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Aoristos Dyas 6 Plotinus and the Orient: aoristos dyas Vishwa Adluri One form it was previously, which again became fourfold … (Mah¯abh¯arata 12.321.16c)1 In his Vita Plotini, Porphyry tells us that, at the age of twenty-seven, Plotinus was seized by a passion for philosophy. Plotinus searched long for a teacher until he f nally met Ammonius in Alexandria: From that day he stayed continually with Ammonius and acquired so complete a training in philosophy that he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians. As the Emperor Gordian was preparing to march against the Persians, he joined the army and went on the expedition; he was already in his thirty-ninth year, for he had stayed studying with Ammonius for eleven complete years. When Gordian was killed in Mesopotamia Plotinus escaped with dif culty and came safe to Antioch. (Porphyry, Plot. 3.14–23)2 Scholars have long wished to investigate the relationship between Plotinus and the Indian system of thought, but such research was limited to historical research or philosophical speculation.3 T us far, no specif c Indian text has been suggested where such a “system” – one that bears the closest resemblance to Plotinian thought – could be found.4 In this chapter, I introduce such a text: the Nārāyan īya, found in the Moks adharmaparvan or the soteriological portion of the Indian epic, the Mahābhārata. In eighteen short chap- ters,5 this text contains a combination of elements that were also essential for Plotinus’ thought: • a soteriology oriented towards the One;6 • dif culty of seeing and describing this One; • levels of Being; • intense erotic love and its relationship to the One; 77 78 (RE)SOURCES, INSTRUCTION AND INTERACTION • an ontological hierarchy that serves upwards as a soteriology and downwards as a cosmology. T e entire discussion, moreover, displays a keen understanding of the properties of number, such as the completely transcendent one, the Indef nite Dyad, and the cosmo- logical resonances of the numeric series 1, 2, 3 …7 A more relevant “Plotinian” Indian text cannot be wished for, nor does one exist. T e method I follow in this chapter is straightforward. I will present the text,8 its basic structure and philosophical project, and argue for why the Nārāyan īya provides a good basis for Plotinian–Indian comparative study. My discussion is divided into six sections. I f rst introduce the Nārāyan īya and then discuss relevant aspects of number in Greek philosophy from Pythagoras to Plotinus; thereaf er, I return to philosophy of number in the Nārāyan īya.9 In two concluding sections, I then address the question of Plotinus’ Orientalism. T e f rst of these reviews Bréhier’s claims – made in his 1928 classic work La philosophie de Plotin, translated into English as T e Philosophy of Plotinus (1958) – for attributing Oriental inf uences to certain aspects of Plotinus’ thought; the second then examines Bréhier’s sources for making these claims.10 Finally, I return to the question of Plotinian–Indian comparisons in the conclusion. THE NĀRĀYAN. ĪYA T e Nārāyan īya occurs in the Śāntiparvan, the twelf h major book of the Mahābhārata. T e Śāntiparvan contains three sections: the Rājadharmaparvan (on the law of kingship), the Āpaddharmaparvan (on the law of emergencies) and the Moks adharmaparvan (on the praxis of salvation). T e Nārāyan īya appears in the last of these sections and marks the culmination of the epic’s cosmological, soteriological and literary programme. T e immediate context of the Nārāyan īya is an extended dialogue between the fallen Kuru patriarch Bhīs ma and the victorious king Yudhis.t.hira regarding the various forms of dharma.11 T is text is distinguished by the glorif cation of Nārāyan.a12 as the supreme reality. It includes the divine sage Nārada’s visit to the mystical island Śvetadvīpa (or the “White Island”) where Nārāyan.a reveals himself in his universal form (viśvarūpa, 12.326.1c). T e text is interesting as it provides not only a well-developed theology, but also philosophical discussions on ontology, cosmology, etymology, divinity and ritual. A summary of the various descents of the One Being (ekam˙ purus am˙, 12.326.31c) Nārāyan.a into the cosmos can be found here13 – a theme that is richly developed in later sectarian texts, the Purān as. Although a spate of philological scholars have insisted that the doctrine of Nārāyan.a was introduced into the text by later dogmatic philosophico-religious interpolators,14 and that the text is nothing more than a transparent attempt to import “theology” into the Mahābhārata, a closer view reveals matters to be much more complex. T e Nārāyan īya articulates a sophisticated philosophy of number, which, to be sure, is oriented towards the One Being called Nārāyan.a here, but the text is anything but dogmatic. T e dif culty in conceiving the one reality, the dif culty of articulating it and achieving it are problems the text struggles to articulate. T ese dif culties – along with the dif culties the very con- ception of one reality creates for cosmology in terms of how, then, such a plurality (as is PLOTINUS AND THE ORIENT 79 implied in the idea of cosmology) can exist – are exposed in this text. To be sure, the text does recommend certain practices conducive to this vision, but I am chief y concerned here with the philosophical problem of the One and its relation to the many. Although Nārāyan.a is said to be this One, owing to his inf nity, this conception appears with all the attendant philosophical problems. Nārāyan.a must be the One, but also the several levels between the One and the many. T us: a dyad, a doubling, a pair, a fourfold. T ese are the emanations of the One (note that this series always proceeds through doubling). At the head of the many is a series of numbers: one, two, three (eka, dvi, tri). T e One of the former progression (that is, of the series which proceeds through ontological doubling) and the one of the numerical series are quite dif erent. T roughout, the text attempts to hold together these two senses of “one” in their irreducible dif erence.15 T e dyad, moreo- ver, appears to be assigned a liminal role between the simple One and the many.16 T is brief overview of the text already shows that number is the key concept in terms of which the Nārāyan īya must be understood. Before we look more closely at the Nārāyan īya, however, it is pertinent to recall the signif cance of number in Plotinian thought. SIGNIFICANCE OF MULTIPLICITY FROM PYTHAGORAS TO PLATO From the early Presocratics through Pythagoras and Plato, Plotinus inherits the central function of the philosophy of number in explaining both the multiplicity of beings and the relation of this multiplicity to the One.17 Slaveva-Grif n distinguishes three central philosophical functions fulf lled by number in ancient philosophy: • a cosmogonic function that “searches for the origin of multiplicity from some physical or metaphysical source”; • a cosmological function that “searches for a way to explain the innumerable diversity of material world in an orderly fashion” and; • an epistemological function that “attempts to comprehend the visible and invisible constituents of the universe in a rational form” (Slaveva-Grif n 2009: 4). Number is the crucial concept that mediates both between the move from the One to the many (cosmology) and from the many to the One (cosmogony). It allows these two to be held together in their irreducible tension. An epistemological investigation into the properties of numbers is thus not an enquiry undertaken for its own sake, but an attempt to understand the structure of reality in its outward pull away from the One and its inward pull towards the One.18 Besides the problem of the relation of the cosmogonical and the cosmological properties of number, however, there is a further problem that arises in rela- tion the One: this is the problem of the polysemy of the term “one,” which Plato discusses in the Parmenides. Pythagorean elements are interspersed throughout Plato’s dialogues, especially the Timaeus and Philebus, which Slaveva-Grif n discusses, and the Laws, T eaetetus and the Republic, which Rist (1967) analyses. However, I will focus here primarily on Plato’s dialogue Parmenides. While the Timaeus and Philebus focus on cosmogonic and cosmo- logical themes, and the latter three texts on the challenges to monism arising out of the problem of evil, the Parmenides is explicitly and technically ontological, setting for itself 80 (RE)SOURCES, INSTRUCTION AND INTERACTION an investigation into the one, unity and multiplicity. T e dialogue lists eight hypotheses, of which only the f rst two are of relevance to us here in the Plotinian framework. T e f rst hypothesis, which speaks of the unity of the one as absolute, is most closely related to Parmenides’ Peri Physeōs. T is conception of the One insists on its absolute, pure and simple unity and excludes any predicates – including the predicate that it is one! Plato felt this last deduction of the f rst hypothesis to be self-contradictory, and thus introduces the second hypothesis, which is of most relevance to our discussion. T is second hypothesis introduces sophistication or qualif cation (one can hardly call it dif erence) into the One.19 T e One, according to the deductions of this hypothesis, consists of both unity and being: to hen and ousia, to einai or to on. Slaveva-Grif n convincingly shows how this qualif ca- tion of the One, “as unity and multiplicity interact at an ontological level, especially as represented in Plotinus’ concepts of the Indef nite Dyad and Intellect” (Slaveva-Grif n 2009: 6).
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