काश्यप संहिता (वृद्ध जीवकीय तन्त्र व विद्योतिनी हिन्दी टीका सहित)

उपोद्घातः १२९

अलेक्जेण्डर द्वारा भारता लोकप्रसारः

यत्खलु राष्ट्रमात्मानमुन्निनीषतित तत् तदात्वे विद्यादिभिः समृद्धानि राष्ट्रान्तराणि दूरतोऽपि पर्यालोचयति। स्वस्य गौरवाधानाय तेषां विज्ञान विशेषान् सङ्गेतुं प्रयतते च। समुन्नताया देशान्तरीयविद्यायाः सुयशःप्रसरणेन परिचयं भाषाविज्ञानं प्रयोगानुभवसाफल्यमनु श्रद्धाविश्वासातिशये तदीयग्रन्था उपादीयन्ते, तद्विदः संमान्यन्ते, तदीयप्रक्रियोपादीयते। बहुपूर्वसमयात् समुन्नति पद्मारूढं भारतीयं वैद्यकविज्ञानं श्रवणालोकनज्ञानपर्यालोचनसमादरादिपूर्वमुपादातुं ग्रीकादिवैदेशिकविदुषां पूर्वसमयादेव

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exact. B. J. Urwick, in a recent work, ‘The Message of Plato’ has pointed out that similar resemblances abound in Plato, especially in the ‘Republic’. The doctrine of the Ideas is Vedanta pure and simple, and the Vision of Er the Pamphylian at the end of Book x, has a typically Indian ring. The three classes in the ‘Republic’, Guardian, Auxiliaries and Producers, are the three Varnas of the Indian law books. This was noticed by Megasthenes, the Greek envoy to the court of Chandragupta Maurya in 302 B. C. ‘In many points’, he says, ‘the teaching of the Brahmans agrees with that of the Greeks, for instance that the world has a beginning and an end in time, and that its shape is spherical; that the Deity who is its Governor and Maker, interprets the whole; that the first principles in the universe are different, but that water is the principle from which the order of the world has come to be; that besides the four elements there is a fifth substance from which the heavens and stars are made; that the earth is established in the centre of the universe. About generation and the soul their teaching shows parallels to the Greek doctrines, and on many other matters. Like Plato, too, they interweave fables about the immortality of the soul and the judgments inflicted in the other world’. These resemblances have been hitherto dismissed as coincidences or instances of parallel but independent development of thought, in view of the fact that Herodotus explicitly states that the Greek doctrine of metempsychosis came from Egypt, and that contemporary proof of any of connection between cultured Greeks and Indians has hitherto been wanting. The ‘argumentum ex silentio’. however, is always a weak one, and I recently came across a remearkable passage in Euseleius, which has apparently been over looked by J. A. M, Crindle the author of chapter XVI of Book I of the Cambridge History of India and other authorities. It runs as follows.

(‘Aristoxenus, the musician, tells the following story about the Indians. One of these men met Socrates at Athens, and asked him what was the scope of his philosophy. ‘An enquiry into the human phenomena’, replied Socrates. At this the Indian burst out laughing. ‘How can a man enquire into human phenomena; he exclaimed,’ when he is ignorant of divine ones’ ?)

The interest of this statement is obvious. Eusebius gives his authority for it—Aristoxenus, the musician, the pupil of Aristotle and a well-known writer on harmonics. His date is 330 B. C. So we have contemporary evidence of the presence in Athens, as early as the fourth century, of an Indian who knew Greek and actually discussed philosophy with Socrates. This must modify our views of the interrelationship of Hellenic and Hindu culture.

<p align="right">Amrit Bazar Patrika 1936</p>