[7] Volume III

     The third volume of the Plott project is entitled The
Patristic-Sutra Period (1980).  It traces the parallel
developments of the different systems and traditions from 325
to 800 A.D.  During this period there emerges the rich
variety of Chinese Buddhist philosophies alongside the later
developments of the varieties of non-European Christianity,
as well as the early Byzantine heritage in contrast with the
Roman/Latin tradition.  In India attention is focused on such
controversies as that between Buddhist idealist systems and
the realist Nyaya-Vaisesika and Jaina systems and the
remarkably sophisticated logic that emerges.  This volume
dramatically demonstrates that outside of Latin Europe there
was at this time really no period deserving the epitaph "dark
ages."
     The Patristic-Sutra Period is so named because this is
the era in which the great Mahayana Sutras emerge and begin
to dominate Central Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, right
alongside the final formulation of the Sutra literature of
the Jaina, the Nyaya Sutras, the Vaisesika Sutras, the
Samkhya and Yoga Sutras, and even the Brahma Sutra of
Badarayana which later becomes the canonical basis for
philosophizing in India.  About the same time, amidst many
controversies between rival "heresies," there emerges the
Christian Patristic adjustment of Greek philosophy to the
Biblical heritage.
     In his gently good-humored way Plott gives a hard time
to all that is self-satisfiedly provincial, sectarian,
antihumanist, anti-intellectual, heresy-hunting or science-
hating.  Consequently he enjoys poking a little fun at the
narrowness of Augustine (C.E. 354-430) or the irrationalism
of Bodhidharma (460-534, if he lived at all).  Plott's
style in this respect is reminiscent of Bertrand Russell except
that Russell was often pretty provincially Western himself.
Even Plott's humor is global.
     In a serious debate with either Buddhaghosa (fl. 412-
434) or Dignaga (fl. circa 480), Augustine would not, Plott
conjectures, come off very well.  Buddhaghosa's calm
collectedness and active expression of goodwill among the
common people (in preference to any and all debating) would
show up Augustine's disputatiousness, while Dignaga's
logical structuring of the dispute would be superior to
Augustine's rhetoric.  Having found his "better" in such a
debate, Augustine would, according to Plott, "storm back to
his study to write a scathing denunciation of this new-found
heretic, calling him everything from a Pelagian imp to the
devil himself!" (p. 144)  In another place (p. 131), Plott
explains that Augustine is very complex and so cannot be
easily categorized or evaluated.  Nevertheless, Albert the
Great, the teacher of Thomas Aquinas, spoke for Plott and
all more or less happy rationalists when he wrote, "In
matters of faith. . . I cannot dream to be equal to St.
Augustine; but in matters of science, I prefer to believe
Aristotle and the Arabs who were his commentators, for St.
Augustine simply did not know the nature of things" (p. 132).
     Plott argues that this can be illustrated either in
psychological or geological terms.  "Augustine's sense of
historical time is all wrong.  The strange idea that the
whole world was created at a definite date about four
thousand or so B.C. prevailed until very recently, and this
has worked perhaps irreparable harm.  By contrast the Hindu,
Jaina and Buddhist cosmology had long since been in terms of
vast expanses of time" (p. 145).  Psychologically,
"Augustine's bad conscience is "like an ominous ghost
haunting not only our homes but our churches
and whorehouses alike" (p. 131).
     In commenting on the realist Nyaya-Vaisesika view of
time in the thought of Vatsyayana, Plott writes (pp. 67-68):
     Needless to say, adequate commentary on this could
     involve comparisons even with Kant and Bergson in the
     usual sort of comparative studies, and we cannot deny
     that these studies have their place.  But in our
     historical perspective one could well re-examine
     Augustine's views on time as a fair comparison,
     remembering that according to present dating Vatsyayana
     was at his peak about 375 when Augustine was about
     eighteen years old. . . .  To what extent Augustine,
     therefore, was closer to the Mahayana idealist theory of
     time than to that of Vatsyayana's realist view we
     must leave to experts, along with the question of to
     what extent Vatsyayana granted some concessions to his
     Buddhist opponents. . . .
All of Plott's comments on Augustine tend to shrink
that thinker's importance when a truly global perspective is
used.  Shankara, a later figure, is for many the cultural
hero of Indian philosophy.  His importance may also shrink
somewhat in the broader, quite untraditional perspective
recommended by Plott.  To some extent, Plott concludes, the
Middle Ages transcended Augustine while being heavily
indebted to him.  Was Isidore of Seville (560-638) "really
trying to correct the subjectivist antiscientific influence
of Augustine?" (p. 499)  Related to this probing question is
Plott's observation in another place (p. 452) that while
almost all that was transmitted to Latin Europe came through
Augustine, Boethius, or Pope Gregory the Great, "still the
definitely medieval form that that heritage took was the work
of Isidore of Seville."