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In the Phaedrus, Plato (through his mouthpiece, Socrates) shares the allegory of the chariot to explain the tripartite nature of the human soul or psyche. The chariot is pulled by two winged horses, one mortal and the other immortal. The mortal horse is deformed and obstinate.
The philosophical import of the chariot images found in the Katha Upanishad and the Phaedrus is considered here. It is claimed that the resemblance in the accounts provided in these disparate texts is not merely incidental. Rather, each chariot-image should be read as contributing to a careful answer to the same thorny philosophical problem: the identification and justification of the best life for the individual. It is argued that each serves to illuminate an internal and complex account of the self, which grounds and supports an effective rejection of the life spent in pursuit of the satisfaction of bodily desires in favor of the life spent in pursuit of wisdom.
Schiltz (2006) makes extensive comparison between Plato's chariot myth and that in the Hindu Katha Upanishad, as does Uebersax (2007). In the Katha Upanishad, we are told, "Know the Self to be the master of the chariot, and the body to be the chariot. ...
The Phaedo’s intense preoccupation with the notions of self-liberation and self-transcendence in the face of death is strikingly reminiscent of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. It is therefore not surprising that comparative philosophers have shown great interest in comparing this particular Platonic work to various South Asian texts: The Phaedo has been compared to the philosophy underlying yoga and Patanjali, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta, the canonical account of the Buddha’s final days. Of particular relevance is the Katha Upanishad, which shares with the Phaedo enough common features, both textual and structural and thematic, for a comparative analysis to be fruitful. These striking resemblances enable me to bring important dissimilarities in the dialogical processes into focus— dissimilarities which have much to convey to us philosophically. These dissimilarities demonstrate that although the two traditions engaged in transformative ideas and practices that centered on the liberation of the soul, there is still a substantial difference between the nature of the philosophy celebrated by the Greeks and the mystical thought developed by the Upanishadic sages.
The preaching of Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavadgita contains different levels of meaning. One element of meaning is the content of the preaching itself. But the fact that Krishna's preaching takes the form of a dialogue reveals more layers of meaning. These layers can be found in Krishna's preaching and Arjuna's responses, but they are also embedded in the narrative plot of the Mahabharata epic. The dialogue represents four relationships between Krishna and Arjuna: a friend-friend relationship, a master-disciple relationship, a God-devotee relationship and a Self-I relationship. This Indian concept of dialogue is different from current Western concepts of dialogue.
