An awful lot of information to digest, but three large thoughts endure: First, the diffusion of ideas from the ancient near eastern cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt to both India and Ionia. McEvilley suggests that the Ionian/Greek preoccupation with monism, leading to the Ionian enlightenment, came by way of India and the Upanishads.
Second, dialectical thought develops in India only after contact with Greek culture and the establishment of Hellenistic centers in northwest India. So Nargarjuna's thought is really a fusion of Buddhism with Greek ideas.
And third, the ethics of imperturbability develops in both cultures as a response to pain and suffering--through cynicism and stoicism in the west and through Buddhism/Yogism in the east. Indifference to pleasure/pain, good/evil, etc. is the only way to survive and get by. And the way to achieve imperturbability is through mindfulness.
Author: McEvilley, Thomas
Date Published: 2001
Length: 816pp
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