In Taxila–

Manuscripts of the Gods: The Bible and Ancient Cultural Thresholds

by James Whitlark, Ph.D.

Wisdoms: Job and the Bhagavadgita

[Allegedly, ruins of a church founded by the Apostle Thomas, in Taxila]

One can best envisage the relationship between Hellenized Egypt and India in the early Christian centuries as that of the two poles in a mental magnetic field, manifested in the vast metaphysical agitation which at this time stirred the whole of the East from Alexandria to Taxila, and radiated its attractive force towards the east and west, towards both China and Europe. –George Woodcock, The Greeks in India

During late Hellenism, the East, particularly India became famous for ancient teachings. Typically, Lucian of Samostrata (second century C.E.) alleged that philosophy originated in India–a major admission by a Greek, since the oldest wisdom was like a long buried treasure, more valuable for its age (Seldar xx). In the transcontinental traffic in wisdom, comparison between Indian and Judaic texts would have happened naturally in such educational centers as Taxila. Northwest of the Indian subcontinent, it “combin[ed] the learning of the east and the west, where princes and others from far and near came to receive training in philosophy, medicine, languages, archery, and military sciences (Dani 5).. After detailing the famous graduates of its schools, including one institution with 500 princes as students, Buddha Prakash concludes “As a result of its fame for education, Taksha´s il—a grew into a cosmopolitan city.” (142). Evidenced by Tamil words for “peacock” and “ape” in Egyptian and Hebrew (e.g., 1 Kings 15: 22, 2 Chronicles 9:22), commerce between Southern India and the Middle East may have existed as early as the era of King Solomon. (Neill 24).

According to Sir John Marshall, the principal excavator of the area, the local script, the Kharosh.t h—i alphabet, derived from Aramaic, demonstrating the area’s massive ties with the Middle East (Dani 55). Furthermore, in the fourth century B.C.E., that bringer of Occidental culture, Alexander the Great conquered his way through Taxila, where he conversed with Indian “gymnosophists,” probably Digambara Jains (Conze 1951 141). For centuries after the region joined his empire, Hellenism persisted as part of the mixture. From a king within that region, Augustus Caesar received an embassy carrying a letter in Greek. Even when the Parthians graced first—century Taxila with a Zoroastrian temple, its design imitated the Parthenon and its “massive Ionian columns were jointed in the Athenian manner (Woodcock 132).

According to legend, Jesus’ apostle St. Thomas converted the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares to Christianity. Although no such spectacular conversion is likely, in Gondophares’s capital, Taxila, Occidental traders, some presumably Christian, did continue to arrive. Archaeology shows its citizens enjoyed “imported Roman luxury goods; the rulers’ coins illustrated their mixed Greek, Saka and Indian culture”. (Colledge 17). According to Philostratus’ biography, the sorcerer Apollonius of Tyana (often called “anti—Christ”) visited Taxila and was welcomed by its ruler (Dani 69). Although Philostratus mentions miracles (giving the work a reputation for fantasy), its description of Taxila is accurate, even to the way the walls were braced against earthquakes (Woodcock 130.). In addition to visitors, India also gained settlers from the West. G. M. Moraes has demonstrated that Jews must have arrived there before 70 C.E. Uniquely, they continued the animal sacrifices all Judaism practiced previous to that period, but subsequently abandoned throughout the rest of the world (Neill 30).

By the second century C.E., Kushan rulers had taken the place of Parthians in Taxila but continued East—West syncretism. The Bardaisanite Book of the Laws shows that, at that period, Christians lived among the Kushans (Sedkar 184). By the fourth century, a Christian Bishop styled his diocese “Great India and Persia” (Neill 30). Nonetheless, in the first two centuries C.E., the situation was probably fluid, with no religion able to ignore any other.

The common ground of “chaotic” interchange was fascination with “wisdom” sayings, including both moral apothems and more esoteric philosophies (Gordis 42). Versions of “wisdom” abounded (e.g., sophos, hokhma, prajñ—a ). Even the supreme Hindu god Brahman, a Sanskrit word that came to mean the One, the Impersonal Deity, Reality Itself, originally stood among the approximate synonyms for “wisdom”:

The oldest meaning of this word seems to be “holy knowledge,” “sacred utterance,” or (what to primitive man is the same thing) its concrete expression, “hymn,” or “incantation”.… The spoken word had a mysterious, supernatural power; it contained within itself the essence of the thing denoted. To “know the name” of anything was to control the thing. The word means wisdom, knowledge; and knowledge, as we have seen, was (magic) power. So brahman, the “holy word,” soon came to mean the mystic power inherent in the holy word. (Edgerton 116).
He is text personifying itself, catching the mind in a mirror maze of self—reflection.

Oral traditions assumed many forms: Brahmans chanting the Vedas, gurus demonstrating yogic practices, the predecessors of the rabbis transmitting the “oral law,” et cetera. If (as the needs of memorization made likely) oral pedagogy involved little more than pupils chanting in unison, transmitters would not need to take cognizance of other scriptures than their own. Fostered by the needs of world commerce, however, literacy turned traditions into commodities on the caravan trails. To be taken very seriously, literate sages must take cognizance of a diversity that complicated any attempt at consistency.

With the interconnected growth of trade and the literacy that kept its accounts, professors of wisdom sought to be recognized in many lands, as in the “Aramaic Testament of Levi” (4Q213—214), “He who teaches Wisdom, all (14) [the days of his life shall be long, and his reputat]ion [shall grow great.] In every land and country to which he goes (15) [he has a brother, and is not like a stranger] in it, nor like a foreigner in it, neither (16) [is he like an unfamiliar person there. For all gi]ve him honor there, because everyone wants (17) [to learn from his Wisdom.]” (Eisenman and Wise 114). In place of an earlier age’s conception of a Messiah as conqueror and king, he came to be seen as teacher. Thus, in a Roman Catacomb painting from the fourth century C.E.: “An open book on his knee, Christ waves his right hand to emphasize a point in his lesson.… [His apostles] appear even younger than Christ, hardly more than schoolboys with short haircuts, and they look at him stiffly as if hoping they won’t be called upon to recite” (Mathews 5). By the chaologists’ method of seeing patterns repeated (e.g., in Job and the Bhagavadg—i t—a the ramifications of teaching religious secrets), we can notice more than in a single work, where wealth of details obscure the general configuration.

Pervasively, scriptural wisdom portrayed itself as secrets known to the disciplined few. S. Radhakrishnan writes: “The Upanishads [including the Bhagavadgita ] contain accounts of the mystic significance of the syllable aum, explanations of mystic words like tajjalan, which are intelligible only to the initiated, and secret texts and esoteric doctrines. Upanishad became a name for a mystery, a secret, rahasyam, communicated only to the tested few” (Radhakrishnan 19). Only someone dedicated to the life of the mind/spirit (e.g., relatively indifferent to physical possessions), learns it–an instance of the dispossessed condition of students in prßactically any culture (so that a basic theme, as in Job, is the impermanence or unsatisfactoriness of worldly goods). In candidacy for wisdom from the divine incarnation Krishna, Prince Arjuna declares, “I do not desire victory …/Nor kingship nor pleasures” (1.32; Sargeant 70). Complementary to the unworldly student is the one with whom he converses, the other—worldly teacher (e.g. Apollonius of Tyana, Christ, or YHWH). The latter’s words require commentary. Discussion and revelation are necessary not only because of the inherent difficulty of the material but also to create a community of reading aloud, all—the—more desirable in a place of transients.

Continue to Job 1-2

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