were the following (with names in Sanskrit): Brahmins, i.e., priests (white); Kshatriyas, i.e., warriors and rulers (red); Vaishyas, i.e., artisans, merchants, and farmers (yellow); and Shudras, i.e., peasants and other laborers (black).16
The Traditionalist author Frithjof Schuon has remarked that these castes are related to fundamental tendencies of human nature, which are different ways of envisaging an empirical reality. Thus, for the Brahmin, it is the changeless and transcendent which is real; for the Kshatriya, it is action which is real; for the Vaishya, it is material values such as security and prosperity which are real; and for the Shudra, it is bodily things such as eating and drinking which are real. Interestingly, even the outcast, or Chandala, is related to a basic human tendency, namely an inclination to transgression due to a chaotic character. Psychologically speaking, a natural caste is a world, and people live in different worlds according to the reality on which they are centred. On the relation between caste and race, Schuon writes that race is a form [or formal reality] while caste is a spirit [or spiritual reality]. Therefore, caste takes precedence over race because spirit has priority over form.17
It has been pointed out by Hans Günther that the caste system in India corresponded to the universal order of life, as conceived by the Indo-Europeans. In this understanding, the whole cosmos, including divine rule and responsible human life, comprises a divine order. The Indians called it rita, of which the gods Mitra and Varuna (the latter called Ouranos, meaning Heaven, by the Hellenes) are the guardians. The meaning of rita in Sanskrit is order, rule, or truth. Rita is thus the principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything within it. Such a cosmic, ordering principle is also recognized in Hellenic philosophy (where it is called the Logos) and Chinese philosophy (where it is called the Tao). As Günther remarks about the Indian system, “The caste law was regarded as corresponding to the law of world order (Sanskrit, dharma), or the ius divinum as the Romans described it. Participation in the superior spiritual world of the Vedas, Brahmanas, and Upanishads originally determined the degree of caste. The higher the caste, the stricter was the sense of duty to lead a life corresponding to the world order.”18
In a later chapter we will see how Plato appropriated this Indo-European social organization in his political philosophy. Now, when considering traditional Indo-European thought, we could say that Indian and Hellenic philosophy represent its Eastern and Western branches, respectively. Henceforth, we will focus on various themes encountered in Hellenic philosophy and their continuation (in a qualified manner) in traditional Christian theology, both Greek and Latin, as well as in socio-political thought, including forms of government.
1. Quiles and López-Menchero, Grammar, 58–66; Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 104–111.
2. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 105–106.
3. Wikipedia: Indo-European migrations; Campbell, Race and Religion, 9; King, Origins, 28–33.
4. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 107; Yockey, Imperium, 323.
5. Quiles & López-Menchero, Grammar, 67, 75.
6. In the scientific sense, as used here, ‘race’ means a subspecies within a given species, since most animal and plant species consist of subspecies, or races. Consequently, there is no such entity as ‘the human race,’ as one often hears in political propaganda and media disinformation. Instead, the human species (Homo sapiens) consists of several races, or subspecies.
7. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 112–113.
8. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 112–113.
9. Yockey, Imperium, 276, 282, 289.
10. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 63, 66.
11. Campbell, Race and Religion, 8, 13–14.
12. Wikipedia: Beltane; Campbell, Race and Religion, 8–10.
13. Schuon, Ancient Worlds, 64.
14. Günther, Religious attitudes, 51; Marlow, “Hinduism and Buddhism,” 39.
15. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 38.
16. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 38–39; Wikipedia: Caste system in India.
17. Schuon, Castes, 11–14, 33, 36.
18. Wikipedia: Ṛita; Günther, Religious attitudes, 33–34.
Being and Non-being
Why is there something instead of nothing? This question may at first glance appear to be irrelevant or even foolish, but it is actually one of the most important of all questions. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, also called the Law of Entropy, the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time. In other words, a net loss of energy is inevitably taking place within any closed system. And since the universe in which we live is a closed system (albeit an unimaginably vast one), it should be inexorably moving away from things that exist to a state of nothingness. But instead, we observe a plethora of new things arising all the time, from the birth of solar systems to new life-forms appearing through evolutionary processes.
Our initial question could also be cast in ontological terms: why are there beings at all instead of only non-being? Broadly speaking, ‘being’ denotes that which exists and ‘non-being’ indicates that which does not exist, or nothingness. The study of being has come to be known as ontology. The Greek word ousia means the being, substance, or essence of a thing, while ‘ontology’ is derived from the Greek ta onta, meaning the things which actually exist;19 in other words, that which has being, or reality. Ontology is therefore an investigation into the nature of being. The purpose of such an undertaking is to distinguish that which is real from that which is unreal, and, since there are different levels of reality, also the more real from the less real. In other words, ontology deals with reality in the widest sense of the word.
The first Western thinker to distinguish between being and non-being was Parmenides (fifth century B.C.), who hailed from the Hellenic colony at Elea in southern Italy. It is not widely known that during the first millennium B.C. and continuing well into the Christian era, there was such a large Hellenic population in southern Italy, including Sicily, that the Romans referred to these areas as Magna Graecia, meaning Great Greece. In an influential poem titled On Nature (the contents of which was revealed to him by an unnamed goddess), Parmenides
