Whether or not Plotinus and his disciple Porphyry were "influenced" by some aspects of Indian philosophical thought, has been a familiar but also very controversial and passionate point of argument.¹ Emile Bréhier (1928) claims that such Indian — namely upanisadic — influences may be detected in the life and works of Plotinus, but since Armstrong's (1936) critical reply to Bréhier's thesis, most scholars involved in Neoplatonic Studies have agreed with Armstrong's view that early Neoplatonism must be interpreted as a purely original development of the Greek philosophical tradition.