Aller Anfang is schwer: Every beginning is difficult, especially when one has to constitute first the a priori ontology of the forthcomming Sacred Texts Wiki Library.
This is a notice to let any philosophical mind be aware that there is a place where one can set free one’s categorial and publishing imagination:
As a specialist in Indian philosophy and Continental Phenomenology, I am taking the care of providing all available or GNU copyrighted public domain content for these two categories, creating at the same time the subcategorial scheme with short encyclopedia-like entries.
If you can give me a hand in the other fields of Philosophy and Religion, please, do it; if you think, this is yet another useless online enterprise, please, disregard this message and excuse my enthusiasm.
The Library runs on its own Dual Xeon P4 2.8 HT server with practically unlimited space (so far 2x120 GB HDD) and 1000 GB bandwidth. Anybody is welcome to become editor, even of my own texts.
Thank you. I am going to put online everything I have on my computer about Indian philosophy and comparative studies, including some of my books which are now available only from Amazon.com, say, Phenomenology and Indian Epistemology.
Many source books have been scanned, including lots of upanisads with the commentaries of Sankara, philosophical sutras, etc., the problem is that they should be proofread and stripped of all diacritical marks, and this takes time.
Where would you stand with the following statement (a belief of mine)
Indian philosophy has usually been categorized as “eastern” philosophy. I find this to be inaccurate. Indian Philosophy, esp that found in Hindu texts, is the Easternmost of the Western Way of thinking. The roots of indian thought can be found in that proto-Indo-European model which spans from Ireland to Greece to Iran to India. At this point I am unable to sum up what the philosophical core is amongst these varying peoples. Religiously, I can say they generally fall into line with Dumezil’s division of pantheons and rituals into Priest-Warrior-Farmer/artisan/pastoralist and that the sovereign further divides into the Magician/Lawyer dyad which is always opposed by the Warrior. What consequences does this recategorization have of Indian Philosophy? I’m not sure overall, but in Sinology (where I was standing and thinking when I came up with this) , it shows how China is far less “other” than the West thinks it is.
As far as logic, ontology and epistemology are concerned, the answer is yes - India is the far-east end of the Indo-European cultural areal. We think alike, not only because our languages are alike, but also because we share one and the same civilization archetypes. Of course, India presents a more coherent civilizational model, which would probably appeal to the political taste of Plato.
I do Like you. You are a sharp one - He got my name right !!!
How do you mean more coherent civilizational model?
So, then how do we locate Greek Philosophy beginning with Thales and Ending with Plato’s writings in the overall structure of the Indo-European Worldview? (Easy question, no?)
More coherent means that Wisdom (Prajna) telling the man (purusa) which are one’s goals (artha), and Means for achieving the purusarthas (Wealth, Love, Liberation) were acting in a more hamonious and less socio-destructive way than in Europe.
We have to take Greek philosophy and Indian darsanas as interrelated. Proofs: Democritus’ atomism was influenced by Indian paramanu-vada, Socrates’ daimon has to be interpreted as a sign for samadhi, platonism and Samkhya-Yoga converged in the Hermetic scripts, Aristotle’s categories are remarkably traceable to the categories of Vaisesika…
