The claim that philosophy emerged in the Ancient Greek period is an idea that needs to be scrutinized. If it is intended to prove the fallacy of this claim, it will be enough to look at ancient civilizations such as India, China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Iran. For example, the Rigveda, which is thought to be the oldest written text of the Indian civilization and the Indo-European language family, and the first text of the Vedas, which is assumed to have been written before the 16th century BC, or the Upanishads, which are thought to have been composed before the 7th century BC, are examined, it is seen that most of the ideas encountered in Ancient Greek philosophy are included in these works. For example, water, which Thales saw as the fundamental principle or arkhe of everything, and a similar explanation he made based on this principle, are defended by Pracāpati Parameshthin, a thinker who lived centuries before Thales and whose name is mentioned in the Rigveda. Apeiron, Anaximander’s eternal and limitless arkhe, corresponds to Aditi in ancient Indian philosophy. In Anaximenes’ system, the air, the basic principle from which everything emerges, corresponds to Prāṇa, which corresponds to breath or vital breath in ancient Indian philosophy. We see that Diogenes of Sinope’s cynical morality and negative attitude towards life was previously adopted and defended by Raikva of the Chariot in the ancient Indian cultural world. 

We see that the similarities between Ancient Greek Philosophy and Ancient Indian Philosophy are approached more cautiously in Western literature. One often says that questions are more important than answers in philosophy. The desired answer to each question leads to the emergence of new questions. Let us get to the main subject of our study by asking the following questions: “How can we ignore that there is a philosopher named Parameshthin in India who said that the first cause, in the beginning, was ‘water’?”¹ “How should we understand the similarity between the life and philosophy of Raikva of the Chariot, mentioned in the Upanishads, and the life and philosophy of the ancient Greek thinker, the cynic Diogenes of Sinope?” “Is it possible to think of the thoughts of Buddha, which are far from God and spirit, only in religious codes and terminology?”² “What about explaining the soul-body relationship with the example of a horse-drawn chariot in Plato's Phaedrus and Katha Upanishad?”³ Of course, it is possible to increase the number of these questions. Such questions draw attention to the numerous similarities between ancient Greek and ancient Indian philosophy. These questions will lead us to think that the similarities between the two philosophical systems, which cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence, indicate a relationship of borrowing, inspiration, or influence relationship between them.

Even though many philosophers now accept and research this subject and its influence, some philosophers or historians of philosophy seem to be not ready to accept this claim. Unfortunately, Western sources still contain interpretations that dismiss the apparent similarities between the two philosophical systems as mere coincidence, which is hardly surprising. For example, Richard Seaford, in his work titled The Origins of Philosophy in Ancient Greece and Ancient India, first published in 2020, claims that we cannot see the similarities between both philosophical systems as a relationship of borrowing or inspiration. According to him, if there had been an interaction between the Ancient Indian cultural world and the Ancient Greek cultural world before the time of Alexander the Great (326 BC), the traces of this would be evident in the earliest written works of the Greek cultural tradition⁴. It is thought that the first Greek scholar to mention information about ancient Indian culture was Hecataeus of Miletus, born in the mid-sixth century BC; the second Greek scholar is most likely Herodotus, born in 484 BC.⁵ Western experts often overlook the fact that in the history of Western philosophy, the number of philosophers who openly acknowledge being inspired by “Eastern” or specifically “Indian” ideas or who have incorporated them into their philosophical systems, can be counted on one hand. 

This study aims to outline how Ancient Indian philosophy was shaped and to compare it with Ancient Greek philosophy in the context of Rigveda. It should be noted that Prof. Dr. Korhan Kaya’s work, Hint Felsefesinin Temelleri, played a significant role in shaping the ideas presented in this study. As a result of this research, we aim to demonstrate that the apparent similarities between the ancient Indian and Ancient Greek philosophy were not coincidental. These similarities likely emerged because Ancient Greek philosophy was inspired by, influenced by, or borrowed ideas from Ancient Indian philosophy