Indic Ideas in the Graeco-Roman World

It is common to speak of “civilizational ideas”, but do they exist? For example, are the dośas of Āyurveda peculiarly Indian since they are a tripartite classification that is basic to the Vedic system of knowledge? Plato introduced a similar system based on three humours into Greek medicine, with a central role to the idea of breath (pneuma in Greek). But this centrality of breath (prān. a in Sanskrit) is already a feature of the much older Vedic thought. So do we agree with Jean Filliozat (1970) that Plato borrowed the elements of the wind, the gall, and the phlegm, from the earlier tridośa theory, and that the transmission occurred via the Persian empire? Others claim that any similarities between the Indian and the Greek medical systems must be a result of the shared Indo-European heritage and what may appear to be Indian is actually Indo-European. Dumézil’s demonstration that tripartite categories operated elsewhere in the Indo-European world supports this latter view. Dumézil argued that all Indo-European religions have three hierarchical functions: sacred sovereignty, force, and fecundity, represented by the categories of brāhman. , rājan (or ks.atra), and vís. Religious and political sovereignty is conceived as a dual category: the magician-king and the juristpriest. In India, this duality is in the roles of the rājan and brāhman. ; in Rome, of rex and flamen. Even the names are similar! In his Mitra-Varuna Dumézil (1948) shows that the magician-king (Varun.a in India or Romulus in Rome) initiates in violence the social order that the jurist-priest (Mitra in India or Numa in Rome) develops in peace. Magical sovereignty operates by means of bonds and debts, whereas juridical