Plato’s Dialogues & Upanishads

N. Kazanas 2013

The World is an illusion, mirage

UpaniṣadsThe World is illusory, unreal: jagan-mithyaReal, true is Brahman alone: brahma  satyam

DialoguesThe World is ever-changing, unreal.The Good is real; the realm of Ideas (eidos) eternal.(Republic 402C, 508C-E; etc)

Relation of mortals and gods

B  Up, 1.4.10: Whoever [among men] understands thus “I am Absolute [=brahman]” becomes all this [Universe]. Even the gods cannot prevent this; for he becomes their very Self. But whoever worships another deity [as other, than his own self], thinking “He is one and I another” he does not know: he is livestock for the gods. As herds of animals serve a man, so each man serves the gods. If even one animal is taken away, it causes displeasure; what then of many? Therefore it is not agreeable to the gods that men should come to know this [way of becoming free].

In Phaidōn 62B: men are “under custody/guard” (phrourāi) being cared for by the gods as the gods’ possessions (ktēmata) and should not break out of this care. In Phaidros 274A: reasonable men should first try to please their “masters” who are good, i.e. gods.In Laws 902A mortal creatures are gods’ possessions (ktēmata); in 906A the gods are benevolent and look after the welfare of mortals – who, through virtue and self-knowledge return to their divine state.

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Liberation only through Self-knowledge

In Upanishads the idea is very common: ātma-jñāna or brahma-vidyā eg B  Up 1.4.10 “ Whoever knows thus (ya evaṃ veda) ‘I am brahman’ (aham  brahma-asmi) becomes all this [Universe] ”.

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Charmides 169D-E: Self-knowledge (autognōsia) is the “science of sciences”. In Phaidros 230 Socrates says he does not know himself; therefore he does not investigate physics etc but seeks to know himself – whether he is a monstrous creature or of divine character. But in Plato – no concept of Self like ātman.In Laws 726A of all man’s possessions (ktēmata) the soul is the most divine: this implies a possessor but is not examined by Plato.Thus “soul” would correspond to buddhi or citta (cetas) or hṛdaya of Upanishads.

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Image of Chariot

K  Up 3.3-4: Know the Self as the chariot-master and the body as the car; know buddhi [=higher mind] as the charioteer and manas [=lower, common mind] the reins. The senses are the horses and the sense-objects their pathways.If the buddhi is discriminating, the manas and senses are restrained; if not, the mind and senses are out of control.Ascending order of finess and power: objects, senses, manas, buddhi, Self (puruṣa, here). Sense-objects, chariot-master and levels are absent from Plato.

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Phaidros 246  A-C “Let us liken the soul to a pair of winged horses and a driver. ...

Among us humans, the charioteer drives a pair: one of the horses is noble and good but the other is of opposite breed and character. ...When it is perfect and fully winged it rises up and governs the whole world. But a soul that has lost its wing carries on only until it gets hold of something solid and then settles down taking on an earthly body...”.

In 253D, one horse is upright, clean, white: it loves honour, modesty, temperance, obeys reason logos and needs no whip. The other is dark, crooked and heavy: companion of insolence and arrogance, only just obeys the whip.

The charioteer may be strong or weak but has no master!

In the Rep (435C-443C) the soul has three parts: reason logistikon corresponds to charioteer; unreason, with alogiston appetites, called also epithumētikon ‘covetous’, corresponds to the unruly dark horse; the emotional, high-spirited part thumoeides sides sometimes with the charioteer and at others with the black horse and corresponds to the white horse.

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Priority  of  soul  over  body  A very common statement in the Upanishads. Take e.g. Māṇdūkya  :

Turīya: the natural state of the Self (ātman or puruṣa), indescribable.Prājña: a mass of consciousness prajñāna-ghana, being source of

everything yoniḥ   sarvasya, pure bliss ānanda-maya and inner controller antaryamin of the person.

Taijasa: the brilliant-one experiencing the inner realm of mind.Vaiśvānara: ordinary consciousness “common to all people”, which

experiences the gross material world sthūlabhuk.

In Phaidōn 72Eff, Phaidros  245Dff, Laws 896C, Plato states succinctly that “the soul is anterior to the body and causal”. In Tim 41D, the Supreme Creator Dēmiourgos fashions human souls out of the substance used for the creation of gods, then the gods fashion gross material bodies. The soul is something created.

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Desire

In the chariot-image in Phaidros 246A-C, the black horse represents desires/appetites epithumia. In Rep 558D-561 there are necessary anangaia desires (like

appetite for measured food) and non-requisite ones for unnecessary and even harmful things; also good agathē and honourable kalē   desires which can with reason’s guidance lead “a temperate and healthy life of physical and spiritual excellence”. Love of wisdom philosophia is such a desire.In Laws, poverty of the individual or the state is not

absence of goods but increase of avarice aplēstia.

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Nāsadīya  Sūkta (RV 10.129) says that desire kāma is the first seed of mind mánaso  rétaḥ  prathamám. In Praśna 1.4. Prajāpati desires offspring and thus begins the creation. In Bṛh   Up the creation comes about as a result of division: the Self in the form of puruṣa desired aicchat company and so split himself in two (1.4. 1-3); then many were generated. In Maitrayaṇī  Up 3 .2 man is full of desires saspṛha and identified with material phenomena.

But it is a good, pure desire that brings people to Self-realisation – as with in K   Up 1.20-9 Naciketas who rejects material wealth and joys and chooses wisdom, knowledge of the Self.

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Education

In Plato education not compulsory (Rep 536DE) but from earliest age (Laws 788D).

Lower and higher, more arduous (Rep 498B, 503B; Phaidros 274A; Laws 807E). Higher has Dialectic which constrains and leads to truth (Rep 487C-499; Philebos 58C-D).

The aim is to promote virtue and by subjugating appetites attain perfection (Tim 87D; Laws 647D) or the Good agathon (Laws 809A). It is katharsis ‘purification’, freeing soul from material world (Phaidōn  67C).

Education does not put knowledge into men’s mind but helps one to use one’s own indwelling powers (Rep 518C).

This is based on Plato’s teaching that knowledge is really memory or recollection, which in turn is based on priority and divinity of soul and on reincarnation, whereby one gathers and stores knowledge of truth both divine and mundane (Menon 81; Phaidōn 72-84B; etc): mathēsis  oud’  allo  ti  ē  anamnēsis ‘learning is but recollection’, Phaidōn 72E.  

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M   Up (1.4-6) mentions two types of knowledge: aparā ‘lower’ which consists of learning vedic texts and various sciences; parā ‘higher’ whereby one realises the Imperishable.

4 āśramas: student, householder, ascetic, sannyāsin, for the three varṇas ‘castes’ of brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya. Most people followed ordinary education and study of the Vedas in the first āśrama   of brahmacari ‘student’ and so learnt dharma ‘laws and duties’. Few like young Naciketas (K  Up) or Satyakāma (Ch  Up 4.4) aimed at the higher knowledge.

Plato wrote Republic showing how a state would prosper only if it was governed by philosopher-rulers.

Ch  Up preserves memories of a righteous king in whose kingdom there was “no thief, no drunkard, ... no adulterer and courtesan” because the king “himself was studying the Universal Self” (5.11. 3-5).

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ReincarnationFirst in Menōn 81B-D, then developed in Phaidōn 72ff Phaidros

248Cff, etc.“Whoever lives justly obtains a better lot [in next embodiment] but

if unjustly then a worse lot befalls him” (Phaidros 248E).3 Daughters of Necessity: Lachesis assigns guardian of impending

life; Klōthō turns the spindle to ratify the chosen life; Atropos sets limits (Rep  620-621).

Apart from the 3 Daughters, the Upanishads say much the same.BU 3.2.13: good actions lead to good future life, bad to bad. ChUp 5.10.7: Good conduct wins life of Brāhmaṇa, Kṣatriya,  Vaiśya;  bad conduct casts into form of outcaste, dog, hog.

Two paths:   pitṛyāna lunar path of ancestors which leads back to earthly embodiment; the solar devayāna  ascends to immortal gods.

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Necessity/Natural Order.

In Plato anangē rules the Cosmos even gods (Sumposion 197B; Laws 741A, 818B). But this Power itself is ruled by Reason (Tim 47Eff). It is the Will of the Creator.

Again, much the same in Upanishads. The closer idea is that of Rigvedic ṛta ‘cosmic order/course of Nature’. In the RV gods follow and uphold it. “Everything flows from sádanād  ṛtásya” (1.164.47). In Ups it means only ‘truth, reality’ while anṛta = ‘unrighteous, unreal.’Īśā 8 : “The Self-existent Lord has allocated [all] things fitly through the endless aeons”.BU 3.8.9 By order of the Imperishable cosmic entities hold their position and perform their function. Again – Will of Creator.

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Macrocosm  and  Microcosm

In Plato full correspondence of person and Cosmos: the cosmic elements (earth, air etc) are in man and the movements of the cosmic Soul are reflected in man’s soul (Tim 53C ff); Theaitētos 185E, Laws 869A; etc).Reason and soul in head; emotions (andreia bravery thumos spiritedness) are in chest; appetites in belly; liver reflects movements of mind and acts as oracular centre (Tim 71A-72C).

BU states clearly that man’s constituents derive from universals and go back to their sources at death (3.2.13): speech into fire; breath into air; sight into sun; mind into moon; hearing into quarters diśaḥ; gross body into earth; ātman into ākāśa; hairs into plants; blood and semen into water. (Similar, Muṇḍaka 3.6-7.)

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One big Difference: man’s origin and end.

In Symposion spherical creatures are sliced in two by Zeus (189c).Elsewhere men spring from earth (Menexenos 237D, Politikos 269B; etc).In Tim, Creator fashions souls in form of stars and equal in number!

In the end, good and just ones return to the star-zone (41D-42D).

A similar idea is found in RV (10.68.2; 107.2; etc) as with the 7 rishis who become the Great Bear. It is also found in Egypt.

In the Upanishads, many go to brahmaloka and stay as long as their puṇya from good actions lasts. Then they return to Earth. But since ātman is brahman, those who shed off ignorance at death reunite with Spirit Absolute in mokṣa. This requires the dissolution of karma and kāma which propel one into saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death.

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 Sarvaṃ  khalv-idaṃ  brahma ‘All this is verily Spirit Absolute’ (Ch 3.14.1). ayam  ātmā  brahma ‘this Self of man is the brahman’ (BU 2.5.19). ahaṃ  brahma-asmi ‘I am the brahman’ (BU 1.4.10).

In Plato this ultimate unity is absent.

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This Unity of Being in Gnostic Christianity as in Gospel  of  Truth (49-51).

“And in you dwells the light that does not fail. (...) Be concerned with yourselves ... not with other things. (...) This is the Father [=Godhead], from whom the beginning came forth, to whom all will return. (...) They rest in Him who is at rest ... and the Father is within them and they are in the Father, being perfect.”

Later in Plotinos, the Neo-platonist of 3rd cent CE.

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