ORIGINS OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY.

 

The origins of European philosophy are in Greece. To see how Greek philosophy developed we have to see the background of Greece. The origins of Greek civilization seem to have come from the Mediterranean island of Crete. The Cretan civilization, also called Minoan seems to have reached its peak by 2500 BC itself.

The kings of Crete are known as Minos. The existence of this civilization was discovered by an English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans when he carried out excavations near Knossos in Crete. The Minoans were trading with Egypt and made objects of great craftsmanship. They worshipped beauty and happiness and there is no place for sorrow in their religion. All their Gods are female.

Minoans are not Greeks but they had relations with Greece. This great civilization suddenly disappeared in 1400 BC, the cause of which is not known. The scene of western civilization now shifts to Greece.

The civilization which then existed in Greece was called the Mycenaean named after its principal city Mycenae. This existed between 1500-900 BC. The Mycenaean’s borrowed their civilization both from the Minoans and the Egyptians. Both the works Iliad and Odyssey written by Homer belonged to this time.

There were many tribes in Greece but all of them were united together by three things. The first is the Greek language, second is the Olympics that were held every four years from 776 BC onwards and the third is the two great works of Homer.

Greeks belong to the Indo European tribes. They came in three waves from 1500-900 BC and occupied Greece. The first were Ionians, then the Achaeans and finally the Dorians. The real great Greek civilization starts only with the Dorians.   

Greece is a small Archipelago and it is full of valleys, mountains and islands. The terrain made transportation difficult and so small independent City States developed. A city surrounded by agricultural lands made the City State. The land was not fertile and as the population increased they spread to the West Coast of Asia Minor, Aegean Islands, Southern Italy and Sicily. The City States had lots of sea commerce and as they interacted with other peoples the Greeks learnt many things from them. They learnt the script form the Phoenicians and their literature multiplied. They then built a great civilization.

The Greeks are not very religiously inclined. Although they had many Gods, their Gods are more like men in habits with the only difference being that they were everlasting, more powerful and had magical powers. We are quite familiar with Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Aphrodite.

The ORPHIC CULT has actually arisen from primitive beliefs, but it goes on to become more refined later, giving rise to philosophy. Dionysus is the God of trees. Especially of Grapes and wines. He is also known as Bacchus. It is surprising as to how philosophy could evolve from such primitive thinking, but there it is. 

Dionysus  is born to Zeus and Persephone. When he is in the form of a bull, the Titans (somewhat like our Rakshasas) killed him and ate his flesh. But Zeus saves his heart and ate it. After that Dionysus was born to Zeus and Semile a human being.

 Semile wants to see Zeus with her eyes and Zeus shows her his Viswarupa. By seeing that she turns to ashes, but Dionysus who was in her womb was saved by Zeus and he protects it in his thigh. After sometime Dionysus was born from the thigh of Zeus. Zeus then reduces the Titans to ashes with his powerful weapon and creates humans’ from their ashes.

 From this story some Greeks believed that humans had a part from the Titans as well as Gods. They believed that if the human body had the part from Titans then the Soul had a part from the Gods. If one is to release the soul from the body then man will attain Moksha or bliss. Till then man is born again and again.   

If man is to be released from this cycle he has to perform certain rites. These rites have been popularized by a Greek warrior named Orpheus, which is why it is called the Orphic religion. 

In the initial stages it is said that the person who supervised the rites was killed by the worshippers and his flesh was eaten by them. Later they use to kill a bull and eat its flesh. They believed that their God Dionysus was present in the meat of the sacred bull and by eating it they will become immortal.

 There is a great impression in Greek thinking by Orphism which later got refined by thinkers. The primary goal of man is to become immortal. Man’s body and soul are separate, and for releasing the soul from the body a moral and disciplined life had to be led. This had a great influence on later Greek philosophers like Pythagoras, and even on Socrates and Plato to an extent. You can see how close this looks to our own Hindu philosophy.