The Eastern influence on the Western thought, with special reference to Buddhist philosophy and Nietzsche

Abstract

Eastern philosophical trends influenced Western thought immensely in the later modern period. This is especially evident in Kantian and Post Kantian philosophers. This study focused on Buddhist influence on NIETZSCHE (1844 - 1900) who is one of the twentieth century most important, controversial and influential philosophers. Fredrich Nietzsche is the author many philosophical works including The Birth of Tragedy (1872), untimely Meditation (1873-6), Human, All Too Human (1878-80), The Dawn (1881), The Gay Science (1882), -Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), On The Genealogy of Mora (1887), The Anti-Christ (1888), The Autobiography, Ecce Homo (1888) and other writing The main philosophical task of Nietzsche is to unmask the fictions and delusions of Europe values, in the light of a Buddhist understanding of philosophy and ethics.

The main contribution of Buddhist philosophy consists of the critique of metaphysic with deep consideration of social change through meditative and existential understanding. the historians of Indian philosophy consider Buddhist philosophy, as the best form of India thinking, for its critique of metaphysics and the dialectical understanding of reality and for notion of Nihilism. The existential understanding and the value system of Buddhist thou influenced many Post Modern thinkers. Nietzsche also deals with overturning the history Western Metaphysics, European Nihilism and the Principle of new valuation of Western philosophy. Nietzsche's mission on "The will to power" is an attempt at a revaluation of values, based on an Eastern understanding of philosophy and values. Nietzsche's approach the conventional problems of Western philosophy is unique and he identifies the experience that determines his thinking.

"Life ... more mysterious since the day the great liberator came over me - the thought that life should be an experiment of knowers" ( The Gay Science. 1882. Book IV no. 324).

The fundamental position within which Nietzsche unfolds the guiding question 0 Western thought is deeply influenced by an understanding of eastern existential philosophy an Self-realization. The understanding of the essence of being and the practical realization 0 values have been symbolized as ' death of God' in Buddhist philosophy and Nietzsche' Thinking.

In Nietzsche's discourses, Zarathustra voices the Nietzschean idea of 'over- man' which can be compared with the Buddhist 'Bodhisatva' ideal- that has come to be association with Nietzsche more than any other ideal. The doctrine of Eternal Return - being as a whole touches the fundamental thought of Nietzsche' s philosophy.