Alexis Pinchard

In the dialectical exercise of Plato’s Parmenides, the intrinsically contradictory deductions drawn from the hypotheses about the One imply that the One is neither existent nor nonexistent, neither endowed with an essence nor deprived thereof. Does this symmetrical negation constitute a self-refutation of Plato’s metaphysics, or is it evidence that “the One” refers to the same thing as the sovereign “Good” of the Republic, which is also supposed to stand beyond essence? Rewriting the Parmenides with Nāgārjuna’s concepts could help to answer this question. It looks as if Plato used the various predicative combinations of the Mādhyamika tetralemma, especially the symmetrical negation, in order to remove our native oblivion concerning the axiological status of the One, just like Nāgārjuna used it to remove our hypostatizing habits concerning the phenomena of everyday life. Conversely, the soteriological purpose of Mādhyamika dialectic becomes clearer when contrasted with the Platonic project to reach an unconditioned principle.

Dans le Parmenide, le logos est affaire de fondement plutot que de definition. Les Formes dont Socrate fait l’hypotheses n’y ont pas pour seul role de rendre possible la science de valeurs singulieres. Elles valent par leur puissance causale a l’egard du divers sensible. La dialectique hypothetique permet ainsi de garantir l’intelligibilite du cosmos. Quand l’hypothese des Formes se trouve ensuite mise a l’epreuve par Parmenide, les apories qu’il en tire ne suffisent pas a la refuter ; elles degagent plutot les bornes d’une interpretation correcte. Neanmoins ces unites ideales ne pourront etre conservees que si, a son tour, la supposition en est justifiee par un principe superieur. C’est seulement ainsi que ce qui etait initialement pose dans l’ordre du possible se revelera une verite certaine et necessaire. Or, en s’exercant tout au long de la seconde partie du Dialogue, l’esprit deviendra capable de sentir l’efficace d’un tel principe. Car seul l’Un, une fois libere des malentendus presocratiques, peut se presenter a l’intuition comme « l’anhypothetique » qui rend definitivement raison des hypotheses subalternes. Les hypotheses successives formulees par Parmenide occasionnent la reappropriation cet absolu, des qu’elles sont surmontees. Une lecture parallele du Sophiste suggere que les hypotheses positives, avec leurs conclusions intenables, servent a denoncer les ambiguites du monisme eleatique et a en faire sentir l’insuffisance structurelle : cette version de l’Un, oscillant entre l’abstraction vide et l’immanence dans une matiere dispersive, manque toujours « de dignite et de puissance », tout comme les Formes posees par Socrate. Quand cela est reconnu, l’âme peut faire l’epreuve de la transcendance veritable.

Les predications exprimant une identite du type «etre l’Etre» ne prennent sens que si le sujet en est divin et qu’il coincide avec le locuteur. De fait, dans le Veda (Inde), c’est autour de la proposition satyam asmi, «Je suis l’Etre» ou «Je suis la Verite», que s’organise l’exposition discursive du brahman, principe de toute divinite. L’Etre comme nom est donc un element de la langue speciale des dieux, dont les anciens poetes donnent plusieurs exemples. Davantage le verbe AS- qui, en sanskrit, signifie tout d’abord «etre» en tant qu’exister, n’a finalement ete elu au rang de copule que parce qu’il a fallu prediquer l’Etre en tant que nom propre. L’etre comme copule fait donc aussi partie, a l’origine, de la langue des dieux. Toute predication s’effectuant par le moyen du verbe «etre», y compris dans la langue des hommes, rappelle la participation interieure de l’humain au divin.

This chapter argues against the common distinction made between the theoretical aim of Greek philosophy and the primary concern for salvation in Indian philosophy. Greek philosophy sometimes linked the intimate experience of eternity, which breaks the power of death, with true theoria in order to define a complete way of life (esp. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics X 7, but also in some presocratic thought). And in India wonder (as in Aristotle Metaphysics A 1) was sometimes viewed as the first motive leading to the disinterested search for truth about metaphysical principles. Brahman is not just a thing, but desire - for itself. And so to unite personally with the brahman implies keeping the desire for truth alive.

Les temoignages hellenistiques font etat de paralleles indeniables entre la philosophie d’obedience platonicienne et la tradition brâhmanique en Inde. Par exemple, la these de l’immanence du divin dans l’âme humaine constitue le centre des dialogues de la maturite chez Platon, et se retrouve explicitement dans les Upaniṣad, exprimee selon des metaphores identiques et servant un meme projet d’immortalisation par le savoir. Neanmoins, pour expliquer ce genre de fait, plutot que des influences et des rencontres entre les penseurs de ces deux cultures geographiquement tres eloignees, il serait raisonnable de supposer un heritage commun, passe par le biais des langues indo-europeennes et des ecoles poetiques qui les ont cultivees

... L'explication de textes en langues anciennes (2008) 240. L'explication de textes en langues anciennes. Anne Clavel, Jacques Elfassi, Martine Furno 1 , Maud Etienne, Ariane Guieu, Marie-Karine Lhommé, Alexis Pinchard, Julie Sorba. (2008). ...

This chapter argues against the common distinction made between the theoretical aim of Greek philosophy and the primary concern for salvation in Indian philosophy. Greek philosophy sometimes linked the intimate experience of eternity, which breaks the power of death, with true theoria in order to define a complete way of life (esp. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics X 7, but also in some presocratic thought). And in India wonder (as in Aristotle Metaphysics A 1) was sometimes viewed as the first motive leading to the disinterested search for truth about metaphysical principles. Brahman is not just a thing, but desire - for itself. And so to unite personally with the brahman implies keeping the desire for truth alive.

Les predications exprimant une identite du type «etre l’Etre» ne prennent sens que si le sujet en est divin et qu’il coincide avec le locuteur. De fait, dans le Veda (Inde), c’est autour de la proposition satyam asmi, «Je suis l’Etre» ou «Je suis la Verite», que s’organise l’exposition discursive du brahman, principe de toute divinite. L’Etre comme nom est donc un element de la langue speciale des dieux, dont les anciens poetes donnent plusieurs exemples. Davantage le verbe AS- qui, en sanskrit, signifie tout d’abord «etre» en tant qu’exister, n’a finalement ete elu au rang de copule que parce qu’il a fallu prediquer l’Etre en tant que nom propre. L’etre comme copule fait donc aussi partie, a l’origine, de la langue des dieux. Toute predication s’effectuant par le moyen du verbe «etre», y compris dans la langue des hommes, rappelle la participation interieure de l’humain au divin.

Les temoignages hellenistiques font etat de paralleles indeniables entre la philosophie d’obedience platonicienne et la tradition brâhmanique en Inde. Par exemple, la these de l’immanence du divin dans l’âme humaine constitue le centre des dialogues de la maturite chez Platon, et se retrouve explicitement dans les Upaniṣad, exprimee selon des metaphores identiques et servant un meme projet d’immortalisation par le savoir. Neanmoins, pour expliquer ce genre de fait, plutot que des influences et des rencontres entre les penseurs de ces deux cultures geographiquement tres eloignees, il serait raisonnable de supposer un heritage commun, passe par le biais des langues indo-europeennes et des ecoles poetiques qui les ont cultivees

Pour ne pas abandonner a une pure equivocite la polysemie du terme grec “Sophia”, lequel va de la simple sagacite du dechiffreur d'enigmes a la science universelle parce que premiere, nous proposons de relire les textes fondateurs de la philosophie a la lumiere d'une methode nouvelle: le comparatisme indo-europeen, methode qui a deja prouve ses vertus systematisantes en grammaire et en mythologie. L'Inde, ayant elle aussi valorisee la parole vraie comme une figure de l'excellence spirituelle supreme, occupe dans cette comparaison une place privilegiee. La fameuse " theorie des idees " de Platon, veritable cœur de la sagesse grecque, se revele ainsi deductible de la difference archaique entre noms de la langue des dieux et noms de la langue des hommes, difference instituee notamment par les poetes vediques et presente dans la plupart des cultures indo-europeennes. Alors s'estompe l'antagonisme entre les champions de la parole que sont les sophistes e...

This paper deals with a comparison between Greek mystery cults and Vedic literature. It discusses Michael Janda's theory of an Indo-European origin for the Eleusinian tradition. Although we agree with his main thesis, we understand the significance of this tradition in another way, precisely because at the same time we take into consideration the old Indian speculation about invisible things. Immortality, which can be reached thanks to the highest knowledge, does not consist in an extension of the life here below, that would take place in a particular world, but it is an escape from every kind of world, and also a way to enter the primordial unity. And the great Vedic goddess Dawn does not first signify a victory over darkness but, from an initiatic point of view, she embodies the moment when the invisible center of the world becomes visible. Through both Vedic and Eleusinian traditions, men's memory keeps the idea that the order of the universe depends on something merely i...

Indo-European religions does not mean the religion of the Indo-Europeans. The notion of Indo-European is essentially based on linguistic evidence, that is, the systematic homologies that exist between several ancient languages, for example, Greek, Latin, Avestan, Sanskrit, Old Norse, Old Irish, Hittite, so that we can conclude that these languages sprang from a common origin. Thus it is impossible to define consistently such a notion by ethnic or biological features. Of course, far from being a neutral vehicle of thought, language fashions our experience of the world. Therefore the linguistic kinship should generate a cultural and spiritual community, at least an ideal if not a historical one. But the etymological Indo-European reconstructions concerning single items of the religious vocabulary are quite disappointing. The Proto-Indo-European names of gods, already known in the middle of the 19th century, are rare and seem to be theologically, mythologically, and ritually empty. A m...

Résumé/Abstract This paper deals with a comparison between Greek mystery cults and Vedic literature. It discusses Michael Janda's theory of an Indo-European origin for the Eleusinian tradition. Although we agree with his main thesis, we understand the ...

Abstract: The figure of Dikē in Aeschylus is not exactly the same as in Hesiod: it has a cosmic dimension, it applies also to afterlife for individuals, it does not exclude salvation. These features match several Orphic fragments and testimonies, especially those quoted by philosophers. Therefore an Orphic influence on Aeschylus would make sense. But, beyond Orphism, an Indo-European inheritance is also to be considered.

Les prédications du type « être l’Être » ne prennent sens que si le sujet en est divin et qu’il se pose à la première personne du singulier. De fait, dans le Veda (Inde), c’est autour de la proposition satyam asmi, « Je suis l’Être » ou « Je suis la Vérité », que s’organise l’auto-exposition discursive de la source de toute divinité, le brahman. L’Être comme nom est donc un élément de ce que les anciens poètes, chez Homère et en Inde, appelaient « langue des dieux ». Davantage, le verbe AS- qui, en sanskrit, signifie tout d’abord « être » en tant qu’ « exister », n’a été élu au rang de copule que parce qu’il a tout d’abord fallu prédiquer l’Être en tant que nom. En l’occurrence, un fait de parole nécessairement singulier a précédé et institué le réservoir des possibles que constitue la langue. L’être comme copule fait donc aussi partie, à l’origine, de la langue des dieux. Toute prédication s’effectuant par le moyen du verbe « être », y compris lorsque le sujet et le prédicat appartiennent à la langue des hommes la plus ordinaire et sont, de ce fait, marqués par le non-être, rappelle donc la participation intérieure de l’humain au divin. Ce qui se joue dans le langage constitue le paradigme et la cause de ce qui se joue dans l’âme exilée hors de son propre centre immortel.

"Les catégories que la soi-disant « raison » est censée élaborer pour accueillir l’être en son sein, ne sont-elles que la projection inconsciente d’une idiosyncrasie dialectale, simplifiant et organisant les données de l’expérience de manière arbitraire eu égard tant à la nature des choses qu’à celle de l’homme, au lieu de hisser notre conscience au niveau de l’universel comme le voudrait la notion de rationalité ? Si tel était le cas, la philosophie serait déchue de son piédestal métaphysique et deviendrait un simple phénomène culturel parmi d’autres, objet des sciences humaines, et non plus « reine des sciences ». Ou bien y a-t-il au contraire, à l’égard des faits de langue toujours particuliers, une transcendance des normes qui commandent l’enchaînement de nos pensées ? Mais alors nos pensées les plus légitimes seraient menacées d’ineffabilité et toute communication finirait en trahison. Or, qu’est-ce qu’une pensée qu’on ne peut même pas formuler objectivement pour soi-même, sinon un songe vain, oublié aussitôt paru ?
Ce dilemme repose néanmoins sur un postulat implicite, qui n’est peut-être qu’un préjugé, si bien que son caractère contraignant n’est pas assuré. Il se peut qu’une troisième voie demeure ouverte. En effet, si la langue n’était pas un donné inerte propre à chaque culture, une pensée structurante sans sujet que les consciences individuelles ne peuvent que recevoir passivement ou, au mieux, contourner habilement, et si, au contraire, la langue était l’œuvre progressive de penseurs à la fois autonomes et dialoguant mutuellement tout au long d’une même tradition, la raison pourrait se reconnaître dans certains aspects de la langue, sans qu’on doive sacrifier l’universalité souveraine de la raison ni la diversité effective des langues.
L’interdépendance de l’ontologie et de la langue peut être étudiée sur au moins trois points différents. Tout d’abord, au niveau du lexique nominal, on peut se demander si les universaux se réduisent aux noms qui les signifient. Cette question du nominalisme se dédouble à son tour : 1) Y a-t-il une réalité, et si oui quel type de réalité, pour chaque notion universelle, en tant que telle, au-delà de son nom ? 2) La hiérarchie des divers universaux n’est-elle que le décalque de la structure du lexique ? Ensuite, on peut se demander si l’idée d’une dépendance de l’action à l’égard du sujet est un héritage nécessaire de l’articulation syntaxique du nom et du verbe. Enfin, on peut se demander si l’équivocité du verbe « être » — oscillant entre fonction copulative et signification de l’existence — est purement accidentelle. Ce dernier problème constitue en quelque sorte la synthèse des deux premiers, puisque le verbe « être » constitue précisément l’élément de l’axe paradigmatique qui oblige à penser quelque chose comme un axe syntagmatique pour décrire la position de tout énoncé dans la langue. Avec le verbe « être », non seulement des noms sont reliés entre eux — on pourrait en dire autant de n’importe quel verbe transitif — mais ils sont reliés de manière à exprimer l’identité de ce qu’ils dénotent, comme si la langue, dans l’énoncé apophantique, devait avouer malgré elle que l’entre-découpage de ses signifiés nominaux est mal fait, ou encore que ses classifications sont localement redondantes. Cela est-il indifférent au fait que ce verbe signifie aussi « exister », c’est-à-dire signifie que le monde ne se réduit pas à un ensemble de signifiés généraux se démarquant les uns des autres pour organiser notre représentation sans contradiction, mais que quelque chose est donné qui motive tout projet de classification intellectuelle et qui, par cela même, en interdit toujours la complète réussite ? Exister, n’est-ce pas faire échec à tout système de classification universelle, demeurer irréductiblement en reste ?
Nous voudrions ici étudier ce problème du verbe « être » car il est propre à montrer le rôle constitutif du Veda comme parole instauratrice : la fonction copulative de « être » n’est pas la projection immédiate d’un état impersonnel de la langue, mais plutôt l’objectivation des règles de transmission d’une parole vivante dans le cadre d’un enseignement initiatique entre personnes conscientes d’elles-mêmes."

"According to this paper, the Athenian Neoplatonic idea that there was a deep accordance between Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato about the method and the definition of soul salvation (see Syrianus) is not fully erroneous. It just has to be put in a dynamic perspective instead of a static one. Authentic Orphism may indeed be defined as the cultural process — neither a fixed doctrine nor an organized church —  that leads from the positive valuation of an external memory concerning epic or theogonic old paterns, working as a condition of the kleos aphthiton for heroes and poets, toward the positive valuation of the internal memory which is conceived off as bringing the philosopher’s soul in touch with eternal realities. Orphism does not deny the authority of Homeric or Hesiodic tradition, which makes immortal the names of heroes, but Orphism gradually transfers it inside the soul and thus discovers a new level of immortality, which concerns the ego and is independent from the surviving part of human society, just like the common immortality of soul demonstrated by Plato in the Phaedo does paradoxically not prevent certain souls being more subject to death than other ones (see for example the end of the Timaeus, 90c)! In certain “Orphic” gold tablets, Mnemosyne is not invocated in order to keep alive an oral tradition through succesive generations but for an individual soul to re-assume its own divine origin. This soteriological interpretation of the role payed by memory is confirmed by the cyclical sequence bios thanatos bios found in the Olbia bones fragments (OF 463.1 Bernabé). Such a mental power makes the soul able to escape an ever-lasting re-birth and re-death cycle, just like the anamnèsis in Plato does, athough the divine part of soul is identified only with rationality in Plato, and no longer with any vitalizing spirit correlated with body. The life of soul, according to Plato, is overall an adequate relationship to itself, which is called intellection (nous; Sophist, 249a; Laws X). But Orphism has already overcome the idea that the sole material ritual could work as a sufficient means for salvation. Moreover, there is no historical family tradition in Orphism unlike in the Homeric tradition. There are no Orphēidai like the Homēridai of Chios. Lineage in the Orphic tradition is only ritual and is only a matter of initiation. One self’s connection with Orpheus depends on will and on undertaking of a re-birth ritual, not on blood. The whole humanity is potentially in connection with Orpheus just like the Orphic Zeus contains everything and is contained by everything. For example, Pythagoras was re-enacting Orpheus although he was not Orpheus’ natural son (see Gregory Nagy’s Homer the Preclassic, E§116). In the same way, Plato asserts that every human being has seen the Ideas and can remember them by practicing dialectics. Finally, in Orphism, the self-identification of the rhapsode with the mythical proto-poet occurs during the whole life, and not only during the oral performance. This is why there is a real Orphic “way of life” (vegetarian food, non-violence, saying truth; see Plato, Leges, 782 c-d), and not only an Orphic way of singing. Moreover, since the Orphic poems were written quite early and thus became protected against oral variations, the initiate could not identify himself with Orpheus as a creative poet. The very process of improvisation during an oral performance was forbidden to him. Therefore the ritual and ethic behavior, or the rationalizing interpretation of Orphic poems just like in the Derveni Papyrus, became the only way of re-enacting Orpheus. On one hand Orpheus’ powerful living voice was admitted as definitely remoted in the past, but on the other hand the inner and spiritual life became the most important factor of continuity in the Orphic tradition.
So Orphism might be the analogy-generating tradition in which Plato found the first connection between different kinds of memory and different levels of immortality (see especially Diotima’s speech during the Symposium, 208c-d, 212a). Such a connection was the condition for dialectics, so that it could not be the result a dialectics. Of course, following Plato himself, modern scholars have accepted this hierarchy as a distinctive feature through which one could isolate Plato from other salvation traditions in Greek culture, as if to conceive off the genuine immortality as an instantaneous return to our metaphysical origin were the special innovation of philosophy. But, as we said, Plato might have just continued the process inaugurated by Orphism, and this process might also be not later than the Homeric poetry. Indeed, on the basis of many data excerpted from comparative poetics dealing with Indian and Iranian sacred poetry, we may assume that such a growing complexity of immortality and memory was a permanent trend in some ancient cultures, synchronically organized rather than diachronically, just like the Neoplaonic thinkers believed.
"

Abstract :
Le sacrifice indo-iranien efficace, tel qu’on peut le reconstituer à partir du Rig-Veda et des textes en vieil avestique, implique principalement de la part des officiants, outre les gestes visibles et les offrandes matérielles, deux attitudes mentales distinctes mais complémentaires. La première, horizontale en quelque sorte, consiste à contrôler, par rapport aux normes mémorisées de génération en génération, le bon agencement des actes rituels terrestres au cours du temps afin que la structure du sacrifice ne perde pas son unité ; l’autre, verticale en quelque sorte, consiste à projeter son esprit, pour chaque étape du rite, au niveau des protagonistes du sacrifice archétypal, lequel se prolonge encore et toujours dans le ciel. En termes philosophiques, on pourrait dire qu’on a d’un côté la mémoire, d’un autre la réminiscence. C’est ainsi, par exemple, que l’immortelle bienfaisante Ārmaiti, identifiée à la terre dans l’Avesta, peut contraster avec le céleste Vohū Manas. À partir de cette distinction, on peut mettre fin au vague du terme « sagesse » lorsque l’on traduit des termes aussi centraux que le védique medhâ et l’avestique[ahura] mazdā.

In this paper I would like to test, on a single point, i.e., the notion of sphoṭa, an attractive pattern for the general history of Indian philosophy, according to which there were basically two periods in it, firstly one devoted to ontology and then one devoted to epistemology. This test might compell us not simply to abandon this pattern, but to make it more complex. So the real rise of the theory of knowledge in India from Dignāga doesn’t imply anybody giving up ontology, unlike the use of the Western word “epistemology” could suggest since Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, but implies a reappraisal of the relations between the language that formulates our knowledges and the being of the objects that the human mind try to know. Indeed the hierarchical structuralism of the elements of the verbal communication constitutes the model and the origin of the seemingly-many-even-though-being-one which characterizes the phenomenal world.

The hellenistic writers have noticed real similarities between the platonistic philosophy and the brahmanic tradition in India. For example, the claim that divinity has his abode inside the human soul is at the very center of Plato's late Dialogues and is also to be found in the Upanishads, both expressed with the same comparisons and both with the aim of allowing immortalisation through knowledge. But, in order to explain such a fact, rather than fancy influencies and historical meetings between the thinkers of these two cultures which are very distant on earth, it would be reasonable to suppose a common inheritance, thanks to the indo-european languages and poet guilds who have developed them.

Les lamelles d’or dites « orphiques », malgré leur diversité, contiennent de manière récurrente et centrale un énoncé en première personne, posé comme vrai, qui fonctionne comme un mot de passe (synthèma) pour être admis dans la famille des dieux et jouir d’une immortalité bienheureuse. Or cet énoncé, doué d’un pouvoir performatif, contient justement l’affirmation que le défunt est issu d’une lignée divine, exprimant par là une connaissance de soi et impliquant un acte de réminiscence. Ce jeu de questions et de réponses se retrouve dans l’eschatologie gnostique et védique, sauf qu’alors l’énoncé magique ne se contente plus d’énoncer une parenté avec les dieux qui doivent accueillir le défunt, mais une parfaite identité, et que la vérité n’est plus une simple propriété de l’énoncé ouvrant les portes de la béatitude mais son contenu même. Par conséquent, la question « Qui es-tu ? », adressée par les gardiens de l’au-delà à l’âme du défunt, devient tout aussi bien un test sur les connaissances théologiques du défunt, concernant en particulier sa maîtrise des noms secrets des dieux, ce qui semble justement avoir été le cas dans l’eschatologie égyptienne. Ces jeux de correspondances et de transformations ne nous incitent-il pas à définir l’aspect proprement initiatique de toute religion comme la réitération, par le moyen du rite, de l’expérience qui nous fait sentir le divin comme le cœur toujours vivant de notre intériorité, là où le culte public insiste davantage sur la transcendance ?

Day-1 to 3 (Tuesday-Thursday, 24th – 26th Feb, 2015): Invited lecture
Venue: Sree Sankara University of Sanskrit, Kalady
Topic: The issue of the essence of human being in modern times
Audience: Mostly researchers on Sanskrit Literature, Veda, Philosophy etc.
Duration: 2 hours each
Synopsis : The issue of the essence of human being in modern times
Nowadays the common view about human being is a kind of nāstika view, if I may use the Brahmanic terminology. Human being, with all its specificities, seems to be the mere result of the Darwinian biological evolution just as every animal. And life itself is conceived of as a mechanical interaction between material particles without any reference to a teleological explanation. Thus there is no human exception in comparison to other living beings and even in comparison to other things in the universe. The essence of human being does no longer depend on any divine or transcendent reality which would act as its origin or its model ; no Self is present in the body so that consciousness consists only in natural electric connections within the brain. Such a view is powerfully sustained by the fact that modern science, in which it is rooted, is perfectly efficient. It also reinforces the development of techno-capitalism at the global level of Earth without letting any possibility of an ethical limitation. To sum up such a view might result in the very destruction of our humanity.

Can philosophy refute this view inside each of us without denying the obvious fact that modern natural sciences have a real value for knowledge at their own level? Such a refutation might be very difficult by relying only on Western philosophical tradition. For the best Western metaphysicians — René Descartes (1596-1650 CE) for example — were anti-materialist but, inasmuch as they have sharply distinguished matter and mind as two heterogeneous substances, they also provided the ultimate ground for modern natural sciences and their reducing of every being to a quasi mathematical object. Thus these Western metaphysicians gave birth to the obsessing technical power through which Europe mastered nature and other cultures during five centuries. Now the whole world feels very weak towards its own fascination for technical power. We cannot resist our own quest for power. However rejecting metaphysics cannot be the right solution because only metaphysics saves the feeling that the most important reality is invisible and kindred with our intimate Self. Therefore philosophy has to find new arguments. Vedic tradition, interpreted in the perspective of Platonic speculations on memory, could contribute to such a task. For example, the fact that the Veda is still being orally taught could be interpreted as a proof that human mind, far from being a mere effect of matter, is so free that it is responsible for its own eternity or its own decline. Vedic tradition might be a major attempt of mind to save himself.
1) Day 1 : The current nāstika view, its effects and its causes
2) Day 2 : Some unsatisfying attempts to refute this view
3) Day 3 : New arguments

Day-5 (Friday, 27th Feb, 2015): Dr. C. N. Neelakantan endowment annual lecture in Veda
Venue: Sree Sankara University of Sanskrit, Kalady
Topic: The Vedic sentence “satyam asmi” of Jaiminiya Brahmana and its reflections in ancient Greek
Audience:Mostly researchers and post graduate students on Sanskrit Literature and Veda
Duration: 1 hour
Synopsis: The sentence “satyam asmi” (JB I, 50) and its consequences on the meaning of AS-
The verbal root AS- has several meanings in Sanskrit, just as “to be” in English and ésti in ancient Greek: it can assert the existence of something or work as a copula which links the subject and the predicate in a sentence. My lecture aims at tracing back the origin of such an ambiguity and at showing that it did not develop at random. The Vedic sentence satyam asmi (JB I, 50), by containing twice AS- under various forms, might embody this origin. Since a sentence of the form satyam + AS- can be uttered only by a divine entity about himself, the root AS-, while functioning as a copula, might reflect the language of gods in the language of men. It moderates the ancient contrast between these two kinds of language.


Day-6 (Saturday, 28th Feb, 2015): Invited lecture
Venue: Brahmaswom Madhom, Thrissur
Topic: “Know thyself ” (gnōthi seauton / jānīhy ātmānam): Can we get a better understanding of this injunction by comparing Plato’s Alcibiades and the Chandogya-Upaniṣad?
Audience: A group of Veda chanters (mostly kids and youth) and veda enthusiasts (any age)
Duration: 2 hours

Day-7 (Sunday, 1st March, 2015): Discussion on and demonstration of Kausheetaka Brahmana by a group of Rigveda experts
Venue: Naaraas Mana, Edappal
Duration: 2 hours

Day-8 (Monday, 2nd March, 2015): Invited lecture
Venue: University of Calicut
Topic: Plato’s criticism against writing and the metaphysical value of memory
Audience: Mostly researchers on Sanskrit Literature, Veda, Philosophy etc.
Duration: 2 hours
Synopsis: Plato’s criticism against writing and the metaphysical value of memory
At the end of the Phaedrus Plato (Greek philosopher, 427-347 BC) criticizes writing for the transmission of philosophy inasmuch as it could substitute the living practice of argumentative dialogue with unjustified opinions. Teaching was conceived of as a way make the student able to think by himself, but not as a mere transfer of doctrinal contents in a passive mind. According to Plato, writing could prevent the student from using correctly his memory to grasp the invisible archetypes of everything, which his soul is supposed to have contemplated before his birth. But we know this criticism against writing through a book which Plato himself wrote! Thus, in which extent does Plato really refuse writing?  In which extent such a refusal is to be compared with the Vedic way to teach orally and to learn by heart the Veda? Following a chronological pattern should we distinguish an old form of transmission, which might have occurred within the “family maṇḍala-s” of the gveda and which might have let a certain creative freedom to the brahmacārin as a future Rṣi, from the merely passive repetition of the Brāhmaṇas time till now?

In the Phaedo, a dialogue devoted to the question if something of us is immortal, Plato states that " to speak wrong words is not only a fault against speech (logos) itself, but it also infects the soul with evil " (115e). Taking care of one's soul implies taking care of its internal logos. Both are subject to a special kind of mortality — on the one hand even the unjust soul of the tyrant is immortal (see Respublica X), but on the other hand the tyrant damages the most living part of its soul, that is the intellect — and both can be saved under certain conditions. Of course religion already delivers messages about afterlife and supplies various techniques to produce for the future a happy stay in the yonder world, but philosophy might start when just the way you use logos is experienced to determine right now your ontological relationship to life and death. Thus the correct performance with logos becomes a telos and not only a means for an external skopos. But logos means both reason and language. For example, to save a myth by giving him a temporal beginning, a middle and an end is not the same thing as to save an argumentative logos by avoiding self-contradiction. Furthermore, in Indian Vedas, immortality is also to be found in the perfect use of what Greek philosophers could call logos; but the poets of the Vedas seem to be more interested in the grammatical rightness of language. Thus in India the language of immortal gods, in contradistinction to mortal speech, is defined rather by its adequacy with the eternal rules of words formation than by its adequacy with the essence of things. Nevertheless, both in the Vedas and in Plato, the salvific mystery consists in a highly selective praxis of language, which gives place to the full realization of the meaning power, but the supreme knowledge does not stand beyond language in some ineffable realm. There is an immanent depth in language and this is why it is originally kindred with the various modes of being that specifically belong to the soul. As well in the very center of the individual soul as in the rare perfect form of language the opposition between singularity and universality is supposed to be overcome. Therefore we may wonder if Vedic tradition definitely belongs to what we call " religion " in the West, with dogmas and faith, or if it can remind us of ancient forgotten ways to reach the same goal as that which Greek pioneers of philosophy aimed at, but which now seem to have been made impassable by the crisis of modern Western reason?

The Mahābhārata: How to Endow Human History with Sense The Mahābhārata is a consistent — although complex — intellectual project developed by several generations of poets belonging to the same tradition. A reliable edition should highlight this global coherency rather than censure large passages as written later or earlier. Of course, the Mahābhārata might rely on some historical data like every epic tradition (see the example of Homer's Iliad and the ancient city of Trojas); but does the possible mention of true facts give a sufficient account of the consistency of this huge narrative? As well a mere transcription of historical data as an arbitrary fantasy would not produce such a well organized construction because the result of many convergent human actions is subject to contingency. In this paper I argue that the Mahābhārata as itihāsa is related to history in a deeper sense than merely registering concrete facts about what happened in definite points of the space and time where our everyday experience also takes place. Rather it undertakes a more general reflection on human condition, including human condition inasmuch as it is involved in time and history for ever. The second hypothesis would explain why many people from various cultures can still today be interested in the Mahābhārata. This question can be judged only by an internal examination of the epic. The possible concordance between archaeological findings and certain elements of the text cannot help us to determine the very nature of the text. Thus I suggest an alternative to the positivistic reading of the Mahābhārata: the question really answered by the Mahābhārata might ask under which conditions our action can overcome the absurdity of human condition which is ordinarily characterized by mortality and sin. How can our action not be vain, soon swallowed by nothingness? The epic answers: by embodying an archetypal myth in the earthly present. We can get individual salvation by inscribing our action in an impersonal and transcendental order. As Dumézil has shown, the doctrine of avatāra-s constitutes the original kern of the epic, so that the human drama can be read as a transposition of a Vedic — and maybe even pre-Vedic — mythology implying a kind of " twilight of the gods " and then a new dawn. Moreover this doctrine results from an extension and an inversion of the logic that organizes Vedic sacrifice, which is already supposed to maintain the correct order of the world. In the Vedas the concrete ritual performance must be experienced as a projection of a permanent intellectual archetype. Otherwise the sacrifice will not be efficient. The gvedic poet identifies through his " good thought " — he is su-mánas — with the very First Fathers who have established the rules of sacrifice. The historical poet mentally contemplates the first Institution as really present in another stratum of being and thus he personally acts in it. Reciprocally the human mind has to be defined as the part of a person that always can attend the Primordial Sacrifice. Thus the Vedic priest has to lift up his attention to an upper model, while in the epic the divinity comes down on earth. The direction of the movement is reversed. Therefore in the Mahābhārata Brahmins, representing Vedic power, have no longer a monopoly over the salvation of external and internal worlds. The Kṣatriyas can participate therein, so that History, like a large sacrificial area, can get a sense. In the Mahābhārata, every possible human history appears as no longer just " a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury " as Shakespeare's Macbeth says; rather, it becomes a sacred history, and opens a way to participating in the eternal paradigms seen by the sages.