Advaita and Christianity

[Sreekanth Sathayanarayana]

Namaste,

I am not sure if my information is relevant to Advaita. Since  the topics are
going towards the origin of words and languages, I thought I will share this
information.

There is a website that has quite some information about the origin of different
langauages. Please take a look at http://www.friesian.com/cognates.htm.

Aum namah ShivAya
Sreekanth

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> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 18:31:32 -0600
> From: Sankaran Kartik Jayanarayanan <kartik at ECE.UTEXAS.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Advaita and Christianity
> To: ADVAITA-L at advaita-vedanta.org
>
> On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Vivek Anand Ganesan wrote:
>
> > In a different thread,
> >  "Can iishvara pull out a jiiva from bondage?",
> >  ShrI Cowart wrote:
> > > There is a strong non-dual tradition in Christianity
> > > (Eckhardt and
> > > others).
> > Hello :
> >   I have been wondering about this for a while. I would
> > like
> > to learn more.  I have given a few bits of knowledge that
> > I have culled.  Any corrections and/or comments are
> > welcome.
> >
> > I. Gnosis and Pistis
> > --------------------
> >   Since Early Christian theology was mostly influenced by
> > Greek philosophy most Christian terms are Greek.  I have
> > specifically come across two that have caught my attention.
> > Gnosis = Realization = Jnana ( Is it so? )
>
> The words "GYAna" (Sanskrit), "Gnosis" (greek), "gnosko" (Latin), "know"
> (English), "kennen" (German), etc. are all related, being words of
> Indo-European origin.
>
> But the word "gnosis" in Greek philosophy doesn't have anything to do with
> mystical realization, in the advaitic sense or otherwise. It's simply a
> referent to knowledge in the philosophical context.
>
> > Pistis = Faith ( I don't know the Sanskrit equivalent ).
> > It is possible that there was some Indian influence on
> > Greek
> > philosophy, especially since Pythogras had studied in
> > India.
>
> This is most probably not accurate. There are stories about Plato, Jesus,
> etc. visiting India to learn philosophy/religion, and not one of them is
> taken seriously by historians.
>
> >   Only recently did I learn about the Gnostic school of
> > Christianity ( from a Hollywood movie, no less ).  It seems
> > that this school was quite popular in the early days but
> > was
> > later persecuted by the doyens of orthodoxy.  They
> > emphasize
> > inner-realization ( Gnosis ).It also seems that a papal
> > bull
> > was passed that outlawed Gnosis and established only
> > pistis.
> >
>
> Interesting! What's the name of this movie?
>
> > II. Dogma and Kerygma
> > ---------------------
> >   These are two more terms which might have some
> > commonality
> > with Indian thought.  Specifically, Is
> >   Dogma = Dharma and Kerygma = Karma?
> >
>
> You can consult dictionary.com, a pretty good resource.
>
> AFAIK, the word "dharma" means "to hold firm" and has its counterpart in
> the Latin "firmus." Whereas the word "Dogma" is derived from "Dek" meaning
> "to accept." I don't think they are related.
>
> "Kerygma" means "to preach" -- not sure how it can be connected to Karma.
>
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > -Vivek.
>
> -Kartik
>
> --
> bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam
>
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