ভূমিকা
Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 1, Book 1 Chapter 4: Greek Thought Greek Thought by M.M Sharif The Early Beginnings The thinking of the early Greeks, like that of all ancient peoples, Egyptians, Babylonians, Hittites, Phoenicians, and Indians, was more mythological and speculative, more poetical and theogonical than physical or, metaphysical. It exhibited more the play of imagination than the working of reason.
It is true that the basic effort of the Greeks, as of those other peoples, was to understand the origin and nature of things, but, like children, what they understood was a world of their own make‑believe rather than the real world around them. They personified all elements of nature into powerful and immortal divinities, having the same desires, passions, and relationships as themselves, and endowed them with powers more or less proportionate to their magnitude.
The sky, the earth, and the indeterminate space between them, the darkness under the earth, the ocean, river, or water supposed to encircle the earth, thunder and lightning, day and night, air and ether, love and soul, were all divinities respectively named as Ouranos, Gaia, Caos, Erebos, Okeanos, Zeus, Day, Night, Air, Aether, Eros, and Psyche. Similarly, the lowest region below the earth was named Tartaros, the god of punishment, and the region above that, Hades, the god of the dead.
For Homer, all gods originated from Okeanos (water) and his sister and wife, Tethys. For Hesiod, in the beginning there was shapeless indeterminate space (Caos) containing the seeds of all things. From him sprang Night, the mother of sleep and subduer of all gods, and the darkness under Mother Earth (Erebos); and the couple produced Day and the upper reaches of space (Aether). Next came into being Mother Earth (Gaia) and love (Eros) the latter of which rules the hearts of gods and men.
Mother Earth then gave birth to Heaven (Ouranos) and then by mating with this son, she produced water (Okeanos). For the Orphics, Night was the first and from her came Heaven and Mother Earth. Though Eros was produced at a very early stage, reproduction was not always the result of mating. For example, in Hesiodic cosmogony Caos produced Night and Erebos, and these two produced Ether and Day, and Gaia gave birth to Portos, either without mating or without sleeping with their mates.