The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies Hardcover – November 1, 2001

I am a librarian. I am also Buddhist, as well as born and raised in conservative protestant Christianity. The very first thing I do when I get a book is scan the bibliography, table of contents and the index. I used to keep a card file of references, now it is in a database. This book is a great resource, but this is not really why I bought it. I bought it because I am on a hunt for the origins of our common philosophical and theological ancestry. I am not looking for the Truth, I am looking resources and direction. I have not finished the book, but I can tell you the author, as far as I have seen, does a good job presenting the materials. To use a gardener's metaphor, he does a great job of turning over the historical ideas and presenting what he finds.
My current quest is to find evidence of any dialog between India and its neighbors and Levant, the area around the Mediterranean. I have been chasing historical and philosophical threads for almost a decade. This book is full of resources and fresh ideas.

A brilliant survey of the connections between East and West – Greece, Egypt, and India – and the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism, and Buddhism – by the historian Thomas McEvilly.

This subject is a hot potato. Few western historians are equipped to discuss it. Most are happy in their comfort zones that clearly segregate East and West whilst ignoring the enormous evidence of philosophical exchange between these cultures.

To be sure, historians are okay with accepting the exchange of merchandise between these cultures in ancient times.

For instance, around 3500 BC there was maritime trade between Indians who sailed between the Persian Gulf and northwestern coast of India. Mesopotamian sites of 3000 BC have unearthed white Indian conch shells. Around 2500 BC-2000 BC cylinder seals of a Persian type have been found in Mohenjo Daro and Lothal, India that indicate trade between India and Sumer and Babylonia. 2200 BC, Sargon boasted he had Indian ships at his harbor.

McEvilly suggests it is inconceivable that two distant peoples could be meeting with each other frequently for commercial reasons but never discussing their traditions, festivals, customs, religions – all of which would have been fascinating subject matter for any two peoples wishing to develop good will and thus better trade relations and profits. Written proof of such philosophical exchange, though it would be ideal, is not a pre-requisite to drawing such a conclusion. You only need a basic understanding of the relationship between business and friendship.

Remember, when Indians disembarked from their ships while material was loaded or unloaded, they would possibly be in the foreign land for days or weeks before returning. During this time they would be guests of the host land and introduced to its customs, practices, and beliefs. Reciprocating, the Indians would tell them about things in India. This is not difficult to envisage.

Additionally, Sargon was multi-ethnic. He would have pro-actively sought to understand India.

McEvilly’s conclusions suggest information flowed from India to Greece in the pre-socratic and then back in the hellenistic era.

Published in 2002, this book does not take into account new dating of the very important Rig Veda of India. Throughout his book, McEvilly’s uses the traditional AIT dating of 1500 BC. However, the discovery of the dried up Sarasvati River and its dating of at least 1900 BC [according to geological and palaeoenvironmental studies (Rao 1991: 77-9; Allchins 1997: 117)] has wide implications concerning the origin of philosophical ideas found in the Rig Veda and Upanishads. Did some of their ideas arrive from Greece, as McEvilly’s suggests, or were they actually exported from India at an earlier date?

Also, McEvilly, is unable to supply any concrete dates concerning the origin of ideas in India and explicitly states his regret that India is, as Hegel put it, “ahistorical.” This is not McEvilly’s fault. Philosophy in India was an oral tradition and highly secretive. That is why you do not find written evidence on parchment or stone. That was the tantalizing method and mystery of the ancient yogis. However, geological dating of rivers such as the Sarasvati help us compare with known dates in other cultures.

This is a book of the highest academic caliber. A masterpiece and classic. Probably not another book like it in its genre. Highly recommended.

Full disclosure: I am an author and researcher on connections between ancient yoga and the Bible as well as between ancient yoga and modern science. ~ Sanjay C Patel, SanjayCPatel.com

The culmination of a long career, The Shape of Ancient Thought, is a stunning work. Dr. McEvillery surveys a magnificent sweep of time and space, from ancient Sumer to classical Greece and beyond to their Roman successors, to the India of Harrappa, to Buddha, Mahavira and Nagarjuna.

A work of such scope is a long and difficult read to be sure. Dr. McEvillery does not pronounce upon the truth or falsehood of any of the schools and movement he outlines. He does not say for sure what the historical influences were. There are places, such as when he traces out the changing evaluation of Indian thought by Indian scholars, where he does not even say what the right perspective on things ought to be. He hints, he suggests, he supposes. All of which conspire to make an already difficult subject even more challenging.

And yet Dr. McEvillery has a deft touch. He is able to explain abstruse thoughts succinctly. His hints and suggestions are electric; and his "but maybe"s are sobering. All in all the effect, on this reader at least, is to provoke nuanced reflection on his material. It produced in me a feeling of familiarity with the subject as if it were I and not he that had spent decades on research.

In short this is a difficult work but one well worth reading and re-reading especially if one is willing bring one's own philosophical and religious questions to it.

What a great book. Its arguments reveal much about the real history of early western thought and it calls for a paradigm shift in how important aspects of intellectual and spiritual history must be viewed. Aside from the wealth of fascinating comparative analysis it offers, it lays bare our deeply rooted prejudices. This book sheds a great light on some key currents of human thought and culture.

Thomas McEvilley has spent the better part of a very full and fruitful lifetime developing and nurturing the ideas that are so beautifully presented in this amazing book. Trained as a Greek philologist, Dr. McEvilley (that's what I always called him when he was one of my favorite professors as an undergraduate at Rice University) is steeped in the roots of ancient Greek philosophy. He has also deeply imbibed from the ancient philosophical traditions of India. The Shape of Ancient Thought traces in exquisite detail the intricate cross-fertilizations of ancient Greek and ancient Indian philosophical schools of thought. The case is persuasively made that there were surprising and undeniable influences flowing in both directions at different times. Dr. McEvilley is perhaps the only scholar alive today competent enough and talented enough to present these insights. Without a doubt, The Shape of Ancient Thought is one of the most important and interesting books ever written. A pure joy and delight to read, with copious footnotes, to boot!