The earliest Eastern philosophical reflections reveal a cosmos construed not as static or atomised but as a dynamic, relational field. In the Vedic tradition, hymns of the Rigveda articulate the universe as a network of interdependent forces (ṛta), in which the arising of phenomena is inseparable from cosmic order and ritual enactment. Possibility is structured through the interplay of natural forces, ethical injunctions, and symbolic performance: what may occur is contingent on alignment with the underlying harmony of the cosmos.
In parallel, early Taoist thought, as expressed in the Tao Te Ching, frames reality as flowing, emergent, and responsive to relational patterns. The Tao is not a substance but a structuring principle: the generative source of all becoming, manifesting through spontaneous alignment (wu wei) rather than coercion or hierarchy. Potential is realised not through domination of forms, but through attunement to the relational currents that constitute the world.
Both traditions foreground relationality over substance, cyclicity over linearity, and potential as emergent from the alignment of multiple interdependent elements. Possibility is not abstracted from context; it arises within the ongoing interplay of cosmic, ethical, and symbolic forces. Early Eastern thought thus establishes a foundational lens for understanding how relational and processual frameworks condition what can be, offering a contrast to contemporaneous or later Western linear, hierarchical models.
Modulatory voices: Vedic hymns (Rigveda), Laozi (Tao Te Ching).
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