7/30/2019 Roots of Indian Philosophy -- Dr. Joanna Jurewicz

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Roots of Indian PhilosophyJoanna Jurewicz

I was born in Warsaw, I have always lived in Warsaw, in the same tenement, three minutes walk from the

University of Warsaw where I have been doing research and teaching for more than 20 years. Parents of my

father were professors at the University, parents of my mother were artists (he was a writer, she was a painter), I

am a mixture of them.

When I was sixteen years old, my father, professor of medicine, gave me theBhagavad Gita translated into old-fashioned Polish; he told me that it might had been interesting for me. I remember I was reading the last chapterin a Warsaw park, it was April afternoon, windy day with clouds, sunshine and showers, changing quickly, and

I was sitting, totally transfixed because of the text which was saying so fascinating things about philosophy.

This meant I had no choice: I simply hadto study Indology. But I treated the Indian culture as a keyhole toas

a poet of theRgveda would sayan uru loka, to a wide space of human thought; I felt claustrophobic, fenced

in the European principles. So I decided to study the ancient Indian texts. Thats what I have been doing tillnow.

Europeans are not very lucky so far as the roots of their philosophy is concerned. Ancient Greek thought before

Plato is almost completely lost in its original form[1]. But philosophy is not only a European endeavor, andother cultures have preserved more of their heritage. In India, the oldest text, thegveda, goes back to the 15th

_13

thcenturies BC. It begins an uninterrupted tradition of philosophical thinking which is expressed in many

texts which Indian tradition classifies as Vedic literature. The latest stratum of these texts is the Upaniads, of

which the oldest were composed ca 6th _

3rd

centuries BC.

These texts were preserved and transmitted orally, which shows that human memory can be a much better datacarrier than paper, papyrus or clay plates.

Vedic literature was composed by a hereditary class of priests called Brahmins.

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7/30/2019 Roots of Indian Philosophy -- Dr. Joanna Jurewicz

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7/30/2019 Roots of Indian Philosophy -- Dr. Joanna Jurewicz

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7/30/2019 Roots of Indian Philosophy -- Dr. Joanna Jurewicz

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This is the first meaning of the word nirva, which literally means blowing out, extinction.

But the Buddha also used this concept to create his own metaphor: he conceived human passions in its

terms[6]. Since the Buddha thought that passions entangle human beings in suffering, he recommended puttingthem to rest.

This is the second meaning of the word nirva: it portrays thinking about emotions in terms of fire; theirpacification is conceived in terms of the extinction of fire.

What is more, in some contexts the Buddha uses the concept of fire with the same meaning as is used in Vedic

philosophy: as the permanent essence of the world and the human being. He denied any permanent aspect to

reality, which he defined as process[7].

In such contexts, the word nirva means that the metaphysical conception of the permanent essence of reality

terms of fire should be rejected.

When we realise that the Buddha was preaching among people conversant with Vedic philosophy, we can

appreciate how his argument was based on skilful use of the metaphor of his intellectual adversary. It is as if he

were saying:

Extinguish that fire about which the Veda says that it permeates the world and yourselves. When you do this,you will not be burnt by it, so you will not suffer; you will not have to fuel it in daily sacrifices, so you will be

free![8]

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[1] Kirk, G.S., Raven, J.E. and Schofield, M. The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edition. Cambridge 1982,

Havelock E. A.: The Linguistic Task of the Presocratics. In: K. Robb (ed.).Language and Thought in Early

Greek Philosophy. La Salle, Illinois 1983, p. 7-82.

[2]Lakoff G., Johnson M.Metaphors We Live By. Chicago 1980

[3]Lakoff G, Johnson M.Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and its Challenge

to Western Thought. New York 1999

[4]Lakoff G, Johnson M. 1999, p. 394.

[5]Gombrich R.How Buddhism began: the conditioned genesis of the early teachings. London: Routledge,

2006,What the Buddha Thought, London 2009

[6]Cf. Gombrich 2006, 2009.

[7]Cf. Gombrich 2006, 2009.

[8]Jurewicz J.,Playing with Fire: Theprattyasamutpdafrom the Perspective of Vedic Thought. In:

Williams P.Buddhism. Critical Concepts of Religious Studies. Abingdon, New York 2005, p. 169-187

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