What
has Bhart?hari got to Say on Language?
Not being
an Indologist and not knowing Sanskrit I am at best a curious layman
full of questions. I decided
that I could play a limited but useful role in this preparatory seminar
by asking questions and looking not only for answers but also for
evidence in the texts and other artifacts of the Great Traditions
and the Little Traditions that would have a bearing on the answers.
Instead of cluttering the presentation with question marks,
I have a numbered series of propositions to offer, each with an implied
question. Isnt that so? The
propositions are grouped according to certain perspectives against
which the cosmic elements have been viewed. India here stands for
ancient and medieval south Asia.
The Islamic Tradition has been left out though not completely.
The Perspective of Cosmology
Any cosmology worth the name presupposes a certain philosophy
of reality in relation to a certain philosophy of understanding. There are two alternate ways of relating these two with two concomitant
styles of philosophizing.
1-A. There cannot
be a philosophy of reality distinct from a philosophy of understanding. Indeed the former flows from the latter.
In philosophizing it pays to be sceptial, reductionist, and
parsimonious. In India this
style of philosophizing was called the philosophy of search (nvkik).
1-B. Of course there
can be a philosophy of reality distinct from a philosophy of understanding.
Indeed the latter flows from the former.
In philosophizing it pays to be boldly speculative, phenomenological,
and integrationist. In India this style of philosophizing was called
the philosophy of vision (darana).
Indian cosmology started by asking what the Prime Cause (di-kraa) (not reducible to others) of the
universe is. The two styles
correspondingly offered two different answers.
2-A. The world (viva)
is a universe. The universe
comes from atoms (au,
plu).
2-B.
The world is a universe. The
universe comes from a single principle or Urgund.
The second answer has
been variously elaborated.
2-B.1 Vedic tradition:
This was the principle of growth (brahman).
2-B.2 gamic tradition: This was the principle
of energy (akti).
2-B.3 Synthetic traditions:
2-B.3-a This was the principle
of conjunction of the male and the female.
2-B.3-a-1. The constant male
and the variable female stand in a joyful union (mithuna).
2-B.3-a.-2. The many potent
yet passive males (puruas)
make it possible for one active yet latent female (prakti) to become more specific-and-manifest
(vyakta). At a certain point the male loses interest in watching
(being skin) and becomes free from involvement;
and the female loses interest in becoming more specific-and-manifest
and desists from it.
2-B.3-b This was the principle
of delegation, the constant growth delegating variable energy
to
2-B.3-b-1 The male power (vara)
2-B.3-b-2 The female power (akti)
Indian cosmology continued with the question as to what the
universe was made of or reducible to
3-A.1 The Universe
was reducible to certain running (or binding) threads (gua, namely the thread of essences (sattvagua), the thread of activity (rajogua), and the thread of inertia (tamogua).
3-A.2 The universe
was reducible to certain sensible quanta (tanmtra), namely, sound (abda), touch (spara),
visible form (rpa),
taste (rasa), smell (gandha).
3-B. the universal
power has created and controlled certain material being (bhta), namely, earth (pthivi), water (ap sg, pa pl), (fire (agni) and wind (vyu).
In the synthetic tradition the last two answers were married
together after adding a fifth member to the second list.
3-C.1 the universe
is made of five grossly accessible elements (sthula-bhta, mah-bhta),
namely, earth, water, fire, wind, ether (akaa), and five
subtly accessible elements (skma-bhuta, di-bhta),
namely, smell, taste, visible form, touch and sound that correspond
to them.
In the synthetic tradition (3-A.1), the first of the three
answers was also accommodated.
3-C.2 The animating
energy in the universe may be either manifest (vyakta) and
uneven (viama) or unmanifest (avyakta)
and even (sama). When
the thread of essence is operative energy tends to go from the unmanifest
to the manifest state (avasth),
when the thread of activity is operative, energy tends to stay manifest,
when the thread of inertia, is operative; and energy tends to go from
the manifest to the unmanifest.
Note : (3-C.2)
read with (3-A.1) makes one feel tempted to find an analogy between
the three threads and, correspondingly, information, energy, and matter
of modern physics as its variable primes.
The Perspective of Human History of Ideas
There
is an interesting parallel between Greek and Indian cosmology. Was there an Indo-European cosmology? The European order of the first four elements
is variable.
4.
The Indo-European cosmology: The Universe is made of four elements:
earth (hot and wet to Greeks,
heavy and dense to Indians)
water (cold and wet to
Greeks, cold and soft to Indians)
fire (hot and dry to Greeks,
hot to Indians)
air (cold and dry to Greeks,
light to Indians)
Note: Medieval
Europe added ether as the fifth element (quinta essentia) on
the authority of Plato, who spoke of the fifth non-limited element. Ancient India added ether as the fifth neutral element.
The parallel extends to their account of the microcosm of the
human person. The Greeks spoke of the four elements:
blood
phlegm : the cool temper
choler (yellow bile): the hot temper
melancholia (black bile)
The wind (of the respiratory and alimentary canals) was never
added to this list but often considered to be a major variable. The
Indians spoke of the three elements (dhtu)
corresponding to the middle three of the five cosmic elements.
phlegm (kapha): water: the system of fluids
choler (pitta): fire: the system of heating
wind (vta):
air: the system of impulses
The first two are also called: coldness (aitya),
hotness (uat).
(Incidentally, the Arabs cameup with a synthetic list: wind,
bile, phlegm, blood).
5.
The Indo-European cosmology: The human person (the body-mind complex)
is governed by three elements.
water:
phlegm
fire:
yellow bile
air
Note: The Greeks
split the fluid system into blood and phlegm, split the heating system
into yellow hot bile and black cold bile, and left out air.
The Indians recognized two manifestations of bile: hot bile
and cold bile.
The earth was recognized as the inert substratum of the human
body by the Indians and the Semitics.
The respiratory wind (pra,
anima, spiritus) was recognized as the animating principle of
the human body by the Indians, the Greeks, and the Semitics.
Speech (abda,
logos) was recognized by all the three as the animating principle
of the universe; the Indians linked it with sound (abda,
nda); the Greeks linked it with musical
sound.
It will perhaps be worthwhile to compare these with the classical
Chinese system of elements. (The
expression wu hsing is probably better translated as five
virtues or forces.) They are usually enumerated as follows:
chin (metal, which accepts form by melting and moulding)
mu (wood, which accepts form by cutting and carving)
shui (water, which soaks and descends)*
huo (fire, which blazes and ascends)
thu (earth, which accepts seeds and allows reaping)
It is interesting that air and ether are missing and that metal
and wood are present.
The Perspective of the Theory of Art
The animating principle of the universe was also identified
with water - jvana means both. The powerful image of the monsoon cloudburst
on the subparched earth, which then turns green, may be at the back
of this. Consider also the
coupling of the earth (pthiv)
and the sky (dyaus) (Vedic dyaus-pit - is cognate with Zeus and Jupiter.)
Another powerful image is that of vital sap (rasa) rising
in the growing plant. The
criss-cross semantic links can be shown thus:
6.
rasa
(1) juice
(2) taste
(1a)
(metaphor from 1) animating principle
(2a)
(metonymy from 2) enjoyment
Note: The historical
link, if any, between (1) and (2) is obscure.
But the identity of sound between (1a) and (2a) has been exploited
twice. That both (1a) and
(2a) are relevant for the theory of art is argued in A. Sankaran,
Some Theories of rasa and dhvani, Madras 1926, reprinted
New Delhi 1973, chapter 1.
7-A rasa
(1a) animating principle of the universe
(2a) enjoyment from contemplating this
Note: Taittirya-Upaniad raso vai sa
| rasa hyevya labdhvnand-bhavati |
7-B rasa
(1a) animating principle of a work of art
(2a) enjoyment from contemplating this
Note: The parallel between 7-A and 7-B was noticed
by Jaganntha.
The sense (1a) of rasa has also been exploited in yurvedic Pharmacology. There
is an interesting parallel between that and the theory of rasa
as the animating principle of a work of art.
8-A yurvedic Pharmacology:
(1)
material cause (kryin,
updna):
herbal substance
(2)
efficient cause (kraa):
the active principle (vrya)
(3)
animating energy: animating principle of medicinal cure (rasa)
Note: See Suruta cited S.N. Dasgupta, History
of Indian Philosophy, pp. 361-62, note.
8-B Theory of the reception of dramatic art
(1)
material cause, story content of the text (Kryrtha)
(2)
efficient cause, the various bhvas
in the work.
(3)
Animating energy, animating principle of art reception and enjoyment
(rasa)
Note : The parallel between 8-A and 8-B was pointed
out by D.K. Bedekar (Alocan,
Delhi, April-July, 1952; reprinted, January-March, 1990).
The Perspective of the Practice of Art
The cosmic elements can appear in the experimental content
of literary art and figurative plastic art.
In European and Chinese art the elements appear as powerful
presences animating the scene
earth as mountains, vast expanse of land
water as sea, flowing water, rain, snow
wind as storm
and thus often powerfully
affecting the human lives on the scene: giving a turn to events, sympathizing
with the emotional upheavals, and so forth.
In the practice (and the theory attendant on it) of the classical
Tamil poetry of the Interior (akam essentially love poetry),
five phases of love (uri) are associated with five kinds of
landscape. Thus, anxiety and separation in love is associated with
the neytal flower, the plants atumpu, punnai
seashore
nightfall
any season
seagull, crocodile, shark
wells, sea
selling fish and salt
fisherfolk
9. There are three literary traditions in
India:
9-A. ra poetics (Vedic hymns and the two major
epics)
9-B saskta
poetics (Classical Sanskrit literature and theatre and poetry modeled
on this)
9-C prkta poetics (Classical Tamil literature
of love, war, and bhakti, Buddhist literature in Pali and Sanskrit,
Prakrit and Sanskrit poetry with a Little Tradition base such as Ghsattasai
or Gitagovinda, Bhatkath
and other narrative cycles like Kathsaritsgara and bhakti
poetry).
10.
The Cosmic elements play on the whole a supportive rather than a dramatic
role in these three traditions, although there are important variations.
Indian figurative plastic
art is very much man-centred.
11. The cosmic elements play a minor supportive
role in Indian figurative plastic art.
In Indian architecture, the temple is conceived either in the
image of Man or in the image of the sacred Mountain.
Earth, water, air, and light play important constitutive roles
in Indian architecture.
In Indian arts of performance (sagta,
comprising singing, instrument playing, and dancing), the cosmic elements
play at best the role of a model for the technical organization of
the medium.
It is hoped that the various hypothesis proposed will bear
examination, and induce a fruitful reconsideration of received accounts
of the subject-matter.
* of ֿ֍ԭ says: ؍ þ֤ ֟ ־֯ף־
֑ցㄅ (gveda 10:81:4 ab) What was the tree? What
wood in sooth came from it? From which they fashioned on the earth
and heaven?
