- Title Pages
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The common origin approach to comparing Indian and Greek philosophy
- 2 The concept of <i>ṛtá</i> in the <i>Ṛgveda</i>
- 3 <i>Harmonia</i> and <i>ṛtá</i>
- 4 <i>Ātman</i> and its transition to worldly existence
- 5 Cosmology, <i>psyche</i> and <i>ātman</i> in the <i>Timaeus</i>, the <i>Ṛgveda</i> and the <i>Upaniṣads</i>
- 6 Plato and yoga
- 7 Technologies of self-immortalisation in ancient Greece and early India
- 8 Does the concept of <i>theōria</i> fit the beginning of Indian thought?
- 9 Self or <i>being</i> without boundaries: on Śaṅkara and Parmenides
- 10 Soul chariots in Indian and Greek thought: polygenesis or diffusion?
- 11 ‘Master the chariot, master your Self’: comparing chariot metaphors as hermeneutics for mind, self and liberation in ancient Greek and Indian sources
- 12 New riders, old chariots: poetics and comparative philosophy
- 13 The interiorisation of ritual in India and Greece
- 14 Rebirth and ‘ethicisation’ in Greek and South Asian thought
- 15 On affirmation, rejection and accommodation of the world in Greek and Indian religion
- 16 The justice of the Indians
- 17 Nietzsche on Greek and Indian philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
Plato and yoga
Plato and yoga
- Chapter:
- (p.87) 6 Plato and yoga
- Source:
- Universe and Inner Self in Early Indian and Early Greek Thought
- Author(s):
John Bussanich
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
Plato, classical Vedanta, Yoga and early Buddhism all promote - on the basis of homologies between cosmos and inner self - cognitive and affective practices that remove external accretions to the self and the delusion and suffering they bring, thereby seeking to achieve transcendent wisdom and liberation from the cycle of births and deaths. There is evidence in the Platonic dialogues for analogies to South Asian meditative praxis. This raises the question of whether the highest states of knowledge in Plato are conceptual, or whether there is anything in Plato corresponding to the interdependence, in South Asian yoga, of intellectual insight and non-cognitive 'cessative' meditations.
Keywords: Plato, Vedanta, Yoga, Buddhism, Meditation
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The common origin approach to comparing Indian and Greek philosophy
- 2 The concept of <i>ṛtá</i> in the <i>Ṛgveda</i>
- 3 <i>Harmonia</i> and <i>ṛtá</i>
- 4 <i>Ātman</i> and its transition to worldly existence
- 5 Cosmology, <i>psyche</i> and <i>ātman</i> in the <i>Timaeus</i>, the <i>Ṛgveda</i> and the <i>Upaniṣads</i>
- 6 Plato and yoga
- 7 Technologies of self-immortalisation in ancient Greece and early India
- 8 Does the concept of <i>theōria</i> fit the beginning of Indian thought?
- 9 Self or <i>being</i> without boundaries: on Śaṅkara and Parmenides
- 10 Soul chariots in Indian and Greek thought: polygenesis or diffusion?
- 11 ‘Master the chariot, master your Self’: comparing chariot metaphors as hermeneutics for mind, self and liberation in ancient Greek and Indian sources
- 12 New riders, old chariots: poetics and comparative philosophy
- 13 The interiorisation of ritual in India and Greece
- 14 Rebirth and ‘ethicisation’ in Greek and South Asian thought
- 15 On affirmation, rejection and accommodation of the world in Greek and Indian religion
- 16 The justice of the Indians
- 17 Nietzsche on Greek and Indian philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index