, who supposed that Plotinus (ca. 204-270) could be influenced, in Alexandria, by the Upanishads. However, Bréhier has also pointed out striking similarities between a passage of the Commentary on the Brahma-sūtras by Śaṅkara (sometime between 650 and 830 AD) and a passage of Proclus' (412-485)  Commentary on the Timaeus, quoting a lost treatise on the eternity of the world by Porphyry (234-305). These similarities, if real and not coincidental, can only mean that Greek Neoplatonist texts have reached India and were known in Śaṅkara's times. In my talk I will present a methodological approach to the problem, using which we might decide this question that has remained dormant since Bréhier's death (1952). I would argue that a systematic comparative study of Proclus' testimony on Porphyry and of Śaṅkara's Commentary definitively proves that Śaṅkara knew Porphyry's treatise, which is lost to us. Moreover, such a study also reveals other testimonies to this treatise. As a result 1) using these variegated testimonies (Proclus, Śaṅkara, Christian writers refuting Porphyry) we may reconstruct the argument of the lost treatise; 2) we may see that Porphyry's treatise was of importance for the development of philosophical argumentation from the Mediterranean to India; 3) we may see that there was intense communication of philosophical ideas between the Greek- and Sanskrit-speaking philosophical cultures and, also, that Greek and Indian philosophies were not developing independently of each other.