Much of the narrative heritage of India and Greece goes back to shared ancestral narratives told in early IE times – to ‘protonarratives’. (…) the Greek tradition quite often fuses or amalgamates traditions that were separate in the protonarrative and remain separate in the Sanskrit... At first sight the similarity consists in little more than a conflict between protagonist and god, leading to a change in sacrificial practice. However, on closer inspection one can distinguish at least eighteen rapprochements.
N. Allen (2015) quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins. quoting 2015: “Cyavana helps Aśvins, Prometheus helps humans: a myth about sacrifice”, Comparative Mythology 1, Harvard, Cambridge.
[Nick Allen has repeatedly shown that in many parallel motifs in the Mahābhārata and in Homer’s epics, the Indian version contains a spiritual element lacking in the European version:] “in parts of their careers, Arjuna and Odysseus show similarities so numerous and detailed that they must be cognate figures, sharing an origin in the proto-hero of an oral proto-narrative. (…) So, if both stories descend from a proto-narrative, there are two possibilities. Either the proto-journey was like the Greek and contained nothing relating to yoga, in which case the yogic aspect of the Sanskrit story was an innovation that developed in the Indian branch of the tradition. Or the proto journey was like the Sanskrit and was quasi-yogic or proto-yogic in character, in which case Greek epic tradition largely or wholly eliminated that aspect of the story. I shall argue for the second scenario, claiming both that the proto-narrative shared certain features with yoga and that the telling of such a story makes it likely that there already existed ritual practices ancestral to yoga. (…) I argue that some significant and fairly precisely identifiable features of yoga go back to the culture of those who told the proto-narrative (…) may well have been proto-Indo-European speakers.” ... “it is a priori quite likely that the account of the proto-hero's journey served as a myth explaining and justifying ritual practices ancestral to yoga as we know it.”
(N. Allen 1998), quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins. also quoted in Elst K. in Udayanath Sahoo (editor), Shobha Rani Dash (editor) - Great Indian Epics_ International Perspectives-Routledge (2021)
In parts of their careers, Arjuna and Odysseus show similarities so numerous and detailed that they must be cognate figures, sharing an origin in the proto-hero of an oral proto-narrative. For present purposes, many questions about this proto narrative can be left unanswered. Was it told in prose or verse or a mixture of the two? Was it told in the Urheimat or original homeland (whatever the location and date of that logically necessary zone of space-time), or did it diffuse somewhat after the dispersal began? It does not matter. The similarities cannot be explained either by chance, or by Jungian archetypes, or by diffusion of the Homeric epics from Greece to India. If they are as striking as I think, then, one way or another, they must be due to common origin in a proto-narrative.
N. Allen 1998: 2, quoted in Elst K. in Udayanath Sahoo (editor), Shobha Rani Dash (editor) - Great Indian Epics_ International Perspectives-Routledge (2021) 55-6
There are reports by writers of the Hellenistic and Roman periods that Greeks had visited India in much earlier times; Plutarch in his Lives… reports that legendary Lycurgus of Sparta visited India (Lycurgus, 6). In fact Plutarch, Diodoros Sikeliotes (known as Siculus) and Diogenes Laertios manage between them to send just about every Greek sage into the East (including Pythagoras and Democritos, but notably not Socrates and Aristotle).
Kazanas, N. (2015). Vedic and IndoEuropean studies. Aditya Prakashan. , chapter Archaic Greece and the Veda, also in : Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 82, No. 1/4 (2001), pp. 1-42
Plato, through the Pythagoreans and also the Orphics, was subjected to the influence of Hindu thought but he may not have been aware of it as coming from India.
Lomperis (1984), Lomperis T 1984, Hindu influence on Greek Philosophy, Calcutta; quoted in Kak S. 2000 ‘Indic Ideas in the Graeco-Roman World’ in Indian Historical Review in press. quoted from Kazanas, N. (2015). Vedic and IndoEuropean studies. Aditya Prakashan. , chapter Archaic Greece and the Veda, also in : Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 82, No. 1/4 (2001), pp. 1-42
In Greece the name rbhu appears as Orpheus, the famous poet and musician from Thrace who gave rise to the Orphic cult and mysteries. The later story about his descent into Hades to recover Eurydice may well be an echo of a rejuvenation attempt, while the shamanist aspect of the myth is maintained. Orpheus’s poetry and music links well with the rbhus’ poetic power in [the Rigveda]. It is therefore very curious that many philologists refuse to see this connection... There is no substantial reason, philological or semantic, why Greek Orpheus and Germanic elf should not be related to Sanskrit rbhu.
Kazanas, N. D. (2001). Indo-European deities and the Rgveda. JOURNAL OF INDOEUROPEAN STUDIES, 29(3/4), 257-294.
