Sanskrit is not an ordinary human language. It is a collection of sounds that leads to the deepest experiences that human beings have ever had. It is true that even music of many varieties can lead to such experiences for some people, but the most important aspect of Sanskrit in this regard is that it offers a systematic and objective way to reach such experiences. The most important source of these mystical Sanskrit verses is the Veda, which is considered to be several millennia old. The Vedic mantras have a power no less universal than that of modern science and engineering! An interesting aspect of Sanskrit is that it is not only available in the form of these powerful verses, but also in the form of a spoken language that humans can use to communicate with each other. There are various theories about how this language came into existence and how it evolved. Though there is a lot of debate going on about its geographical origin and extent, what we will examine here is its temporal origin and evolution. How did humans come to acquire this almost magical language? What effects did it have on the society? And what effects did society have on the language? As they say, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction!
A very important question that needs to be answered before we understand the evolution of Sanskrit is which came first, the Vedic verses or the commonly spoken aspect of the language? Did people already use Sanskrit to converse on a day to day basis before the Vedic hymns were discovered? Sanskrit as a spoken language is so precise and has such strict grammatical rules, that it is extremely unlikely for primitive societies to have developed it without having a strong motivation of some other kind. Perhaps what happened during those pre-historic times is that a few receptive humans living on the river banks started hearing some mystical sounds accompanied by very deep meditative experiences. These sounds were perhaps initially quite gross, but slowly became more refined and concretised in the form of the Sanskrit verses. What these receptive humans must have then realised is that these deep experiences are not just accompanied by the Sanskrit verses, but can also be caused by their repeated chanting in a certain manner. What a great discovery that must have been! Over time, they came to realise that they were not the only ones, but that were other fellow humans who also had similar experiences. They must have then gotten together and started compiling these verses into what came to be known as the Veda. But then what about the spoken Sanskrit used for human communication? How did that develop?
In Sanskrit, it is said that the names that objects have is not arbitrary but actually reflects something fundamental about that object. The sound of the Sanskrit name of an object actually signifies the fundamental vibration associated with that object. In the Vedic system, all objects are essentially considered to be just different vibrations of a common unifying deeper reality called the Prakriti. When the Vedic seers discovered the powerful Sanskrit verses, they must have also felt a resonance with various material objects when these mystical sounds were uttered by them. That would have made them realise that these verses can not only lead to deep experiences, but can also be used to refer to the physical/material universe around them, and then slowly they would have developed it into a spoken language.
The above ideas are surely speculative since we do not have any concrete evidence to prove either ways. But if the above sounds reasonable, then it follows that Sanskrit as a spoken language is very unlikely to have been the lingua franca of ancient India. That is because Sanskrit perhaps developed as a means of attaining perfection, which anyways very few people are interested in. And there was almost surely already a language in existence before Sanskrit was developed. So, for the common masses, there would have been little motivation to learn a new language whose main purpose is anyways limited to a select few. However, the common masses perhaps did have some knowledge of this language at some point of time since both the greatest epics of India (Ramayana and Mahabharata) are written in Sanskrit. These epics were clearly written for the masses and were not restricted to a selected few. It also could have been that the epics were written in Sanskrit since it formed the common language of the Vedic seers from all over India, and then these individuals narrated it in the local language of their own geographical and cultural territories.
Sanskrit can play a very crucial role in our spiritual progress, if used judiciously. The Sanskrit sounds are actually very powerful, whose effect can be felt if the verses are recited properly even for a few days. The word OM or AUM, if chanted properly, is said to be sufficient to take one to liberation! This does not require any knowledge of spoken Sanskrit, though a rudimentary knowledge can surely help in proper recitation. It is tempting to imagine what would happen if everybody in a given society spoke Sanskrit! Would everyone become enlightened or at least spiritually advanced? That is unlikely to be the case as Ravana was also a great Sanskrit scholar. And if Arjuna knew Sanskrit, Duryodhana must have known it too. Merely knowledge of a language, no matter how divine it is, does not mean anything much. It is about how we use it for our upliftment or downfall. And lack of knowledge of a language also does not mean much. Interestingly, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, guru of Swami Vivekananda, was known to be almost illiterate! In summary, although there is not much benefit of promoting spoken Sanskrit mindlessly, there is surely lot of merit in learning the correct pronunciation of a few Sanskrit verses and reciting them daily. Try it out and see the difference for yourself! Who knows, may be you can listen to what the ancient Rishis have been trying to say for all eternity!
This contains all the errors that I pointed out yesterday.
ReplyDeleteIt is obvious that it was the language of a people first and foremost and that they expressed their cognitions in their own language.
People can't understand a foreign language without extensive education.
So Vedic Sanskrit can only have been a people's language. They themselves knew what their cognitions were saying they did not need commentaries until much later when their language had evolved to the point where the original was obscure, like 7th Century Frankish is to today's French speakers.
This contains all the errors that I pointed out yesterday.
ReplyDeleteIt is obvious that it was the language of a people first and foremost and that they expressed their cognitions in their own language.
People can't understand a foreign language without extensive education.
So Vedic Sanskrit can only have been a people's language. They themselves knew what their cognitions were saying they did not need commentaries until much later when their language had evolved to the point where the original was obscure, like 7th Century Frankish is to today's French speakers.
Thanks! This is surely the traditional view, which I don't agree with. What you call "obvious" doesn't seem to have any strong support from reason or evidence.
ReplyDeleteTo add to unfounded speculations, I have similar thoughts after trying to piece together the history of vedic holism and the profound shift that took place between 1900 and 600BC when the Vedic civilization was in decline and facing annihilation from climate change. This was too recent to have been when the Vedas were composed, but not too recent for when they were transcribed to writing. Earliest writing of any kind appears around 3300BC. That was around the very beginning of the Harappan civilization which was Vedic as evidenced by seals and artefacts as well as city designs. It was probably a racially mixed society. The term "Aryan" most likely referred to the rishis of indigenous origin, as it means those with high minds, not any race or foreign origin. The Written Veda refers to the ancient Rishis who knew all this, so its origin, at least as a philosophy, seems clearly indicated before writing. It seems to me indeed that Vedic Sanskrit was far too precise and technical to have been anything but the language of the sages. Our experience with that is with a former spoken language, Latin, that died and became the technical language of catholocism. Living languages never have precise concepts needed for scripture, ot for science. But I suppose the technical version could have come before or after the colloquial version. Given the likely mix of cultures in Harappa and its rural foundation and strong influence or at least knowledge from outlying regions as far as Arabia, Mesopotamia, and the Middle East (maybe farther), a unified precise language generally shared seems unlikely to me. I would place my bets on a common ancestor language from which the rishis developed Sanskrit for technical purposes, and after thousands of years it developed a loose cultural version with all the diversity we see today. I think only a language in disuse, or oneninvented, would have been adopted for scripture. It also seems likely to me that the writing of the Vedas and early Upanishads took place during that period of decline, which was due primarily to changing climat resulting in burial of the entire region by the Thar desert. That happened over the course of 1500 years!! We cant imagine the cultural andmphilosophical impact of having the most revered and proven gods ever, turn against the society to destroy the apparently lush paradise they lived in when the Saraswati river was the largest of seven as described in the Veda. That has now been verified by satellite and geological evidence. My guess is that the wise sages, who's lives involved deep connection with nature and currents of time,consciousness, and civilization, saw what was happening and undertook a massive effort to preserve the knowledge. Perhaps even the mantras were not so standardized before 2000BC. The chants, I am told, have an intricate and repetitive pattern that seems designed to prevent alteration. Maybe that was exactly what happened. Today, if the scientists and wisest people ( ote, that can be two different groups) knew that our civilization would die out in hundreds of years, there would certainly be efforts to preserve our legacy.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for sharing these very interesting ideas, most of which I tend to agree with! It is quite possible that standardisation of the Mantras took place much later. One point where I disagree is, "... a common ancestor language from which the rishis developed Sanskrit for technical purposes". The spoken Sanskrit is deeply tied with the Mantras, which are considered to be Divine revelations, and not human constructs. So, spoken Sanskrit was mostly constructed from these Mantras, rather than any other human language.
DeleteThese days I am reading the autobiography of an American boy, Richard Slavin, who turned into an ISKCON monk, Radhanath Swami - "The Journey Home". The swami writes that when he was doing severe penance in the Himalayas, meditating on a rock amidst river Ganga and surviving on one carrot and river Ganga water a day for a month, he was revealed sound AUM and Hare Krishna mantra on different days.
ReplyDeleteI also think fundamental sounds like AUM and maybe some other mantras have been revealed to the seers in a very deep state of oneness with oneself and the nature, instead of people deriving them from a language.
Thanks for sharing this! :)
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