Thomas Mcevilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought (New York: Allworth Press, 2002) - Pp. Xxxvi+732

Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought (New York:
Allworth Press, 2002). Pp. xxxvi+732.

Here we have a book that is clearly written with love and devotion. The
author has collected an astonishing amount of literature and from the
Acknowledgments we learn that the book is the result of about thirty
years devoted labour. It would be nice to be able to say that it was also
worth of the effort. Unfortunately, a work of love is not necessarily a
work of critical scholarship. After all his wide reading McEvilley
remains an amateur. His list of references is no less than 24 densely
printed pages, but still one easily notes that writings of central importance
have escaped his notice. Moreover, the extensive literature written on
the subject in French, German, Italian and Russian is completely
ignored.
The dilettantism is also seen in his methods of working. Vague ideas
of secondary literature are accepted as solid evidence without any effort
to back them up with textual evidence. He was looking for contact and
exchange and wherever it was possible he happily thinks that it actually
did happen. To take just one example, Icannot see how it was necessary
that traders discussed philosophy with their foreign partners.
Even before McEvilleys book, there has been an unending flow of
attempts to show an Indian influence in classical Greece (and a few
suggesting an influence other way round). Quite often the arguments
stray outside scholarship. We are told that it is eurocentric, sort of
Orientalism in the Saidian sense, to deny such an influence, it only re-
mains to show, where in particular it was felt. And for this, just a vague
similarity of ideas seems often to be enough.
The idea of Greek philosophy arising out of nowhere, without any
antecedents or outside impulses just on the force of a supposed mental
superiority of Greeks belongs, Ihope, to a distant past, at least in schol-
arship. Aconsiderable debt owed to Egypt and Mesopotamia, even to
Thrace and Scythia was acknowledged by the Greeks themselves and in
addition, research has succeeded in pointing out other, important but
forgotten, ties to ancient Anatolian and Near Eastern cultures. Even an
Iranian impact was apparently felt. But India was just too far away.
My original intention was to give this bulky volume a detailed ex-
amination, but as my reading went on Isoon became aware of two facts.
285_286_Karttunen.pmd 13.03.08, 22:02 285
Hyperboreus Vol.13 (2007) Fasc.1-2
286 Klaus Karttunen
On the one hand, almost every single one of the over 700 pages asked
for some kind of comment. On the other hand, as the text went on the
hypotheses of the author became wilder and wilder, and a full examina-
tion clearly seemed to be waste of time. He is not content with finding
possible similarities of doctrines (and even here he accepts very vague
parallels and happily proves an Indian origin for an early Greek idea
referring to an Indian work written perhaps 1500years later). Aclassical
scholar is bound to raise his eyebrows, when the author, unhappy with
the meagre parallels found in the works of Plato, starts to reconstruct
the unwritten, esoteric oral teachings of Plato which
surprise!
are
completely based on Indian ideas. The Indological eyebrows go still
higher up when he explains Jainism as a sort of left-hand Tantrism. Af-
ter this, one is no longer surprised, when the author, completely con-
vinced of the (possible, but unproven) Harappan origins of Yoga goes
on to draft its palaeolithic origin in Africa. Earlier, he had proposed a
new history for the reincarnation doctrine. All Greek philosophers con-
fessed it, of course, and had it from India, but originally it came to India
from Egypt where it was
teste Herodotus
an ancient doctrine. The

Egyptologists are just prejudiced and silly and dont understand the real
nature of ancient Egypt. I could accumulate examples like this
and
give an almost unending list of smaller lapses, mistakes and obscuri-
ties
but I regret so much the many hours I have wasted in reading this
pseudo-scholarship that I shall stop here.
Klaus Karttunen
University of Helsinki
285_286_Karttunen.pmd 13.03.08, 22:02 286

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Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought (New York:

Allworth Press, 2002). Pp. xxxvi+732.

an ancient doctrine. The

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