DUSAN PAJIN, Belgrade

THE LEGITIMACY OF THE TERM "PHILOSOPHY" IN AN ASIAN CONTEXT

- The Beginnings of Indian Philosophy

For some time two distinct issues were in option; one was whether European philosophy was altogether superior in relation to Asian philosophies (in modern times, as well as in antiquity), and the other was whether the particular modes of thinking developed in Asia (including those in India and China) should under any conditions be designated as "philosophy". Some historians of philosophy were prone to give a positive answer to the first issue and some preferred a negative answer, while still others thought that the answer should actually go beyond both issues and be grounded either in an attempt to put forward a general or global review of man's modes of thinking, or in a review of such modes developed in regions under question (India, China), which in the end would prove itself as a history of philosophy giving an implicit positive answer to the second issue. That means that the answer is given after an attempt to consider philosophy in an Asian context and not in advance. It also means that the "introduction" which elaborates such a possibility is not really written at the beginning but at the end of such an endeavor (disregarding the fact that as an introduction it occupies the front pages).

Of course we can doubt that such a conclusion is really something that comes post facto and not as a heuristic postulate, but the second is not exclusive of the first if the investigator is not a historian for whom the historical data are valid only insofar as they prove the construct with which he started.

Philosophy in a Western and Asian context

(1) At the outset we could question whether it is not too easy to prove the legitimacy of the term "philosophy" in an Asian context after two centuries of Asian studies, so many histories of Indian or Chinese philosophy written either by Indian, Chinese or Western historians of philosophy, and four attempts to write a general history of philosophy (Deussen, 1920; Radhakrishnan 1952-3; Jaspers, 1966; Plott, 1963, 1979, 1980). In a word it is, if we would be satisfied just to enumerate those books without trying to discuss their and our arguments, and to consider the obvious differences in understanding that term in an Asian context.

We should remind ourselves that the problem of philosophy proper was considered in Europe rather recently, from Hegel onwards, in an attempt to lay the foundations of the disciplinary subject of the history of philosophy (in relation to the history of religion and myth). The Indians in the Middle Ages did not write a history of darsanas (in the modern sense) but reviews of the teachings which were still extant at the time of their writing (some of those teachings really had a history of over 20 centuries behind them at the time when Madhava's (1904) review was written (14th century). Nevertheless, it shared a certain trait with Hegel's history of philosophy. While Hegel wrote it as a continuous history of the spirit starting with Greek philosophers and ending in the philosophy of Hegel himself (as a crowning of the whole history of the spirit coming to know itself), Madhava, as a Vedantin, wrote his review starting with the Carvaka (Lokayata), which he considered as the one which is farthest from the truth, and ending with Vedanta as the teaching being in possession of the truth itself. For Hegel, the order in time (history) coincided with the order in the development of the spirit, and the succession of various philosophies was actually the succession of various embodiments of the spirit.

In India, at least at the time when Madhava (14th c. A.D.) wrote his Sarvadarsanasamgraha, all the teachings he had to comprehend were not only the matter of history (i.e. of the "living past") but were actually living, and some of them still developing. For that reason it was not only a matter of "absence of historical sense" in an Indian context, but a matter of fact that Madhava had to relate the various teachings as a succession in truthfulness (or various depths in comprehending the truth) and not as a succession in time. Hegel could settle the succession in time as well, because the pre-Socratics preceded Socrates and Plato, who preceded Aristoteles, and so on. Their teaching ended in time, while the teaching of Lokayata was contemporary with the early Samkhya and Ajivika, Buddhism, Jainism, and the early Vedanta (of Upanishads); all of these teachings had a nearly parallel course of development. Something that could be named a "parallel course" was peculiar to the history of ideas in the Asian context as far as we find a similar course in China (parallel development of Taoism and Confucianism). However, in the Middle East and Asia Minor we find a course more similar to European history: succession of various teachings (Zoroastrism, Greek and Hellenistic tradition, Christianity, Islam).

During some twenty centuries (from the sixth century B.C. to the fourteenth cent. A.D.) in India we find a parallel development of several teachings. The deniers (nastika) of the authority of the Vedas: Ajivika, Lokayata, Buddhism, and Jainism; and the orthodox (the confirmers, astika) teachings: early upanishadic Vedanta, early Samkhya, and from the third cent. B.C. Yoga, Vaiseshika, and Nyaya. At the same time Panini opened up the general problem of language in a systematic way which had no parallel at the time in Greece. Later on interesting developments took course in the field of aesthetic, s, especially in the theory of drama (with Bharata, fifth cent. A.D.) and with attempts to define the aesthetic experience (rasa), and the meaning of language in poetry.1 Under the guise of Shaivism, beside aesthetics, Kashmiri thinkers as Somananda, Abhinavagupta, and Kshemaraja developed refined speculations relating the aesthetic and meditative experience. Their teachings created the Pratyabhijna system that became the philosophical part of the Trika or Kashmiri Shaivism (800-1100 A.D.).

Some of these teachings did after a time become organized religions with institutional forms (priests, monks) or have evolved under the guise of religions that were already established? 2 The first we find in the case of Buddhism and Jainism, the second in Vedanta and Trika, whereas other teachings do not fall in either category (Ajivika and Lokayata).

(2) For many European historians of philosophy the birth of philosophy as a separate and distinct cultural form was paradigmatically given in the happenings which took place in Greece during the times of the pre-Socratics (seventh to sixth B.C.) represented, as is commonly stated (e.g. Nestle, 1942; Cornford, 1952), by the progressive separation of logos from mythos and the criticism of Homeric religion. On the other hand, they either knew nothing about similar developments in China, and India or neglected them with the idea that this course in Greece was completely unique.3 Such an attitude was also the result of several cultural circumstances. The first one was the belief (sometimes labeled as "eurocentrism") that Europe was either superior, or the sole bearer of certain cultural forms or values. Among them the idea of an independent subject free in his thinking and opinion was thought to be the sole privilege of Europe and was connected with the birth of philosophy and its separation from the collectivity and obligations of myth and religion in ancient Greece. Other arguments included statements that the Indian tradition never developed ethics independent of religion and its concepts of freedom and liberation were always unhistorical and connected with mysticism and irrational faith. This coincided with the tendency to import and mediate the Indian tradition, particularly on grounds of mysticism or religious revival, which was hoped for, either to serve as a moral healing for the West or as a source for creating a world religion of a universal type which could transcend particular confessions. Indians themselves in many instances insisted on their religiosity as something that gave them the legitimacy of equality in the cultures of the world so far as religion (or being religious) was a matter of decency. Even today some authors would point out (as if nothing has changed from the time Vivekananda came to the West) that every philosophy in India was a religion and that every religion had its philosophy. Apart from metaphorical meaning - that every philosophy in India was not only a matter of intellectual occupation, but was really a part of a life credo (or credo itself) and its teachings were pursued with "religious fervor" - this statement is blatantly untrue.

(3) In time it was seen that neither the actual happenings in Greece conformed to the classical ideal of a "neat beginning" of philosophy (with Thales or any other philosopher up to Socrates, as a beginner), nor that the Indian tradition is of such uniformity as it seemed at first glance or as it was propounded by the vedantic orthodoxy. However, the insight that between the two traditions there can be found somewhat strikingly, when direct influence was out of the question many similarities or analogies, either in ideas or cultural situations, came to the fore. For example, the idea that man has a permanent and independent core which serves as the basis of his personal responsibility which does not end with the death of the body, but is transmitted to the following embodiments. The idea of repeatedly being born (for the Indians punarbhava, for the Greeks palingenesia) was always considered by historians as something foreign to the Greek tradition, or, at least, foreign to Greek philosophers, in spite of the fact that we find it propounded by many philosophers in Greece (Pythagoreans, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato).

On the other hand, reincarnation was always considered as something native to the Indian tradition and teachings, in spite of the fact that we do not find it present from the very beginnings of the vedic period (traces of the idea are found in the Aitareya Aranyaka, III, 44. and in a more elaborate form it is propounded in the early Upanishadic and later teachings), whereas in some of the nonorthodox teachings (lokayata) it is refuted. It was always asked from where did such ideas come to Greece (the "mystic" East was under blame), but no one asked how they arrived to India. Anyway, this was a cause of doubt for the historians of Greek philosophy. Windelband, Zeller, Diels, Wilamowitz and others took the trouble of drawing a demarcation line between mysticism and science in the Pythagorean tradition or between religion and natural philosophy in the teachings of Empedocles. Windelband (1958) is explicit in excluding from his considerations those aspects of presocratic teachings and thus simply keeps them out of scope as "contradictory" to those ideas which he finds worthy of being accepted as the subject of the history of philosophy. 4 Later it was recognized that the problem cannot be dismissed in such a way. Particularly the teachings of the Pythagoreans and of Empedocles were in focus for this matter. The problem of the immortal soul (psyche) and its destiny had to be accounted for as either a part of philosophia and its history in the Greek context, or something that was just borrowed from the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries which had nothing to do with philosophy proper (as was Windelband's opinion).

Jaeger (1945,1967) was one of those who accepted the challenge

and he considered the history of (the term) psyche and its destiny as expounded by philosophers. He still tried to retain the dividing line - by teaching about the theology of the early Greek philosophers, and suggesting that the subject was treated by philosophers, but should be considered as part of their theology (that is, not philosophy stricto sensu). He calls Empedocles a "philosophical centaur" who connects mysticism and rationalism, religion and philosophy (Jaeger, 1945: vol. I, p. 295).

Kahn (1974) would later confirm that in the fragments of Empedocles' poems (On Nature and Purifications) one can find the duality of rationalism and irrationalism, philosophy and religion.

In his Gifford lectures Jaeger slightly modified this evaluation connecting Empedocles with a "new synthesizing type of philosophical personality" and spoke about the "mystical imagination of the philosopher-poet" (Jaeger, 1967, p.132-133). Dodds argued with that, saying that Empedocles is in fact an old type of personality - "the shaman who combines the still undifferentiated functions of magican and naturalist, poet and philosopher, preacher, healer and public counsellor" (Dodds, 1956, p.146). Dodds suggested a valuable explanation. The presence of the idea of an immortal soul and its destiny in Greek philosophy has a twofold cause: the "outer" cause is due to contact with shamanistic beliefs and practices; the "inner" was ethical, i.e. the necessity to explain undeserved suffering as the consequence of individual responsibility by sustaining the idea of the reincarnation of the soul and its previous lives. This is very important for we see that the same ethical reason stands behind the introduction of this idea in the upanishadic corpus. Guthrie, referring to Burnet,6 has given further clues for understanding the importance of this idea in Greek philosophy.

"For Pythagoreans then the purification and salvation of the soul

depended not merely, as in the mystery-cults, on initiation and ritual purity, but on philosophia. and this word, then as now, meant using the powers of reason and observation in order to gain understanding" (Guthrie, 1962, vol. I, p. 205).

Exactly the same (with only a change in terms) could be said

of the upanishadic atmavidya as the knowledge (of the identity of atman) which liberates from transmigration.

The early Upanishads (Brhadaranyaka, Chandogya) stress the path of knowledge (jnanamarga) which they propose as distinct and superior to the ritual path (karma-marga) of Vedic religion, particularly because the second cannot bring the liberation (kama-cara or moksha) from transmigration and ethical causality represented by the notion of karma. However, before going on to the Indian context we should consider the conclusions concerning the place of this idea in pre-Socratic philosophy. This is important because generally we consider the Asian context through criteria with which we start and that in turn depends upon deciding what philosophy was in Greece.

(4) We can decide that in Greece natural philosophy, epistemology, and ethics (in so far as it did not include the idea of the immortal soul, its transmigration and liberation) should be considered philosophy proper. The latter we could consider as theology (together with the philosophers' speculations on god, if any), or just as a remnant from the tradition of the mysteries? However, the idea of immortality and transmigration did serve to establish personal responsibility on one side, and the possibility of going beyond the wheel of transmigration (being purified by philosophical insight), on the other side. It was then an attempt to solve an ethical question from a philosophical point of view (religion gave its solution that required God and ritual as a means of communion). Therefore, this idea served a legitimate philosophical purpose in a philosophical context and was not just an expression of the influence of Orphism or Eleusis. But, was this purpose irrational and therefore really something foreign to the corpus philosophicum? In our opinion it was not foreign to philosophy, for we should not confuse the meaning of philosophy for us, with its meaning for the pre-Socratics (or, for the same reason, for the Indians), but we can consider it as irrational (though it would be difficult to prove that it was such for most pre-Socratics). On the other hand, it is of interest to note that this idea met with more criticism in India (from the Lokayatas) than in Greece; later it was more widely accepted in India than in Greece (the comparison is, of course, valid only up to the time of Christianity, since for Greece, as for the rest of Europe, a novel idea of singular, non-repeatable existence was then introduced). What is more important is that the idea of transmigration was actually partly inspired by natural philosophy in Greece and in India. This is usually neglected and materialistic teachings and natural philosophy are generally taken to be in opposition to the idea of an immortal, surviving soul. It is true that the Lokayatas refuted the idea of an immortal entity (independent of the body) on the grounds of natural philosophy (the elements as the ultimate constituents of everything). But, at the same time, as can be seen in the Upanishads (and we can find similar developments in Greece: psyche as a torn-off fragment (apospasma) of aither (or pneuma) there were teachings that connected atman with prana and the whole idea of transmigration (reincarnation) was inspired by the idea of the cyclical transformation of the elements. Empedocles gives a similar account. 8 On the other hand, the idea of an imperishable self was indirectly inspired by the concept of an imperishable element, as something which goes on transforming into different things and shapes, but is imperishable by itself. It seems, therefore, legitimate to use the term philosophy 9 in an Asian context. However, one could remark that it would be more appropriate to leave aside this word of Greek origin and to use a term that originated in India or China. In that case the appropriate Sanskrit term could be anvikshiki (or anvikshaki, exploration, consideration) or darsana (viewpoint, teaching). But such an option would rather throw us back and would be in line with keeping apart the two traditions (Greek and Asian), whereas enough evidence has been given that in those days (700-200 B.C.) Greece, India and China actually shared the intellectual uprising which brought to the fore cultural forms with many common traits.

(5) Jaspers (1953) has outlined some traits common to these traditions in the axial age10 and contributed to our understanding with his unorthodox exposition of these philosophies (Jaspers, 1966). Plott (1963, 1979, 1980) has undertaken the enormous task of writing a global history of philosophy from the same standpoint:

In India, China and Greece virtually the same problems were dealt with almost simultaneously: the nature of the world, soul and God; the distinction of matter and mind and/or spirit; the faculties of the soul and the pressing questions of salvation and immortality; the paradoxes; the beginnings of mathematics, the distinction of Being, Becoming, and non-Being; the importance of self-knowledge; the necessity of greater precision in discussing the nature of God or ultimate reality; and the setting up of rules of conduct. And the answers in all areas were varied. It will be found that the full range from crass empirical materialism to transcendental idealism and uncompromising monotheism was developed in all three cultures of this period. All the possibilities were opened up, necessitating the later dialectical juxtaposition in order to attempt some synthesis (Plott, 1963, p.19).

What was specific for the beginnings of philosophy in India?

(a) First, there appeared a category of free thinkers who - beyond any professional or social appointment that is, from an independent, and personal interest - formulated questions concerning man's place, the meaning of his life and endeavors in a world not governed anymore by old beliefs and gods. They could not find the answers to these questions in the framework of tradition and therefore sought them in independent reflection. The answers given cover a wide spectrum from voluntarism to fatalism, from liberation (soteriology) to the stoic enduring of an existence deprived of any transcendental support, left only with the values of hedonism and sensualism. However, it is not easy to separate these thinkers who were called sramana, parivrajaka, charaka, muni or samana, from the common ascetics (tapasvin) or religiously inspired seers (rishi), or from saints (sadhu) and those educated in the vedic tradition (pandit), as well as shamans, conjurers or magicians (yati-mati) or the obscure category of predecessors (vratya). Sometimes the roles coincided and the philosopher occasionally claimed the powers of the shaman (in India this was the case with Mahavira the founder of Jainism and Gosala the founder of the Ajivikas and in Greece with Empedocles). But still they had some distinct traits which made them a separate group, in spite of the fact that they did not belong to the same social strata (var,na). Among them we can find Brahmans (or ex-Brahmans), kings (or ex-kings), intellectuals and people from the lowest strata (outcastes). Except for the Ajivikas and Jains, they were not ascetics (tapasa) who tried to gain supermundane powers. In contrast to rishis and sadhus, their knowledge was not supported by any tradition.

When we say that, we don't have in mind only the so called deniers (nastika) of the authority of the Vedas (that is the Lokayatas, Buddhist and Jains), but refer also to quotations from the Upanishads, 11 in which the upanishadic knowledge (atmavidya or paravidya) is contrasted to the vedic knowledge received in vedic schools existing at the time.

(b) In this context, of special interest were the attitudes to the vedic religion and gods.

The Greek philosophers criticized the anthropomorphisized figures of Greek mythology and religion, while keeping and redefining the idea of the divine (to theion).

In India we find a more broad spectrum of answers to these questions. All nastikas are atheists in the sense that they do not postulate any new meaning of the divine or any new gods. The Ajivikas and Lokayatas deny not only the authority of the vedic tradition but the existence of vedic gods as well. The Buddhists and Jains do not deny the existence of gods, but consider them unimportant for the destiny of man, and for solving the ultimate question of existence, i.e. liberation from the wheel of reincarnation and karma. Some upanishadic philosophers (specially Yajnavalkya) had a similar standpoint.12

(c) From the beginning of Indian philosophy we find different teachings and viewpoints that are opposed to each other. Traces of their disputes can be found in early Buddhist Pali suttas and the Upanishads. Public contest in disputing took on the form of institutionalised competitions and some towns had halls for such discussions (kutuhala-sala). On certain occasions kings - willing to hear and meet thinkers of fame from other parts of the country would organize contests with awards for the winners. This was also an opportunity for thinkers to meet and hear each other, since philosophical communication was mainly restricted to oral means.13

Persons who met at these contests were not primarily distinguished by their learning, but as being original, lucid and ready to put anything at stake for their opinions. To mention only the prominent contemporaries, such were the upanishadic thinkers Uddalaka and Yajnavalkya; Ajivikas like Maskarin Gosala and Kasyapa; the Lokayata Brihaspati; Buddha and Mahavira; as well as individuals, who neither belonged to any school nor founded any, like Ajita Kesakambalin and Sanjaya Belatthiputta.

(d) In relations to ethics, Ajivikas and Lokayatas have restricted themselves to criticizing vedic normativism and its idea of moral retribution. This was accompanied by libertinism and hedonism as their values, combined sometimes with remnants of ascetic practices. They, as well as Buddhists and Jains, also refuted the ritual social inequality (based on the varna system), but the latter also developed the idea of liberation (in Buddhism, awakening) from reincarnation and karma, giving their own answers to the problem elaborately dealt with in the Upanishads. In relation to this, it is important to note that in the Upanishads and Buddhism ethical

purification was not considered as a sufficient condition for liberation (awakening).

The crucial point was to attain, through self-effort, the knowledge of the identity of atman-brahman (according to Upanishads); or insight into the basic premises of existence (according to Buddhism), such as impermanence, suffering and the insubstantiality of a permanent self.

It was postulated that the liberated or awakened one goes beyond

the domain of ethical values and their dualities which actually govern the one subjected to reincarnation and karma. Elaboration of this point was an inspiration for much of the philosophizing in later Vedanta and Buddhism.

Later on Buddhism and Jainism became distinct religions and their founders were actually deified. However, this did not necessarily mean the suppression of philosophy - on the contrary, the high tide of Buddhist philosophy was yet to come.

NOTES

1) Raniero Gnoli (1956) has given a valuable account of these developments, which was later supplemented with a study by two other authors: Masson, J. M. and Patwardhan, M. V. (1969).

2) This issue was and will be a matter of dispute from various standpoints. Recently, Chatalian (1983) has investigated the question whether early Indian Buddhism is philosophy or religion. He gave a full review of previous opinions and considered the problem of defining philosophy (as well as religion) in general, and particularly in an Asian context.

3) As Chatalian (1983) has remarked: "Every major scrutiny of the concept of philosophy undertaken in the West by Western philosophers has been confined to the study of Western philosophies; it has remained purblind to the existence of non-Western philosophy" (p.175).

4) Besides those characterizations of the soul, which resulted from their general scientific theory, we find in tradition in the case of several of these men (Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles and the Pythagoreans) still other doctrines which are not only not connected with the former, but are even in contradiction to them. A conception of the body as prison of the soul (soma - sema), personal immortality, recompense after death, transmigration of souls - all these are ideas which the philosophers took from their relations to the mysteries and retained in their priestly teaching, however little they accorded with their scientific teachings. Such expressions are not treated above (Windelband, 1958, vol. I, p. 62, f.1).

5) "According as one acts, according as one behaves, so does he become. The doer of good becomes good, the doer of evil becomes evil" (Brhadaranyaka-up, IV.4.5).

"Those whose conduct here has been good, will quickly attain a good birth. . . . But those whose conduct here has been evil, will quickly attain an evil birth. . . (Chandogya-up., V.10.7).

6) "In Ionia philosophia meant something like `curiosity'. . . . On the other hand, wherever we can trace the influence of Pythagoras, the word has a far deeper meaning. Philosophy is itself a `purification' and a way of escape from the `wheel'" (Burnet, 1930: p. 83).

7) Even in such cases the term "mysticism" was rather seldom used to denote the teaching of Greek philosophers, while it is rather customary to use this term in its loose or strict meaning in relation to Indian teachings or thinkers.

8) "When that passes away for them, then they pass forth into space; from space into air; from air, into rain; from rain into the earth. On reaching the earth they become food. Again they are offered in the fire of man. Thence they are born in the fire of woman. Rising up into the world they cycle round again thus" (Brhadaranyaka-up., VI.3.16).

"The might of air pursues him into the sea, the sea spews him forth on to dry land, the earth casts him into the rays of the burning sun, and sun into the eddies of air. One takes him from the other, but all alike abhor him" (Empedocles, fr.115, trans. by Kirk and Raven,1957). The later Upanishads distinguished the entity which is liberated (atman) from the one which is subjected to transmigration (bhutatman).

"There is indeed another, different atman, called the elemental self, he who, affected by the bright or the dark fruits of action, enters a good or an evil womb so that his course is downward or upward and he wanders about affected by the pairs (of opposites)" (Maitri-up., III.2.).

It is also interesting to note that for the upanishadic thinkers, the Pythagoreans

and Empedocles, the idea of transmigration is followed by refutation of ritual sacrifice, bloodshed and meat-eating.

9) For us it is not so important who was the first to use the word philosophia and philosophos but who used it with a certain meaning. Marcovich (1967: pp. 26-7) has shown that the word philosophos should not be ascribed to Heraclitus' fragment 7 in his numbering - 35 in Diels-Kranz. It seems, as Guthrie concluded, that the Pythagoreans were the first to use it in a rather specific sense - as theoria with the purpose of purifying the soul.

10) What is new about this age, in all three areas of the world, is that person becomes conscious of Being as a whole, of himself and his limitations. He experiences the terror of the world and his own powerlessness. He asks radical questions. Face to face with the void he strives for liberation and redemption. (. . .) All this took place in reflection. Consciousness became once more conscious of itself, thinking became its own object. Spiritual conflicts arose, accompanied by attempts to convince through the communication of thoughts, reasons and experiences. The most contradictory possibilities were essayed. (. . .) In this age were born the fundamental categories within which we still think today, and the beginnings of the world religions, by which human beings still five, were created. (. . .) For the first time philosophers appeared. Human beings dared to rely on themselves as individuals. Hermits and wandering thinkers in China, ascetics in India, philosophers in Greece and prophets in Israel all belong together, however much they may differ from each other in their beliefs, the contents of their thought and their inner dispositions. (. . .) The highest potentialities of thought and practical expression realized in individuals did not become common property, because, the majority of men were unable to follow in their footsteps. What began as freedom of motion finally became anarchy. When the age lost its creativeness a process of dogmatic fixation and leveling-down took place in all three cultural realms (Jaspers, 1968: pp. 2-5).

11) There are two well-known passages where this is discussed. First, the dialogue between Svetaketu and his father in Chandogya-up. (VII.1.1-7), where the Brahmanic knowledge and Vedic education is contrasted to the teaching by which "the unhearable becomes heard, the unperceivable becomes perceived the unknowable becomes known". The second is from Mundaka-up. (I.1.4-5) which speaks of two kinds of knowledge: the higher (para), being that whereby the imperishable (akshara) is apprehended, and the lower (apara), i.e. the knowledge contained in the four Vedas. Elsewhere we have discussed the full scope of upanishadic knowledge (Pajin, D., /1980/: The Philosophy of the Upanishads /Filozofija upanisada/, Serbo-Croat ed., Belgrade: Nolit).

12) "So whoever worships another divinity (than his self) thinking that he is one and

(Brahman) another, he knows not. He is like an animal to the gods. As many animals serve a man so does each man serve the gods. Even if one animal is taken away, it causes displeasure, what should one say of many (animals)? Therefore it is not pleasing to those (gods), that men should know this" (Brhadaranyaka-up., I.4.10.).

l3) Rather than written texts, oral tradition was considered as primary, and as a more appropriate means of communicating philosophical knowledge (compare: Plato, Phaedrus, 274c-278a; Chuang-tzu ch. XIII). It was considered that either it is not possible to communicate certain knowledge through writings but only through personal contact, or even when possible, that it would be harmful to do so, since writings are open to anyone, whereas this knowledge should be imparted only to ones fit to receive it (compare: Brhadaranyaka-up., VI.3.12; Svetasvatara u. VI. 22; Maitri-up., VI.29; Plato: Epistle VII, 340b-345c).

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