Hello,
I really like this discussion, so, I don't want
to interrupt or change the course of what's being
conversed here. I was reading further into Campbell's
"Oriental Mythology", and came across this quote that
is of interest and to me, fits into this topic, but
please, don't let me interrupt too much on what's
being covered here.
[Chapter 4]
"For the Greek view of the world, as Spengler
well showed in his discussions of the 'Apollonian
soul' in 'The Decline of the West', placed all its
emphasis on visible, tangible bodies. The Greek
tongue possessed no word for space."
SA continues: Now that's something! "no word
for space".
[Campbell continues in the next sentence]
"The far away and the invisible were ipso facto
'not there'. The Greek term 'cosmos' referred not to
a field of space and force, but to a sum of
harmoniously ordered bodies well defined, Euclidean,
measurable, and perceptible. Euclidean number was a
definition of bounds. 'So that, inevitably,' as
Spengler declared, 'the Classical became by degrees
the Culture of the small.'
The reach into boundlessness of the Indian mind,
on the other hand, which is well epitomized in its (to
us) ridiculous integer, the 'palya' ('a period of
countless years') by which even precise numbers are
rendered imprecise, has so dilated the cosmic
spectacle that the actualities at hand are simply
unworthy of the notice of the wise. In contrast to
the Greek, whose reading of the cosmos began with the
visible and pressed only a little into space, the
space of which his eye might become aware, the Indian
[on the other hand] opened his cosmology with space
(akasa)..."
SA continues: Understand. One is no more correct
than the other. Each is valid and correct in what
pursuits are well-taken. It is the bridge of the two,
east meets west. In this understanding, though, I
think it is also valid to point out that since the
west can understand the east, and the east can
understand the west, the west has east within itself,
and the east has west within itself, etc... etc...
well, here it is - more, heavy snow,
SA
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