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The Dimensions of the Self: Buddhi in the Bhagavad-G¯tā and Psyché in Plotinus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

A. H. Armstrong  and
R. Ravindra
A. H. Armstrong
Affiliation:
Departments of Classics and Philosophy
R. Ravindra
Affiliation:
Departments of Physics and Religion, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
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Extract

The Bhagavad-Gītā is the most important text in the smrti (what is remembered) literature of India, as distinct from the śruti (what is heard) literature which is traditionally regarded as ultimately authoritative. The Bhagavad-Gītā has been assigned a date ranging from the fifth century B.C. to the second century B.C. The Indian religious tradition places the Gītā at the end of the third age of the present cycle of the universe and the beginning of the fourth, namely the Kali Yuga to which we belong.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 327 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 327 note 1 Paper presented at the Second Congress of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, 20–24 October 1976.

page 328 note 1 For the thesis that the root meaning of dharma, as the upholding of the orderly relatedness of all that is, as established in the Rg Veda, the most ancient śruti text, has demonstrable continuity in the Bhagavad-Gītā, see Bowlby, P. W. R., The Lotus and the Chariot: A Study of the Root Meaning of Dharma in the Indian Religious Tradition; Ph.D. Thesis, McMaster University, London, Ontario, 1975.Google Scholar

page 331 note 1 In the religious traditions of India, there seems to be a consensus that the root: cause of human bondage and suffering is ignorance, and that what is needed is true knowledge, action is not generally stressed as an avenue to freedom. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, on the other hand, the mainstream emphasis is less on knowing reality; truth has been repealed, the challange for man is whether he can act according to the revelation and gain salvation. The Gītā impues buddhi with both discernment and will. Its teaching and setting insist that right knowledge and right action are inseparable.

page 331 note 2 In addition to the ordinary meaning of purusa as a man, there are three distinct kinds of purusa mentioned in the Gīlā (15.16–19): the perishable purusa, the imperishable purusa, and purusottama-highest purusa who is other than these both and is also called paramātmā, the supreme self. Krsna declares himself to be purusottama which does not exclude his being the other purusas as well, they are also his and they are in him, but he is still beyond. Similarly, in addition to purusa, other labels referring to the constituents of the higher nature of Krsna, namely brahman and ātman, also have further divisions. These, however, need not be distinguished for our purpose here.

page 333 note 1 It is the same word from which Japanese zen is derived by a phonetic shift, through the Chinese tchan. Dhyāna yoga is also sometimes called r¯ja yoga (royal yoga), although r¯ja yoga is not any specific kind of yoga; it is yoga per se.

page 333 note 2 The various Indian schools of religious thought and practice, before, after and contemporaneous with the Gīlā, seem to have shown a distinct preference for one or the other of these yogas. In the process they usually became one-sided and It the wholeness of spiritual life and the organic balance and tension characteristic of the Gīlā. Krsna himself says that he taught his eternal yoga, which is a supreme secret, to Vivasvat, a sun god, who taught it to Manu, the first among humans. Taught from one to another, this yoga was known by sage-kings; but with the lapse of time this teaching was It on earth. (B.G. 4.1–3.) Krsna then taught this yoga to Arjuna. The merciless time has undoubtedly again done its damage.

page 334 note 1 The best detailed studies of psyché in Plotinus at present available are those by Blumenthal, H. J., Plotinus' Psychology (The Hague, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the two papers ‘Soul, World-Soul and Individual Soul in Plotinus’ in Le Néoplatonisme (Paris, 1971), pp. 56–63Google Scholar, and ‘Nous and Soul in Plotinus: Some Problems of Demarcation’ in Plotino e il Neoplatonismo (Rome, 1974) pp. 203–19.Google Scholar The full commentary by R. T. Wallis on the Fourth Ennead (which is entirely concerned with psyché) will be of the greatest value: it is now, it is hoped, approaching publication.

page 334 note 2 Porphyry, , Life of Plotinus, ch. 8.Google Scholar

page 336 note 1 On this see O'Daly, G., Plotinus' Philosophy of the Self (Shannon, Ireland, 1973).Google Scholar

page 337 note 1 It is perhaps important to remark here that, though Plotinus writes a great deal about the spoudaios, the perfectly we and good man, the Sage or Mahatma, in the Enneads, there is no evidence in the Enneads or Porphyry's biography that he himself claimed to have attained this perfection, any more than any other great Greek philosopher. They all thought of themselves as philosophoi rather than sophoi. It was their disciples, like Porphyry, who thought of them as Sages.

page 338 note 1 At this point we depend very much on Blumenthal's, H. J. second article (see p. 334, n. I).Google Scholar See also, for what might be called ‘psyché-like’ characteristics of nous, A. H. Armstrong, ‘Eternity, Life and Movement in Plotinus’ Accounts of Nous' in Le Néoplatonisme (see same note) pp. 67–76, which Blumenthal at some points constructively criticizes. Much further work is in progress about the problems raised in this paper.

page 339 note 1 This is a much-disputed question. Reasons for the view adopted here (with an account of previous discussions) in a lecture ‘Form, Individual and Person in Plotinus’ by A. H. Armstrong, which we hope will soon be published.

page 339 note 2 On this see Blumenthal's, and Armstrong's, A. H. articlescited in n. I, p. 338. There are plenty more to come, notably from Dr Peter Manchester.Google Scholar

page 340 note 1 Buddhi is traditionally located in the heart rather than the head. Although this is not specifically mentioned in the Gīlā with respect to buddhi, Krsna declares himself to be located in the heart of every being. On the other hand, Platonists were rather peculiar among Greek philosophers in making the brain the organ of intelligence. The traditional seat of all thought for Greeks was in the heart (or earlier the phrenes, the diaphragm and the organs above it) and Aristotelians and Stoics maintained this position. Plato had placed intelligence in the head for symbolic reasons in the Timaeus, and the nobler passions in the heart, and later Platonists like Plotinus thought that the Master's doctrine had been confirmed by the discovery of the nervous system by Erasistratus and Herophilus in the third century B.c., whose discovery had been restated and made widely known by Galen in the second century A.D. See Plotinus IV 3 [27] 23, 9–21 and A. H. Armstrong ad loc. in the Loeb Plotinus, vol. IV.

page 340 note 2 Cosmic and divine psychai are altogether of the higher world; intuitive, unchanging, infallible and impeccable.

page 341 note 1 This was the guess made by one of us in a footnote a few years ago. See Ravindra, R., ‘Self-Surrender: The Core of Spiritual Life’, in Studies in Religion (Spring 1974).Google Scholar On psyché and self (autos) see O'Daly, G., Plotinus's Philosophy of the Self (Irish University Press, 1973).Google Scholar

page 341 note 2 See Smith, A., Porphry's Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition (The Hague, 1974), pp. 97 ff. and 115 ff.Google Scholar

page 342 note 1 This whole question of love for God, and also God's love for man, in the Enneads and the Bhagavad-Gītā is very important. However, we cannot dwell on it here any longer without being sidetracked from the subject of this paper.