Language and Linguistics
The Hindu tradition goes back to the prehistoric mergers of various linguistic and cultural communities in the South Asian region. Most of the languages of modern North India are members of the Indo-European language family, and Sanskrit, particularly Vedic Sanskrit, is the oldest known language of this family in South Asia. As the language of the Vedas, the scriptures of the Hindu tradition, Sanskrit plays a very important role. Related to Sanskrit are a whole range of ancient vernaculars, generically called Prakrit, which were used as languages of religious expression by the Jains and the Buddhists in ancient times, explicitly in opposition to the Sanskrit language used by the Brahmanical tradition. Other significant language families in India include the Dravidian language family, seen in the major languages of South India, namely Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada. The interactions among these various linguistic and cultural traditions and their conflicts and compromises over linguistic issues are an important part of the religious history of South Asia. In later times, vernacular languages throughout South Asia emerged as vehicles of devotional approaches to god, again in opposition to the Sanskrit language used by the Brahman elites, and there were interesting conflicts and compromises between upholders of the prominence of various language varieties. These also form a significant part of the religious history of South Asia.
The word saṃskṛta is not known as a label of a language variety during the vedic period. The general term used for language in the vedic texts is vāc. The vedic poet-sages ( ṛṣis) belonged to communities that are designated by the term “Ārya,” and they refer to nonvedic outsiders by various terms such as “Dāsa” and “Dasyu.” The gods are generically referred to by the term deva, and the language of the hymns is said to be devī vāc (divine language). The language created by the gods is then spoken by the animate world in various forms. The divine language in its ultimate form is so mysterious that three-quarters of it is said to be hidden from the humans, who have access to only a quarter. The vedic poet-sages say that this divine language enters into their hearts and that they discover it through mystical introspection. The poet–sages consider themselves to be craftsmen of language. They do not create it, but they shape the form of the religious expression by selecting the best expressions and leaving out the uncultured expressions. The process is explicitly compared to cleansing grain with a sieve. This provides us with a distinction between the language in its common use and the language that is deliberately chosen and fashioned for its appeal to the gods. Just as the language used by the vedic poet-sages is the divine language, the language used by the nonvedic people is said to be ungodly (adevī) or demonic (asuryā).
The different uses of language are referred to by different verbs in the Vedas. For instance, we have verbs like “to praise,” “to sing,” “to invoke,” each of which denotes a specific function of the scriptural language. The reification of various forms of language is also manifest in the Vedas in the use of various nouns such as “praise,” “song,” “honeyed speech,” “chant,” “benediction,” and “desires.” Not only is the language an act, but also, as a reified object, it gradually appears in many more conceptual frames. Instead of simply saying “I praise god Indra,” the vedic poet says something like, “These songs of ours, exceedingly sweet, these hymns of praise ascend to you, like ever-conquering chariots” (ṚV. 8.3.15).
The reified language objects like “prayer,” “praise,” and “chant” assume greater potency and durability. These linguistic objects are then looked at as instruments of achieving particular religious goals, as products of particular poet-sages, and as objects that can be preserved and perpetuated as a scriptural tradition. For example, when a poet–sage says, “I crush these germs with the incantation of Agastya” (AVŚ. 2.32.3), we can see several dimensions of the religious language at work. There is a belief that Agastya produced a particular incantation at a particular time. Then there is the belief that this incantation was very effective in destroying the germs. Further, this widespread belief in the efficacy of Agastya’s incantation led to its preservation by the priestly community and its repeated performance by them for the same effect. Here are the seeds for the creation of a scriptural text, which, repeated on a massive scale, led to the emergence of the voluminous vedic corpus. The belief in the power of one’s own incantations is expressed eloquently in the Vedas.
The externalization and reification of language also led to the development of mystical and devotional approaches to it. Language was perceived as an essential tool for approaching the gods, invoking them, and asking their favors and thus for the successful completion of a ritual performance. While the gods were the powers that finally yielded the wishes of their human worshippers, one could legitimately look at the resulting reward as ensuing from the power of the religious language, or the power of the performing priest. This way, the language came to be looked upon as having mysterious creative powers, and as a divine power that needed to be propitiated before it could be successfully used to invoke other gods. This approach to language ultimately led to the deification of language and the emergence of Vāc or Vākdevī, the goddess of speech, and a number of other gods who are called Brahmaṇaspati, Bṛhaspati, Vākpati (“Lord of Speech”). Like offering oblations to gods like Indra and Varuṇa, we also see vedic priests offering oblations to the goddess of speech and to the various lords of speech.
We notice the divinity of speech and its mysterious existence and powers. In contrast to the valorous deeds of the divine language, the language of the nonvedic people yields neither fruit nor blossom (ṚV. 10.71.5). “Yielding fruit and blossom” is a phrase indicative of the creative power of speech that produces rewards for the worshipper. From being a created but divine entity, the speech rises to the heights of being a divinity in her own right and eventually to becoming the substratum of the existence of the whole universe. The deification of speech is seen in hymn 10.125 of the Ṛgveda, where the goddess of speech sings her own glory. In this hymn, one no longer hears of the creation of the speech, but one begins to see the speech as a primordial divinity that creates and controls other gods, sages, and human beings. Here the goddess of speech demands worship in her own right, before her powers may be used for other purposes.
The lord of speech divinities typically emerge as creator divinities, for example Brahmā, Bṛhaspati, and Brahmaṇaspati. The word brahman , which earlier refers (with differing accents) to the creative incantation and the priest, eventually in the Upaniṣads comes to assume the meaning of the creative force behind the entire universe. The creative power of the divine language is stressed in a number of vedic passages. When a spiritually powerful being makes a certain pronouncement, it comes true. The powerful words produce the circumstances that show them to be true. The Śatapathabrāhmaṇa says,
"The Creator said to Agni, ‘You are Rudra,’ and because he gave him that name, Agni assumed that form" (ŚBr. 6.1.3.10).
This process is often generalized to creation at large. The Kāṭhakasaṃhitā says,
"Prajāpati, the Creator, created all creatures . . . Whatever he spoke with his speech, that happened. Whatever one says with his speech, that happens . . . He creates it" (KāṭhSa. 7.10).
On a more basic level, the vedic sacrificer looked at the ritual language as a sure means of achieving the fulfillment of his desires.
While the vedic hymns were looked upon as being crafted by particular poet–sages in the earlier period, gradually their rising mysterious power and preservation by successive generations led to the emergence of a new conception of the scriptural texts. Already in the late parts of the Ṛgveda, we hear that the verses (ṛc), the songs (sāman), and the ritual formulas (yajus) arose from the primordial sacrifice offered by the gods. They arose from the sacrificed body of the cosmic man, the ultimate ground of existence (ṚV. 10.90.9). This tendency of increasingly looking at the scriptural texts as not being produced by any human authors takes many forms in subsequent religious and philosophical materials, finally leading to a widespread notion that the Vedas not only are not authored by any human beings (apauruṣeya), but also are in fact uncreated (anādi, “without beginning”) and eternal (ananta, “without end”), beyond the cycles of creation and destruction of the world. In late vedic texts, we hear the notion that the Vedas are infinite (ananta) and that the Vedas known to human poet-sages are a mere fraction of the real infinite Vedas. This shows an expanding conception of the Vedas, their delinking from the human authors, and their elevation into transcendental spheres. The humans become mere vehicles for the manifestation of these eternal scriptures.
In the late vedic traditions of the Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas, and Upaniṣads, we find further development of the conceptions regarding language. The Brāhmaṇas are concerned with the ritual use of language. Besides the general notion of efficacy of incantations, the Brāhmaṇas express concern about a number of specific issues. We are told that there is perfection of the ritual form when a recited incantation echoes the ritual action that is being performed. This shows a notion that ideally there should be a match between the contents of a ritual formula and the ritual action in which it is recited. This expectation leads to a heightened concern for maintaining the proper understanding of the preserved ancient incantations, because without a proper understanding of their meaning, one could not ensure their proper application. This led to a number of efforts to preserve the form as well as the understanding of the preserved scriptural texts. The Brāhmaṇas offer etymologies of words to explain their significance and offer justifications for particular applications of particular passages. There is also a greater emphasis on the maintenance of the correct pronunciation of the received texts. For instance, we are told a story of a demon mispronouncing a word during ritual. The demon wanted a son who would kill Indra (MaBh.P.). Thus, during a sacrifice, he asked for a son who would be Indra’s killer. He should have used the word indraśatrú with the accent on the final syllable. However, the demon erroneously used the word índraśatru with the accent on the first syllable. With that pronunciation, the word came to mean “he, whose killer is Indra,” rather than “Indra’s killer,” as the demon wanted. The story says that the mispronunciation was rewarded with the birth of a son who was killed by Indra. The texts also emphasize the daily recitation of one’s inherited scriptural texts and promise glorious heavenly worlds as its reward.
In the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads, one sees a rather different emphasis. Here we do not make a distinction between the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads, since many well-known Upaniṣads are themselves Āraṇyakas or parts of Āraṇyakas. Language acquires importance in several different ways in these traditions. In both ritual and philosophical contexts, various persons attain a status of high eminence through their skill in priestly debate (brahmodya). In a slow shift from the tradition of the Brāhmaṇas, the Upaniṣads, without denying the rewards of rituals, generally suggest that the rewards of all rituals are limited and that the performance of rituals finally traps the performer in the cycles of births and deaths. The rewards of ritual, and the general good and bad rewards of one’s actions ( karman ), define the nature of one’s future births ( saṃsāra ), such that one reaps the fruits of one’s past actions during those subsequent births. The Upaniṣads, emphasizing the painful nature of these cycles of rebirths, point out that the ideal goal should be to put an end to these cycles of birth and rebirth and to find one’s permanent identity with the original ground of the universal existence, namely, brahman. Putting an absolute end to the accumulation of karman through renunciation of possessions and withdrawal from binding ritual obligations is now the advised alternative. This shift in the goal leads to a gradual movement away from the rituals in the direction of a meditative life. As part of this meditative practice, one is asked to practice the meditation aided by the sacred syllable oṃ , which is the symbolic representation of brahman. Here the language, in the form of oṃ, becomes the tool for the attainment of one’s mystical union with brahman, the ground of the universal existence. The syllable itself is explained as consisting of the elements a, u, and m, but finally ending with a portion of silence. These elements are said to represent different states of one’s consciousness, the silence representing the final merger with brahman. Moving away from the knowledge of the vedic chants (mantra), the Upaniṣads redirect a seeker toward the realization of the ultimate reality of brahman.
While the Upaniṣads shift the focus from the ritualistic understanding and application of the Vedas and treat the traditional vedic collections as a lower form of knowledge, their spiritual quest is not completely delinked from linguistic concerns. The prominent tool for focusing on brahman is now the syllable oṃ, the supreme syllable. The Sanskrit word akṣara refers to a syllable, but it also means “indestructible.” Thus, the word akṣara allowed the meditational use of oṃ to ultimately reach one’s experiential identity with the indestructible reality of brahman. The role of language and scripture in the Upaniṣadic mode of religious life is complicated. The traditional Vedas are perceived as advocating the wrong path of ritual action. The traditional gods of the vedic religion are viewed as being almost an impediment to a seeker of brahman. Hence, the use of language to invoke these gods becomes a lower goal. Can brahman be reached through language? Since brahman is beyond all characterizations and all modes of human perception, no linguistic expression can properly describe it. Hence all linguistic expressions and all knowledge framed in language are inadequate for the purpose of reaching brahman. In fact, it is silence that characterizes brahman, and not words. Even so, the use of oṃ-focused meditation is emphasized at least in the nonfinal stages of brahman realization. However, the upanishadic practices and goals were practically beyond the reach of everyone. Therefore, the Upaniṣads represent an exclusive and elite tradition with rather limited participation. At the same time, the religion of rituals, though requiring specialized priestly skills, offered relatively greater opportunity of participation, and its goals remained attractive to a larger proportion of people. Therefore, it continued unabated, and with it the ritual use of language.
The Padapāṭha version of the vedic texts increasingly came to be viewed as the basic text from which the normal text of the Vedas, their continuous recitation, was deemed to be constructed by applying rules of morphophonemic combinations. By using various permutations and combinations of the words of the Padapāṭha, numerous other versions of the vedic texts were produced and have been kept alive in the recitational tradition to this day. The recitational preservation of these various permutations and combinations was perceived to be a sure way of preserving the original vedic text and protecting it from even the slightest change, which would lead to hundreds of changes in the permutations and combinations. Hence if the permutations and combinations were fixed, the original could always be restored in case of doubt. This way, the body of the vedic texts came to be preserved with a great degree of accuracy, especially when the tradition was passed down entirely through oral transmission.
Yāska recognizes a problem in using the word-by-word text (Padapāṭha) of the scriptures as it was available by his time. He says that we must first understand the meaning of a scriptural text before we can split it up into its component words. In trying to make sense of words, Yāska carries forward the tradition of (folk) etymology that had made its appearance already in the late Vedic Brāhmaṇa texts. There is a greater emphasis in Yāska’s work on the nouns, rather than the verbs, of the scriptural language. Yāska and a few grammarians proposed that all nouns are to be derived by adding affixes to verb roots. At the same time, he also refers to others who argued that not all nouns can be thus derived, and that there must be some underived nouns. Some of the etymologies are regular and convincing, while others are irregular, and some downright desperate. However, Yāska says that one cannot refuse to offer an etymology for a word, because that refusal would amount to accepting that the word has no perceptible meaning. Recitation of scriptures without any comprehension of meaning is like carrying a burden. It does not produce any merit. For Yāska, the science of etymology becomes an essential tool to understand the meaning of scriptural words. Yāska’s efforts are clearly motivated by an old belief that goes back to the Brāhmaṇa texts, namely that perfection of ritual form (rūpasamṛddhi) can only be achieved when the recited verse echoes the ritual action being performed. This requires that one is able to comprehend the meaning of the recited vedic passages.
"The Supreme Śakti is resplendent. She is both the seed and sprout as the manifested union of Śiva and Śakti. She is very subtle. Her form is manifested through the union of the first letter of the alphabet, 'a,' and the final letter, 'ha.'" (KāVil. 3).
In such texts, every single letter of the Sanskrit alphabet is looked upon as representing some phase of the manifestation of the creative power, śakti . Several attempts have been made in modern times to interpret the ancient vedic texts using the tantric significance of the sounds of the Sanskrit language. While such efforts are philologically unacceptable to modern scholarship, their very existence reflects a continuity of particular lines of interpretive thinking found in ancient India.
The Buddhists depicted the authors of the Veda, the poet–sages, as ignorant fools, and the contemporary Brahmans as blind followers of the blind. We are told that there were Brahman converts to Buddhism who wanted to translate the words of Buddha into the language of chandas (Vedic language), and that this request was soundly rejected. Emperor Aśoka, who supported Buddhism and became himself a Buddhist, used Prakrits, rather than Sanskrit, for all his inscriptions (besides the occasional use of Greek and Aramaic), indicating the high political prestige for the Prakrit languages. This set the stage for a very long and bitter debate about the social and religious status of Sanskrit and Prakrit languages. Both the Jains and the Buddhists also appropriated the high-prestige term “ārya” for themselves, producing another bitter conflict and debate. The Buddhists considered all those who accepted the path of Buddha to be Aryans. Thus, the term “ārya” no longer carried a sense of identity by Aryan birth, but it shifted the focus to moral and spiritual values as the determining factor. The Jains also came up with a long list of various criteria for inclusion in the newly defined Aryan community. The Ardhamagadhi and the Pali Prakrits are now claimed to be the Aryan languages par excellence, and this poses a great challenge to the traditional conceptions of the Brahmanical tradition. The Jain and the Buddhist traditions openly admit that it is acceptable to use any language of convenience to communicate the religious doctrine to a willing listener. For the Buddhists and Jains, the use of language is primarily a tool to communicate their religious message to anyone who is willing to listen, and hence the insistence on a particular language is not a characteristic feature of these traditions. Thus, in spite of the feeling of high prestige for Ardhamagadhi and Pali in these traditions, they were open to the notions of translations and vernacular explanations of their teachings.
The dharma texts argue that all rules of conduct are ultimately based on the Vedas. The Vedas are the highest authority in any decision. The next authority is that of the remembered tradition codified in the Smṛti texts. If there is a conflict between the Vedas and a Smṛti, the Vedas override the Smṛti. The third authority is the behavior of the elites in the society, who, by their exemplary conduct, set the norms for the behavior of others. Some dharma texts admit that rules of conduct by people of specific regions, families, and communities were not specified in the Vedas, which is why Manu provided these rules. However, there is a more conservative approach in other texts. If a Smṛti text is explicitly contradicted by a known vedic text, then the vedic text overrides the Smṛti text. However, if a Smṛti text is neither contradicted nor supported by a known vedic text, then one assumes that there must have been a supporting vedic text that is now lost (anumitaśruti). Thus, in theory, all Smṛti texts that are accepted as authoritative are supported by vedic texts, whether attested or assumed. Such a notion of vedic texts that are now presumed to be lost is a legal fiction, which becomes possible because of the traditional conception of the infiniteness (ananta) of the original Vedas, and the finiteness of the Vedas known to human beings.
The early commentators on Pāṇini’s grammar, Kātyāyana and Patañjali (250–100 BCE), authors of the Vārttika and Mahābhāṣya respectively, display a significant reorganization of Brahmanical views in the face of opposition from Jains and Buddhists. For Kātyāyana and Patañjali, the Sanskrit language at large is sacred like the Vedas. The intelligent use of Sanskrit, backed by the explicit understanding of its grammar, leads to prosperity here as well as in the next world, as do the Vedas. Kātyāyana and Patañjali admit that vernaculars and Sanskrit could fulfill the function of communicating meaning. However, only the usage of Sanskrit produces religious merit. This is an indirect criticism of the Jains and the Buddhists, who used vernacular languages for the propagation of their faiths. The grammarians did not accept the religious value of the vernaculars. The vernacular languages, along with the incorrect uses of Sanskrit, are all thrown together by the Sanskrit grammarians under the derogatory terms Apashabda and Apabhramsha. Both of these suggest a view that the vernaculars are degenerate or “fallen” forms of the divine language, that is, Sanskrit. Kātyāyana says,
"While the relationship between words and meanings is established on the basis of the usage of specific words to denote specific meanings in the community of speakers, the science of grammar only makes a regulation concerning the religious merit produced by the linguistic usage, as is commonly done in worldly matters and in vedic rituals" (Vartt. 1, MaBh.).
Kātyāyana refers to these “degenerate” vernacular usages as being caused by the inability of the low-class speakers to speak proper Sanskrit. This implies that the speakers of Prakrit have a certain disability. This disability could be deadly in ritual terms. Thus the grammarians suggest that while the use of vernaculars may be acceptable in secular nonreligious contexts, their use in religious contexts was particularly objectionable. The relationship between Sanskrit words and their meanings is said to be established (siddha) before the grammarians begin their work. Patañjali understands this statement of Kātyāyana to mean that the relationship between Sanskrit words and their meanings is eternal (nitya), not created (kārya) by anyone. Since this eternal relationship exists only for Sanskrit words and their meanings, one cannot accord the same status to the fallen vernaculars, which are born of their speakers’ disability.
It is important to mention Bhartṛhari (400 CE), another philosopher of language in the grammatical tradition and author of the Vākyapadīya, among others. Apart from his significant contribution toward an in-depth philosophical understanding of issues of the structure and function of language, and issues of phonology, semantics, and syntax, Bhartṛhari is well known for his proposal that language constitutes the ultimate principle of reality (śabdabrahman). Both the signified words and signified entities in the world are perceived to be a transformation (pariṇāma) of the ultimate unified principle of language
In this connection, we may note that Mīmāṃsā and other systems of Hindu philosophy also develop a notion of linguistic expression as one of the sources of authoritative knowledge (śabdapramāṇa), when other more basic sources of knowledge like sense perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna) are not available. Particularly, in connection with religious duty (dharma) and heaven (svarga) as the promised reward, only Veda is available as the source of authoritative knowledge. For Mīmāṃsā, the uncreated eternal Veda as a source of knowledge is not tainted by negative qualities – like ignorance and malice – that could affect a normal speaker of a linguistic expression.
If two passages seemed contradictory, one way was to argue that one of those passages was to be taken literally, while the other one was only metaphorical. Perhaps, the two seemingly contradictory passages refer to customs followed by people in different regions, or time spans. It is sometimes pointed out that one of such passages was meant to provide only a provisional, nonfinal answer, while the other passage was meant to provide a final conclusion. After trying all possible ways of removing a seeming conflict between two statements, if one cannot find any viable solution, then, and only then, the two seemingly contradictory passages are accepted as providing an option. Such rules of textual interpretation were perfected by the ritualists and were widely accepted by the legal tradition and by the philosophers belonging to different schools of Vedānta, which tried, each in its particular way, to reconcile (samanvaya) the various scriptural texts, and to construct a systematic philosophical doctrine, out of otherwise seemingly discordant vedic texts.
The Bhagavadgītā, though composed in Sanskrit and representing a top-down approach, is extending the devotional path to Vaiśyas, Sūdras, and women without offering them access to the Vedas or even to the use of the Sanskrit language. Thus there is a suggestion that access to devotional religion for these non-high social groups, and women, must be achieved through their own languages, and through means other than vedic sacrifices. This is the first open indication of acceptance of non-Sanskrit languages and nonvedic ritual forms of worship as possible alternative ways to approaching god.
This acknowledgment of alternative linguistic and ritual paths to god, without diluting and abdicating the path of Vedic scriptures and sacrifices, points to the emergence of an essentially two-tiered religious practice. Everyone had access to devotional religion, while the Brahmans continued to restrict access to the Vedas and the Sanskrit language. This is evident in the emergence of the so-called puranic mantras in worshipping various divinities, by the side of the vedic mantras. If the host was a Brahman, then the priest would perform the ceremony using both the vedic and the puranic mantras. However, if the host was a non-Brahman, the priest would typically use only the puranic mantras in the ceremony. For those who were too low to have access to a Brahman priest, a devotional ceremony could still take place entirely in a vernacular language. The devotional literature like the Mahābhārata and Purāṇas, in contrast, could be narrated in the vernacular languages. Such vernacular versions of these epics and Purāṇas in all likelihood were circulating from very old times, though recorded instances of vernacular versions only became available at a later time. The origin of the vernacular devotional movements lies in this sociolinguistic tension between the higher and the lower layers of the Hindu society. Judging from the evidence provided by Buddhism and Jainism, such tensions must have existed all along, though the vernacular devotional literature itself became available to us during a somewhat later period.
This vernacular devotional movement makes its appearance in the Tamil Nadu region in the second half of the 1st millennium CE, in opposition to both the dominant traditions of Buddhism and Jainism in this area as well as the dominant Brahmanical religion expressed in the medium of Sanskrit. The majority of these Tamil-speaking “saints,” the Vaiṣṇava Āḻvārs and Śaiva Nāyaṉārs, are fervent devotees of their respective gods. The Tamil poetic tradition itself, recorded in the Caṅkam literature, predates the emergence of these devotional poet-saints by a few centuries and ensures the confidence of the Tamil poetic expression. The Jains and the Buddhists had also been using Tamil for religious expression, hence the use of Tamil for religious expression by the Āḻvārs and Nāyaṉārs is not entirely new. What is new is the orientation in the direction of fervent devotion to Śiva and Viṣṇu. While these gods were already worshipped in the Brahmanical tradition, the Brahmanical tradition provided little access and comfort to the lower classes of the Hindu society. They were kept out of the Brahmanical rituals and temple establishments, and their mother tongue, Tamil, had no place in that Brahmanical practice. The predominantly non-Brahman Āḻvārs and Nāyaṉārs, who included a number of women saints among them, essentially claimed to have a direct relationship to their respective gods, which was ecstatic, personal, all-encompassing, and satisfying. Importantly, this relationship to god bypassed the Brahmanical texts, practices, and establishments, and it engendered in the minds of the poet-saints a new sense of freedom from that Brahmanical tradition, almost verging on a feeling of superiority to it. While Appar, Campantar (7th cent. CE), and Cuntarar (9th cent. CE) opted for the vernacular and tried to open devotional access to Śiva for all castes, they also set out to establish or reestablish agamic temple worship for Śiva.
The works of the Tamil poet-saints, the Āḻvārs and the Nāyaṉārs, became an alternative scriptural corpus for the followers of the vernacular devotional path. The works of the Vaiṣṇava Āḻvār saints, collected in an anthology called Nālāyira Divya Prabandha (Tam. Nālāyira Tivya Pirapantam; Holy Collection of Four Thousand) by the Brahman Vaiṣṇava teacher Nāthamuni (Tam. Nātamuṉi; 9th cent. CE), came to be looked upon as the Tamil Veda. This Tamil Veda was looked at as an authoritative source for devotional religion by the Vaiṣṇava Brahmans in the Tamil region, and the Sanskritic Vaiṣṇavism of Rāmānuja incorporated much of the devotional inspiration from the hymns of the Āḻvārs. This incorporation of the vernacular inspiration into the Brahmanical traditions and the incorporation of the Brahmanical tradition into the vernacular are to be seen as parallel processes in the history of Hinduism. In the region of Karnataka, the vernacular devotional tradition of the Vīraśaivas generally followed an independent course and stayed away from the Brahmanical traditions. However, the Vaiṣṇava saints like Purandaradāsa and Kanakadāsa (16th cent. CE) were not delinked from the Brahmanical tradition. Vyāsatīrtha (1447–1539 CE), a scholar in the tradition of Madhva’s dualist (Dvaita) Vedānta school during the reign of the Vijayanagara king Kṛṣṇadēvarāya, simultaneously pursued Sanskritic and vernacular interests. While writing highly erudite Sanskrit philosophical works expounding his dualist Vedānta views, he simultaneously encouraged participation of non-Brahman devotees of Viṣṇu into a devotional group called Dāsakūṭa . It was through Vyāsatīrtha’s encouragement and inspiration that the poet-saints Purandaradāsa and Kanakadāsa produced their Kannada devotional poems.
To illustrate this dual cultural and linguistic process, let us look at the region of Maharashtra in the 2nd millennium CE. During the 12th and 13th centuries we see several important figures at work. A Brahman Sanskrit scholar Mukundarāja (12th cent. CE) wrote a Marathi work Vivekasindhu to provide a vernacular exposition of the Advaita Vedānta of Śaṅkara. This is clearly an attempt to provide access to classical philosophical ideas to those who did not understand Sanskrit. The most prominent religious figure of this period is Jñāndev, also known as Jñāneśvara (13th cent. CE). Born to Brahman parents who were excommunicated by the local Brahman community, Jñāneśvara was initiated into the Nāth tradition by his elder brother Nivṛttināth. Jñāneśvara, his two brothers, and a sister, after their parents’ death, went to the Brahmans of Paithan to be accepted back into the Brahman community. However, after the Brahmans refused, Jñāneśvara performed many miracles, which launched his career as a saint. Thus, as a rejected Brahman, Jñāneśvara directed his attention to the religious needs of the people at large and produced the first vernacular commentary on the Bhagavadgītā. This Marathi commentary, popularly called Jñāneśvarī, is not just an attempt to bring the philosophical contents of the Bhagavadgītā into Marathi. It shows Jñāneśvara’s full pride in Marathi, and he says that his poetic Marathi can compete with the sweetness of nectar. Through his Jñāneśvarī, he removes a linguistic barrier to salvation, which is consequently accessible to everyone.
Eknāth (1548–1609) is the next poet-saint of great importance. Born a Brahman and trained in the Sanskritic lore, Eknāth is attracted to the tradition of devotion and turns his attention to the use of Marathi to express his devotion and erudition. Just as Jñāneśvara brought the Bhagavadgītā into Marathi, Eknāth translated the Bhāgavatapurāṇa into Marathi. The Brahmans of his day were not generally in favor of translating Sanskrit scriptural works into Marathi, and Eknāth was accused of sacrilege by translating the Bhāgavatapurāṇa into Marathi. We are told that Eknāth had to face a Brahman tribunal at Banaras. This tribunal ordered that Eknāth’s Marathi translation be thrown in the Gaṅgā. However, a miracle happened, and the Marathi translation floated on the waters of the Gaṅgā, instead of sinking.
We find similar stories about the saint Tukārām (1598–1649), who was born in a Śūdra caste and had no access to Sanskritic learning. Tukārām says that he does not speak with his own power, but it is his god, Viṭṭhala (Kṛṣṇa), who makes him speak. He claims to be a lame man who is made to walk by god’s power. Tukārām’s assertion that the god Viṭṭhala directly communicates with him, a Śūdra, in his own lowly language, brought him into conflicts with the local Brahmans. They also forced him to throw his Marathi devotional poems into the river Indrāyaṇī. However, again a miracle happened, and the books were saved from sinking, thus establishing Tukārām’s authenticity and his access to god.
Emboldened by his own religious experience, Tukārām claims that he, a Śūdra, alone knows the true meaning of the Vedas, while the Brahmans simply carry the burden. He heavily criticizes the Brahmans for simply playing linguistic games, and he says that all the Vedas, Śāstras, and Purāṇas ultimately teach devotion to Viṭṭhala.
The themes of a vernacular text being thrown into a river and the judgment of a devotee by orthodox Brahmans and the like are common to the received stories of north Indian saints like Tulsīdās, Kabīr, and Nānak and show a pan-Indian set of motifs indicating that the struggle of the vernacular bhakti tradition with the orthodox Sanskritic traditions maintained by Brahmans was not a narrow regional phenomena, but resonated in all the different regions and communities of India.
The linguistic tensions continued in Maharashtra in other arenas as well. Stories of the 17th-century king Śivājī (1627–1680) show some interesting issues. Born into a warrior family, Śivājī rebelled against the Muslim rulers in Maharashtra and succeeded in establishing his own independent kingdom. At this time, the Brahmans generally came to believe that there were no true Kṣatriyas left on earth any more, and while they continued to work for the local kings, they refused to accept them as genuine Kṣatriyas. Śivājī’s spiritual guru is said to be the Brahman–saint Rāmdās (1608–1681). Rāmdās’ poetic and philosophical works have been preserved mostly in Marathi. In 1676, Śivājī had his royal coronation performed and was officially declared a Kṣatriya Hindu king. The famous Sanskrit paṇḍit Gāgābhaṭṭa of Banaras performed his coronation. There are traditional stories about the tensions between Rāmdās and Gāgābhaṭṭa; Gāgābhaṭṭa, the stories say, did not want Śivājī to continue his association with Rāmdās and with Marathi. He promised to teach him Sanskrit, so that he could function fully in the image of a classical Kṣatriya king.
The relation of language to religion in modern times is very complicated because of the variation one finds from region to region and from community to community. The interaction of Sanskrit and the vernacular, including English for many, is the most interesting continuing religious phenomenon. While Sanskrit largely maintains its symbolic presence as holy chants, the understanding of religious sentiment almost always takes place through one’s vernacular.
In modern times, religious language appears in all its modern technological manifestations. The first major shift was from hand-written manuscripts to printing. This was then followed by recording and broadcasting technologies. It started with the use of loudspeakers and microphones at religious performances. In the form of recorded cassettes and compact discs, the religious songs and discourses can now be mass produced and distributed. If a priest is not available on a given day, the worshipper can now buy a recorded priestly voice telling him what to do and say. With the telecast of the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata, and other stories about gods and goddesses, the religious language has made full penetration into every field of social activity and interaction. Finally, we are now in the age of the Internet, where numerous Web sites are providing access to different religious materials, and numerous chat groups are offering worldwide discussions of issues deemed to be important for one’s faith. From anywhere in the world, we can listen to the daily prayers recited in the Gaṇeśa temple in Bombay (the Siddhivināyaka Temple), online! Thus, beginning with its Vedic and Sanskrit forms and ranging to its modern vernacular forms, language remains at the center of the religious world of Hinduism.
Language in the Vedic Period
The vedic scriptural texts (1500–500 BCE) consist of the four ancient collections, namely, the Ṛgveda, the Sāmaveda, the Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda. These collections of hymns, ritual formulas, and recitations of many sorts have come down to us in various recensions. The next layer of vedic texts consists of prose ritual commentaries that offer procedures, justifications, and explanations. These are called Brāhmaṇas. The last two categories of vedic literature are the Āraṇyakas (“Forest Texts”) and the Upaniṣads (“Secret Mystical Doctrines”). The vedic texts are composed in different varieties of archaic Sanskrit. The most ancient form of this archaic Sanskrit is found in the hymns of the Ṛgveda. The vedic texts are traditionally called Śruti ("Heard Texts"), referring to their early oral transmission.The word saṃskṛta is not known as a label of a language variety during the vedic period. The general term used for language in the vedic texts is vāc. The vedic poet-sages ( ṛṣis) belonged to communities that are designated by the term “Ārya,” and they refer to nonvedic outsiders by various terms such as “Dāsa” and “Dasyu.” The gods are generically referred to by the term deva, and the language of the hymns is said to be devī vāc (divine language). The language created by the gods is then spoken by the animate world in various forms. The divine language in its ultimate form is so mysterious that three-quarters of it is said to be hidden from the humans, who have access to only a quarter. The vedic poet-sages say that this divine language enters into their hearts and that they discover it through mystical introspection. The poet–sages consider themselves to be craftsmen of language. They do not create it, but they shape the form of the religious expression by selecting the best expressions and leaving out the uncultured expressions. The process is explicitly compared to cleansing grain with a sieve. This provides us with a distinction between the language in its common use and the language that is deliberately chosen and fashioned for its appeal to the gods. Just as the language used by the vedic poet-sages is the divine language, the language used by the nonvedic people is said to be ungodly (adevī) or demonic (asuryā).
The different uses of language are referred to by different verbs in the Vedas. For instance, we have verbs like “to praise,” “to sing,” “to invoke,” each of which denotes a specific function of the scriptural language. The reification of various forms of language is also manifest in the Vedas in the use of various nouns such as “praise,” “song,” “honeyed speech,” “chant,” “benediction,” and “desires.” Not only is the language an act, but also, as a reified object, it gradually appears in many more conceptual frames. Instead of simply saying “I praise god Indra,” the vedic poet says something like, “These songs of ours, exceedingly sweet, these hymns of praise ascend to you, like ever-conquering chariots” (ṚV. 8.3.15).
The reified language objects like “prayer,” “praise,” and “chant” assume greater potency and durability. These linguistic objects are then looked at as instruments of achieving particular religious goals, as products of particular poet-sages, and as objects that can be preserved and perpetuated as a scriptural tradition. For example, when a poet–sage says, “I crush these germs with the incantation of Agastya” (AVŚ. 2.32.3), we can see several dimensions of the religious language at work. There is a belief that Agastya produced a particular incantation at a particular time. Then there is the belief that this incantation was very effective in destroying the germs. Further, this widespread belief in the efficacy of Agastya’s incantation led to its preservation by the priestly community and its repeated performance by them for the same effect. Here are the seeds for the creation of a scriptural text, which, repeated on a massive scale, led to the emergence of the voluminous vedic corpus. The belief in the power of one’s own incantations is expressed eloquently in the Vedas.
The externalization and reification of language also led to the development of mystical and devotional approaches to it. Language was perceived as an essential tool for approaching the gods, invoking them, and asking their favors and thus for the successful completion of a ritual performance. While the gods were the powers that finally yielded the wishes of their human worshippers, one could legitimately look at the resulting reward as ensuing from the power of the religious language, or the power of the performing priest. This way, the language came to be looked upon as having mysterious creative powers, and as a divine power that needed to be propitiated before it could be successfully used to invoke other gods. This approach to language ultimately led to the deification of language and the emergence of Vāc or Vākdevī, the goddess of speech, and a number of other gods who are called Brahmaṇaspati, Bṛhaspati, Vākpati (“Lord of Speech”). Like offering oblations to gods like Indra and Varuṇa, we also see vedic priests offering oblations to the goddess of speech and to the various lords of speech.
We notice the divinity of speech and its mysterious existence and powers. In contrast to the valorous deeds of the divine language, the language of the nonvedic people yields neither fruit nor blossom (ṚV. 10.71.5). “Yielding fruit and blossom” is a phrase indicative of the creative power of speech that produces rewards for the worshipper. From being a created but divine entity, the speech rises to the heights of being a divinity in her own right and eventually to becoming the substratum of the existence of the whole universe. The deification of speech is seen in hymn 10.125 of the Ṛgveda, where the goddess of speech sings her own glory. In this hymn, one no longer hears of the creation of the speech, but one begins to see the speech as a primordial divinity that creates and controls other gods, sages, and human beings. Here the goddess of speech demands worship in her own right, before her powers may be used for other purposes.
The lord of speech divinities typically emerge as creator divinities, for example Brahmā, Bṛhaspati, and Brahmaṇaspati. The word brahman , which earlier refers (with differing accents) to the creative incantation and the priest, eventually in the Upaniṣads comes to assume the meaning of the creative force behind the entire universe. The creative power of the divine language is stressed in a number of vedic passages. When a spiritually powerful being makes a certain pronouncement, it comes true. The powerful words produce the circumstances that show them to be true. The Śatapathabrāhmaṇa says,
"The Creator said to Agni, ‘You are Rudra,’ and because he gave him that name, Agni assumed that form" (ŚBr. 6.1.3.10).
This process is often generalized to creation at large. The Kāṭhakasaṃhitā says,
"Prajāpati, the Creator, created all creatures . . . Whatever he spoke with his speech, that happened. Whatever one says with his speech, that happens . . . He creates it" (KāṭhSa. 7.10).
On a more basic level, the vedic sacrificer looked at the ritual language as a sure means of achieving the fulfillment of his desires.
While the vedic hymns were looked upon as being crafted by particular poet–sages in the earlier period, gradually their rising mysterious power and preservation by successive generations led to the emergence of a new conception of the scriptural texts. Already in the late parts of the Ṛgveda, we hear that the verses (ṛc), the songs (sāman), and the ritual formulas (yajus) arose from the primordial sacrifice offered by the gods. They arose from the sacrificed body of the cosmic man, the ultimate ground of existence (ṚV. 10.90.9). This tendency of increasingly looking at the scriptural texts as not being produced by any human authors takes many forms in subsequent religious and philosophical materials, finally leading to a widespread notion that the Vedas not only are not authored by any human beings (apauruṣeya), but also are in fact uncreated (anādi, “without beginning”) and eternal (ananta, “without end”), beyond the cycles of creation and destruction of the world. In late vedic texts, we hear the notion that the Vedas are infinite (ananta) and that the Vedas known to human poet-sages are a mere fraction of the real infinite Vedas. This shows an expanding conception of the Vedas, their delinking from the human authors, and their elevation into transcendental spheres. The humans become mere vehicles for the manifestation of these eternal scriptures.
In the late vedic traditions of the Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas, and Upaniṣads, we find further development of the conceptions regarding language. The Brāhmaṇas are concerned with the ritual use of language. Besides the general notion of efficacy of incantations, the Brāhmaṇas express concern about a number of specific issues. We are told that there is perfection of the ritual form when a recited incantation echoes the ritual action that is being performed. This shows a notion that ideally there should be a match between the contents of a ritual formula and the ritual action in which it is recited. This expectation leads to a heightened concern for maintaining the proper understanding of the preserved ancient incantations, because without a proper understanding of their meaning, one could not ensure their proper application. This led to a number of efforts to preserve the form as well as the understanding of the preserved scriptural texts. The Brāhmaṇas offer etymologies of words to explain their significance and offer justifications for particular applications of particular passages. There is also a greater emphasis on the maintenance of the correct pronunciation of the received texts. For instance, we are told a story of a demon mispronouncing a word during ritual. The demon wanted a son who would kill Indra (MaBh.P.). Thus, during a sacrifice, he asked for a son who would be Indra’s killer. He should have used the word indraśatrú with the accent on the final syllable. However, the demon erroneously used the word índraśatru with the accent on the first syllable. With that pronunciation, the word came to mean “he, whose killer is Indra,” rather than “Indra’s killer,” as the demon wanted. The story says that the mispronunciation was rewarded with the birth of a son who was killed by Indra. The texts also emphasize the daily recitation of one’s inherited scriptural texts and promise glorious heavenly worlds as its reward.
In the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads, one sees a rather different emphasis. Here we do not make a distinction between the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads, since many well-known Upaniṣads are themselves Āraṇyakas or parts of Āraṇyakas. Language acquires importance in several different ways in these traditions. In both ritual and philosophical contexts, various persons attain a status of high eminence through their skill in priestly debate (brahmodya). In a slow shift from the tradition of the Brāhmaṇas, the Upaniṣads, without denying the rewards of rituals, generally suggest that the rewards of all rituals are limited and that the performance of rituals finally traps the performer in the cycles of births and deaths. The rewards of ritual, and the general good and bad rewards of one’s actions ( karman ), define the nature of one’s future births ( saṃsāra ), such that one reaps the fruits of one’s past actions during those subsequent births. The Upaniṣads, emphasizing the painful nature of these cycles of rebirths, point out that the ideal goal should be to put an end to these cycles of birth and rebirth and to find one’s permanent identity with the original ground of the universal existence, namely, brahman. Putting an absolute end to the accumulation of karman through renunciation of possessions and withdrawal from binding ritual obligations is now the advised alternative. This shift in the goal leads to a gradual movement away from the rituals in the direction of a meditative life. As part of this meditative practice, one is asked to practice the meditation aided by the sacred syllable oṃ , which is the symbolic representation of brahman. Here the language, in the form of oṃ, becomes the tool for the attainment of one’s mystical union with brahman, the ground of the universal existence. The syllable itself is explained as consisting of the elements a, u, and m, but finally ending with a portion of silence. These elements are said to represent different states of one’s consciousness, the silence representing the final merger with brahman. Moving away from the knowledge of the vedic chants (mantra), the Upaniṣads redirect a seeker toward the realization of the ultimate reality of brahman.
While the Upaniṣads shift the focus from the ritualistic understanding and application of the Vedas and treat the traditional vedic collections as a lower form of knowledge, their spiritual quest is not completely delinked from linguistic concerns. The prominent tool for focusing on brahman is now the syllable oṃ, the supreme syllable. The Sanskrit word akṣara refers to a syllable, but it also means “indestructible.” Thus, the word akṣara allowed the meditational use of oṃ to ultimately reach one’s experiential identity with the indestructible reality of brahman. The role of language and scripture in the Upaniṣadic mode of religious life is complicated. The traditional Vedas are perceived as advocating the wrong path of ritual action. The traditional gods of the vedic religion are viewed as being almost an impediment to a seeker of brahman. Hence, the use of language to invoke these gods becomes a lower goal. Can brahman be reached through language? Since brahman is beyond all characterizations and all modes of human perception, no linguistic expression can properly describe it. Hence all linguistic expressions and all knowledge framed in language are inadequate for the purpose of reaching brahman. In fact, it is silence that characterizes brahman, and not words. Even so, the use of oṃ-focused meditation is emphasized at least in the nonfinal stages of brahman realization. However, the upanishadic practices and goals were practically beyond the reach of everyone. Therefore, the Upaniṣads represent an exclusive and elite tradition with rather limited participation. At the same time, the religion of rituals, though requiring specialized priestly skills, offered relatively greater opportunity of participation, and its goals remained attractive to a larger proportion of people. Therefore, it continued unabated, and with it the ritual use of language.
Postvedic Debates on Scriptural Texts
As we gradually enter the postvedic period, the preservation of the ancient scriptural texts and their utility become subjects of very important debates. Some of the problems with handling the scriptures are created merely by the historical linguistic changes. The language of the ancient scriptures was increasingly becoming archaic, and a large percentage of the vocabulary and grammar of the ancient language did not survive in the newer forms of Sanskrit. Similarly, the time gap, the migrations, and the cultural and ethnic contacts and mergers changed the pronunciation significantly, so that a number of features like the accents of the ancient language were lost in the later forms of Sanskrit. Under such conditions, the maintenance of the form and the understanding of the ancient texts became increasingly precarious. The beginning of such concerns is already manifest in the late vedic texts. We have already seen such concerns regarding origins of words and the recitation with proper accents. By the end of the late vedic period, we already see the beginning of some formal efforts to deal with this situation. It is manifested in the creation of multiple forms of recitation. There was the original undivided text of the scriptures that was handed down orally by tradition. This text was called Saṃhitā, the joined unbroken form of recitation. A new form of Padapāṭha (word-by-word) recitation was now created, and an understanding of word combinations had developed. This subsequently led to the development of the traditions of Sanskrit grammar, etymology, and phonetics.The Padapāṭha version of the vedic texts increasingly came to be viewed as the basic text from which the normal text of the Vedas, their continuous recitation, was deemed to be constructed by applying rules of morphophonemic combinations. By using various permutations and combinations of the words of the Padapāṭha, numerous other versions of the vedic texts were produced and have been kept alive in the recitational tradition to this day. The recitational preservation of these various permutations and combinations was perceived to be a sure way of preserving the original vedic text and protecting it from even the slightest change, which would lead to hundreds of changes in the permutations and combinations. Hence if the permutations and combinations were fixed, the original could always be restored in case of doubt. This way, the body of the vedic texts came to be preserved with a great degree of accuracy, especially when the tradition was passed down entirely through oral transmission.
Emergence of Phonetic Analysis and Description
A great deal of care was also given to ensuring the proper pronunciation of the vedic texts. As the priestly communities migrated to different regions of South Asia, their mother tongues went through great changes. With the increasing gap between the language of the original vedic texts and the mother tongues of the reciters, there was a growing fear of mispronunciation of the scriptural texts. The vedic accents were no longer observed in either the colloquial forms of Sanskrit or the vernaculars. Many vowels and consonants of the vedic Sanskrit did not occur in the vernaculars, the mother tongues of the reciters. It is clear from the modern recitation of the vedic texts that the mother tongues of the reciters affect the recitation of these texts, and the same vedic texts sound different if recited by a Bengali or a Tamil Brahman priest. The fear of mispronunciation led to the development a full-scope tradition of phonetic analysis that is preserved in over a hundred different treatises called Śikṣās and Prātiśākhyas. These treatises analyze the articulatory features of each Sanskrit sound and point out specific mispronunciations to be avoided. On the whole, one must recognize that there was a great deal of success in preserving the phonetic shape of the vedic texts.Etymology and Meaning
However, the efforts to preserve the comprehension of the ancient vedic texts were not equally successful, though they mark some important developments in the scientific investigation into the nature of words and their origins. One of the early debates regarding the analytical understanding of words is found in Yāska’s Nirukta, around 500 BCE. Yāska’s Nirukta is a commentary on a list of vedic words. Yāska says that the original sages (ṛṣis) had direct insight into the nature of things. These original sages received the vedic texts in their mystical trances. They handed these texts down to later generations of sages who did not have such a direct insight into the nature of things. They transmitted these texts to later generations, who were worried about the survival of the transmission and produced the list of vedic words as an aid. This perception of a gradual decline from an initial golden age is found in many postvedic traditions, and their efforts to preserve the texts and their comprehension need to be understood against the background of this perception of decline.Yāska recognizes a problem in using the word-by-word text (Padapāṭha) of the scriptures as it was available by his time. He says that we must first understand the meaning of a scriptural text before we can split it up into its component words. In trying to make sense of words, Yāska carries forward the tradition of (folk) etymology that had made its appearance already in the late Vedic Brāhmaṇa texts. There is a greater emphasis in Yāska’s work on the nouns, rather than the verbs, of the scriptural language. Yāska and a few grammarians proposed that all nouns are to be derived by adding affixes to verb roots. At the same time, he also refers to others who argued that not all nouns can be thus derived, and that there must be some underived nouns. Some of the etymologies are regular and convincing, while others are irregular, and some downright desperate. However, Yāska says that one cannot refuse to offer an etymology for a word, because that refusal would amount to accepting that the word has no perceptible meaning. Recitation of scriptures without any comprehension of meaning is like carrying a burden. It does not produce any merit. For Yāska, the science of etymology becomes an essential tool to understand the meaning of scriptural words. Yāska’s efforts are clearly motivated by an old belief that goes back to the Brāhmaṇa texts, namely that perfection of ritual form (rūpasamṛddhi) can only be achieved when the recited verse echoes the ritual action being performed. This requires that one is able to comprehend the meaning of the recited vedic passages.
Kautsa: “Vedas Are Meaningless”
However, Yāska represents only one side of the debate. He also refers to an opposing view from Kautsa, who claimed that the science of etymology as a tool for comprehending the meaning of the scriptural texts was worthless, because the Vedas had no meaning at all. Kautsa claimed that the words of the scriptures, unlike those of contemporary Sanskrit, were fixed in order. If the words of the cited vedic passages were meaningful, the Brāhmaṇas would not have offered their explanations. The vedic passages, if understood as meaningful utterances, often seem to be contrary to facts of experience and contradictory to one another. Therefore, it is better to accept that they are completely meaningless, there is a suggestion that their main utility lies in their value as magical sounds, and not as meaningful linguistic utterances. Thus, in the opinion of Kautsa, the scriptural texts have been reduced to nonlinguistic magical sounds. This is indeed one direction in which some later traditions deal with sacred utterances. Yāska, in contrast, insists on the etymological efforts to find out the meaning of scriptural words. The grammarian Patañjali and the Mīmāṃsā author Jaimini later support Yāska’s stand. However, this debate makes certain points quite clear. The preserved ancient texts of the Vedas have become at least partially unintelligible due to language change. The texts are no longer considered human-authored words, but rather a unitary body of words, which are of some divine origin, or completely uncreated, and ideally should not contradict one another.Vedas as Magical Sounds
The view represented by Kautsa that the words of the scriptures are not linguistically meaningful probably hints at the alternative that they are significant in some magical, mystical way. This interpretation of the scriptures finds support with the importance given to mystical utterances like oṃ in the Upaniṣads. Some of the ritual practices also hint in this direction. For instance, there is a prescription in an ancillary text of the Atharvaveda for the syllable-by-syllable reverse recitation of the popular gāyatrīmantra. It is evident that those who believed in the normal as well as the reverse recitation of the chants did not look at these stretches as meaningful, normal linguistic utterances, but as mystically empowered sounds. It is this dimension of magical sounds that is fully developed later in the traditions of Tantra, where the entire Sanskrit alphabet is invested with mystical powers, each sound being taken to represent some element in the tantric cosmology, and the combinations of these sounds representing particular natural or divine forces. The strong belief in such mystical significance of Sanskrit sounds is very old, though it becomes more clearly manifest in later times. For example, the late tantric text Kāmakalāvilāsa says,"The Supreme Śakti is resplendent. She is both the seed and sprout as the manifested union of Śiva and Śakti. She is very subtle. Her form is manifested through the union of the first letter of the alphabet, 'a,' and the final letter, 'ha.'" (KāVil. 3).
In such texts, every single letter of the Sanskrit alphabet is looked upon as representing some phase of the manifestation of the creative power, śakti . Several attempts have been made in modern times to interpret the ancient vedic texts using the tantric significance of the sounds of the Sanskrit language. While such efforts are philologically unacceptable to modern scholarship, their very existence reflects a continuity of particular lines of interpretive thinking found in ancient India.
Vedic Tradition versus Jainism and Buddhism
The protests against the Brahmanical attitudes and practices are first seen most clearly in the religious traditions of Jainism and Buddhism, which emerge into prominence during the middle of the 1st millennium BCE. Mahāvīra and Buddha were contemporaries who promulgated two different religious traditions, subsequently known as Jainism and Buddhism, around the 4th century BCE. Both of them were born into princely warrior families in the region to the east of the north-central region of Āryāvarta, the religious center of the Brahmanical tradition. In the dialogues of Mahāvīra and Buddha, we see the resentment of the warriors against the beliefs and practices of the Brahmans. In contrast to the restrictive strategies of the Brahmans, which denied access to the vedic scriptures for large segments of the population, Mahāvīra and Buddha taught their doctrines and offered the possibility of salvation to everyone. In their zeal to reach the masses, both of these teachers preferred to teach their doctrines in the local Prakrit dialects, which could be understood by the masses. This does not mean that they chose the lowly languages just to reach the masses, because there is circumstantial evidence that they regarded the Prakrit languages to be languages of high status. The tradition of Theravāda Buddhism regards Pali, the Prakrit used for its canonical texts, to be the original language of all beings. The dialogues of Mahāvīra display an exalted place accorded to the language Ardhamagadhi, the Prakrit used by Mahāvīra. It is said to be the language of the gods, and this vernacular language used by Mahāvīra is said to have been automatically transformed into the languages of the listeners. In the lists of the four social classes, Buddhists place the Kṣatriyas above the Brahmans. Thus there are good indications that the Buddhists and Jains viewed the respective Prakrits, used for their canonical texts, to be languages of high status, and of high religious value.The Buddhists depicted the authors of the Veda, the poet–sages, as ignorant fools, and the contemporary Brahmans as blind followers of the blind. We are told that there were Brahman converts to Buddhism who wanted to translate the words of Buddha into the language of chandas (Vedic language), and that this request was soundly rejected. Emperor Aśoka, who supported Buddhism and became himself a Buddhist, used Prakrits, rather than Sanskrit, for all his inscriptions (besides the occasional use of Greek and Aramaic), indicating the high political prestige for the Prakrit languages. This set the stage for a very long and bitter debate about the social and religious status of Sanskrit and Prakrit languages. Both the Jains and the Buddhists also appropriated the high-prestige term “ārya” for themselves, producing another bitter conflict and debate. The Buddhists considered all those who accepted the path of Buddha to be Aryans. Thus, the term “ārya” no longer carried a sense of identity by Aryan birth, but it shifted the focus to moral and spiritual values as the determining factor. The Jains also came up with a long list of various criteria for inclusion in the newly defined Aryan community. The Ardhamagadhi and the Pali Prakrits are now claimed to be the Aryan languages par excellence, and this poses a great challenge to the traditional conceptions of the Brahmanical tradition. The Jain and the Buddhist traditions openly admit that it is acceptable to use any language of convenience to communicate the religious doctrine to a willing listener. For the Buddhists and Jains, the use of language is primarily a tool to communicate their religious message to anyone who is willing to listen, and hence the insistence on a particular language is not a characteristic feature of these traditions. Thus, in spite of the feeling of high prestige for Ardhamagadhi and Pali in these traditions, they were open to the notions of translations and vernacular explanations of their teachings.
Emergence of Postvedic Hinduism
The rise of Jainism and Buddhism shaped the nature of Hinduism, both scholastic and popular, as it emerged in later times. The response of the Brahmanical tradition to the opposing traditions took many forms, but here I shall only focus on language-related issues. The main linguistic arguments came from the Sanskrit grammarians, the Mīmāṃsakas ("Ritualists:, and the Naiyāyikas (“Logicians”) and Vaiśeṣikas ("Realists"). The authors of the Hindu Dharmaśāstras also offered arguments.Hindu Law Books (Smṛti)
Manu’s law book (Manusmṛti, 200–100 BCE) seems to outright reject the lax definitions of caste terms offered by the Buddhists and the Jains, and their redefinition of the notion of who was Aryan. Manu, who says that one’s identity as an Aryan is strictly defined by one’s birth, also discusses the question of language. In the world, there are non-Aryans who look like Aryans, and they may even speak like Aryans. However, they are not Aryans, unless they are born as Aryans. The moral definitions of who is a true Brahman, as offered by the Buddhists, Jains, and others, were clearly unacceptable to Hindu legal writers. The dharmaśāstra writers held steadfast to their view that the Brahmans were the primary custodians of the vedic scriptures. They were the only ones who could learn, teach, and use the Vedas. The communities of Kṣatriyas, the warriors, and the Vaiśyas, the trading castes, were deemed worthy of studying the Vedas, but they were not allowed to teach them. The Brahmans officiated as priests at the vedic rituals performed by hosts from these communities. The Śūdras, however, were completely beyond the reach of the Vedas. Not only were they not supposed to study the Vedas, but they were also not supposed to even hear these texts being recited. The Brahmans were advised to stop reciting the Vedas, if they suspected that a Śūdra might listen to their recitation. Women were also treated in the same way. In Brahmanical rites, women were mostly silent partners, with relatively little occasion to speak up. It is certain that over time, the gap between the Brahmans, the Kṣatriyas, and the Vaiśyas widened. Thus, the access to the Vedas eventually became restricted only to the Brahmans. As we will see later, this dissociation of the non-Brahman communities from the vedic tradition and Sanskrit language eventually led to the emergence of vernacular forms of devotional religion in all parts of India.The dharma texts argue that all rules of conduct are ultimately based on the Vedas. The Vedas are the highest authority in any decision. The next authority is that of the remembered tradition codified in the Smṛti texts. If there is a conflict between the Vedas and a Smṛti, the Vedas override the Smṛti. The third authority is the behavior of the elites in the society, who, by their exemplary conduct, set the norms for the behavior of others. Some dharma texts admit that rules of conduct by people of specific regions, families, and communities were not specified in the Vedas, which is why Manu provided these rules. However, there is a more conservative approach in other texts. If a Smṛti text is explicitly contradicted by a known vedic text, then the vedic text overrides the Smṛti text. However, if a Smṛti text is neither contradicted nor supported by a known vedic text, then one assumes that there must have been a supporting vedic text that is now lost (anumitaśruti). Thus, in theory, all Smṛti texts that are accepted as authoritative are supported by vedic texts, whether attested or assumed. Such a notion of vedic texts that are now presumed to be lost is a legal fiction, which becomes possible because of the traditional conception of the infiniteness (ananta) of the original Vedas, and the finiteness of the Vedas known to human beings.
Sanskrit Grammarians
Pāṇini (400 BCE) composed his grammar of Sanskrit, the Aṣṭādhyayī, with a certain notion of an eternal language. For him, there were regional dialects of Sanskrit as well as its scriptural and contemporary domains of usage. All these domains are treated as subdomains of a unified language, which is not restricted by any temporality. The language of the Vedas is treated as a subdomain of this unified language and is not treated as a language of a bygone age, no longer alive. This gives us some idea of Pāṇini’s conception of language, though he does not engage in an explicit discussion of philosophical issues.The early commentators on Pāṇini’s grammar, Kātyāyana and Patañjali (250–100 BCE), authors of the Vārttika and Mahābhāṣya respectively, display a significant reorganization of Brahmanical views in the face of opposition from Jains and Buddhists. For Kātyāyana and Patañjali, the Sanskrit language at large is sacred like the Vedas. The intelligent use of Sanskrit, backed by the explicit understanding of its grammar, leads to prosperity here as well as in the next world, as do the Vedas. Kātyāyana and Patañjali admit that vernaculars and Sanskrit could fulfill the function of communicating meaning. However, only the usage of Sanskrit produces religious merit. This is an indirect criticism of the Jains and the Buddhists, who used vernacular languages for the propagation of their faiths. The grammarians did not accept the religious value of the vernaculars. The vernacular languages, along with the incorrect uses of Sanskrit, are all thrown together by the Sanskrit grammarians under the derogatory terms Apashabda and Apabhramsha. Both of these suggest a view that the vernaculars are degenerate or “fallen” forms of the divine language, that is, Sanskrit. Kātyāyana says,
"While the relationship between words and meanings is established on the basis of the usage of specific words to denote specific meanings in the community of speakers, the science of grammar only makes a regulation concerning the religious merit produced by the linguistic usage, as is commonly done in worldly matters and in vedic rituals" (Vartt. 1, MaBh.).
Kātyāyana refers to these “degenerate” vernacular usages as being caused by the inability of the low-class speakers to speak proper Sanskrit. This implies that the speakers of Prakrit have a certain disability. This disability could be deadly in ritual terms. Thus the grammarians suggest that while the use of vernaculars may be acceptable in secular nonreligious contexts, their use in religious contexts was particularly objectionable. The relationship between Sanskrit words and their meanings is said to be established (siddha) before the grammarians begin their work. Patañjali understands this statement of Kātyāyana to mean that the relationship between Sanskrit words and their meanings is eternal (nitya), not created (kārya) by anyone. Since this eternal relationship exists only for Sanskrit words and their meanings, one cannot accord the same status to the fallen vernaculars, which are born of their speakers’ disability.
It is important to mention Bhartṛhari (400 CE), another philosopher of language in the grammatical tradition and author of the Vākyapadīya, among others. Apart from his significant contribution toward an in-depth philosophical understanding of issues of the structure and function of language, and issues of phonology, semantics, and syntax, Bhartṛhari is well known for his proposal that language constitutes the ultimate principle of reality (śabdabrahman). Both the signified words and signified entities in the world are perceived to be a transformation (pariṇāma) of the ultimate unified principle of language
Mīmāṃsā: Philosophy of the Ritualists
Around 200 BCE, the ritualists (Mīmāṃsakas) and the logicians (Naiyāyikas and Vaiśeṣikas) also were eagerly defending their religious faith in the Vedas and in the Brahmanical religion. The strategies of these traditions were, however, very different. The ritualists accepted the criticism of the Buddhists and Jains that one should not accept the notion of god, if one accepts the doctrine of karman. The Buddhists had also argued that the authors of the vedic texts were ignorant human beings and that their words could not be trusted, as they were bound to be colored by ignorance, passion, and deceit. In contrast, the figures of Mahavīra and Buddha were perceived by their respective traditions as human, and yet omniscient, persons (sarvajña) who were compassionate and free from ignorance and malice. The ritualists attempted to defend the Vedas under these criticisms. They contested the doctrine of the omniscient person (sarvajña) and argued that no humans were omniscient and free from ignorance, passion, or deceit. Therefore, Buddha could not be free from these either, and his words could therefore not be trusted. At the same time, the Vedas were eternal words, uncreated by any human being (apauruṣeya). Since they were not created by human beings, they were free from the limitations of human beings. Yet the Vedas were meaningful, because the relationship between words and meanings was innate. The Vedas were ultimately seen as ordaining the performance of sacrifices. The ritualists developed a theory of sentence meaning that claims that the meaning of a sentence centers around some specific action denoted by a verb and an injunction, expressed by the verbal terminations. Thus, language primarily orders us to engage in appropriate actions.In this connection, we may note that Mīmāṃsā and other systems of Hindu philosophy also develop a notion of linguistic expression as one of the sources of authoritative knowledge (śabdapramāṇa), when other more basic sources of knowledge like sense perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna) are not available. Particularly, in connection with religious duty (dharma) and heaven (svarga) as the promised reward, only Veda is available as the source of authoritative knowledge. For Mīmāṃsā, the uncreated eternal Veda as a source of knowledge is not tainted by negative qualities – like ignorance and malice – that could affect a normal speaker of a linguistic expression.
Naiyāyikas and Vaiśeṣikas: Hindu Logicians and Realists
The Naiyāyikas (logicians) and Vaiśeṣikas (realist ontologists) also offered their own arguments in defense of the vedic traditions. They also believed that the Vedas were a source of authoritative knowledge (śabdapramāṇa). According to them, only the words of a trustworthy speaker (āpta) were a source of authoritative knowledge. They joined the ritualists in arguing that no humans, including Buddha and Mahāvīra, were free from ignorance, passion, and so on, and therefore the words of Buddha and Mahāvīra could not be accepted as infallible. However, they did not agree with the ritualists in their rejection of the notion of god. In the metaphysics of the logicians, the notion of god plays a central role. First they had to defend this notion against objections from their Buddhist and Jain opponents. Having established the notion of god, they claimed that god was the only being in the universe that was omniscient and free from the faults of ignorance and malice. He was a compassionate being. Therefore, only the words of god could be infallible and could therefore be trusted. For the Naiyāyikas and Vaiśeṣikas, the Vedas were the words of god, not the words of some human sages about god. The human sages only received the words of god and transmitted them to later generations, and they had no authorship role. On a more specific level, this argument came to mean that god only spoke in Sanskrit. Hence Sanskrit was the language of god, which was the best means to approach god. God willfully established a connection between each Sanskrit word and its meaning, saying, “let this word refer to this thing.” Since such a connection was not established by god for vernacular languages, which were only fallen forms of Sanskrit, the vernaculars could not be vehicles for religious and spiritual communication.Vedas and Infallibility
By the time we come to the classical philosophical systems, one more assumption is made by almost all Hindu systems, which is that all the Vedas together form a coherent whole. The human authorship of the vedic texts has long been rejected, and they are now perceived as being either entirely uncreated or created by god. Under the assumption that they are entirely uncreated, their innate ability to convey truthful meaning is unhampered by human limitations. Thus if all the vedic texts convey truthful meaning, there cannot be any internal contradictions. If the Vedas are created by an omniscient god, who by his very nature is compassionate and beyond human limitations, one reaches the same conclusion, namely, that there cannot be any internal contradictions. The traditional interpretation of the Vedas proceeds under these assumptions. If one observes seeming contradictions in vedic passages, the burden to find ways of removing those seeming contradictions is upon the interpreter. We see contradictions because of our limitations, not because of any inherent problems with the texts themselves. Such a fundamental belief led to the emergence of many sophisticated ways of explaining away the seeming contradictions found in the Vedas.If two passages seemed contradictory, one way was to argue that one of those passages was to be taken literally, while the other one was only metaphorical. Perhaps, the two seemingly contradictory passages refer to customs followed by people in different regions, or time spans. It is sometimes pointed out that one of such passages was meant to provide only a provisional, nonfinal answer, while the other passage was meant to provide a final conclusion. After trying all possible ways of removing a seeming conflict between two statements, if one cannot find any viable solution, then, and only then, the two seemingly contradictory passages are accepted as providing an option. Such rules of textual interpretation were perfected by the ritualists and were widely accepted by the legal tradition and by the philosophers belonging to different schools of Vedānta, which tried, each in its particular way, to reconcile (samanvaya) the various scriptural texts, and to construct a systematic philosophical doctrine, out of otherwise seemingly discordant vedic texts.
Rise of Vernacular Traditions
While responding negatively to the early promotion of vernaculars to the status of scriptural languages by the Buddhists and Jains, the Brahmanical tradition itself was not fully immune to the same urges. This is seen in the emergence of the Sanskrit epics like the Rāmāyaṇa , the Mahābhārata , and the Purāṇas. This literature, though its oldest surviving manifestations appear in Sanskrit, is most certainly different in its intent as compared to the vedic literature. The eligibility for the vedic rituals was restricted to the higher three communities of priests, warriors, and tradespeople, but women and Śūdras were left out of this access. The Bhagavadgītā , a new scripture, tries to spread its appeal to all communities. The doctrine of devotion to Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu is new in that it is aimed at providing access to salvation through devotion to all human beings. The Bhagavadgītā makes a clear statement offering devotional access to everyone (BhG. 9.29–33).The Bhagavadgītā, though composed in Sanskrit and representing a top-down approach, is extending the devotional path to Vaiśyas, Sūdras, and women without offering them access to the Vedas or even to the use of the Sanskrit language. Thus there is a suggestion that access to devotional religion for these non-high social groups, and women, must be achieved through their own languages, and through means other than vedic sacrifices. This is the first open indication of acceptance of non-Sanskrit languages and nonvedic ritual forms of worship as possible alternative ways to approaching god.
This acknowledgment of alternative linguistic and ritual paths to god, without diluting and abdicating the path of Vedic scriptures and sacrifices, points to the emergence of an essentially two-tiered religious practice. Everyone had access to devotional religion, while the Brahmans continued to restrict access to the Vedas and the Sanskrit language. This is evident in the emergence of the so-called puranic mantras in worshipping various divinities, by the side of the vedic mantras. If the host was a Brahman, then the priest would perform the ceremony using both the vedic and the puranic mantras. However, if the host was a non-Brahman, the priest would typically use only the puranic mantras in the ceremony. For those who were too low to have access to a Brahman priest, a devotional ceremony could still take place entirely in a vernacular language. The devotional literature like the Mahābhārata and Purāṇas, in contrast, could be narrated in the vernacular languages. Such vernacular versions of these epics and Purāṇas in all likelihood were circulating from very old times, though recorded instances of vernacular versions only became available at a later time. The origin of the vernacular devotional movements lies in this sociolinguistic tension between the higher and the lower layers of the Hindu society. Judging from the evidence provided by Buddhism and Jainism, such tensions must have existed all along, though the vernacular devotional literature itself became available to us during a somewhat later period.
This vernacular devotional movement makes its appearance in the Tamil Nadu region in the second half of the 1st millennium CE, in opposition to both the dominant traditions of Buddhism and Jainism in this area as well as the dominant Brahmanical religion expressed in the medium of Sanskrit. The majority of these Tamil-speaking “saints,” the Vaiṣṇava Āḻvārs and Śaiva Nāyaṉārs, are fervent devotees of their respective gods. The Tamil poetic tradition itself, recorded in the Caṅkam literature, predates the emergence of these devotional poet-saints by a few centuries and ensures the confidence of the Tamil poetic expression. The Jains and the Buddhists had also been using Tamil for religious expression, hence the use of Tamil for religious expression by the Āḻvārs and Nāyaṉārs is not entirely new. What is new is the orientation in the direction of fervent devotion to Śiva and Viṣṇu. While these gods were already worshipped in the Brahmanical tradition, the Brahmanical tradition provided little access and comfort to the lower classes of the Hindu society. They were kept out of the Brahmanical rituals and temple establishments, and their mother tongue, Tamil, had no place in that Brahmanical practice. The predominantly non-Brahman Āḻvārs and Nāyaṉārs, who included a number of women saints among them, essentially claimed to have a direct relationship to their respective gods, which was ecstatic, personal, all-encompassing, and satisfying. Importantly, this relationship to god bypassed the Brahmanical texts, practices, and establishments, and it engendered in the minds of the poet-saints a new sense of freedom from that Brahmanical tradition, almost verging on a feeling of superiority to it. While Appar, Campantar (7th cent. CE), and Cuntarar (9th cent. CE) opted for the vernacular and tried to open devotional access to Śiva for all castes, they also set out to establish or reestablish agamic temple worship for Śiva.
The works of the Tamil poet-saints, the Āḻvārs and the Nāyaṉārs, became an alternative scriptural corpus for the followers of the vernacular devotional path. The works of the Vaiṣṇava Āḻvār saints, collected in an anthology called Nālāyira Divya Prabandha (Tam. Nālāyira Tivya Pirapantam; Holy Collection of Four Thousand) by the Brahman Vaiṣṇava teacher Nāthamuni (Tam. Nātamuṉi; 9th cent. CE), came to be looked upon as the Tamil Veda. This Tamil Veda was looked at as an authoritative source for devotional religion by the Vaiṣṇava Brahmans in the Tamil region, and the Sanskritic Vaiṣṇavism of Rāmānuja incorporated much of the devotional inspiration from the hymns of the Āḻvārs. This incorporation of the vernacular inspiration into the Brahmanical traditions and the incorporation of the Brahmanical tradition into the vernacular are to be seen as parallel processes in the history of Hinduism. In the region of Karnataka, the vernacular devotional tradition of the Vīraśaivas generally followed an independent course and stayed away from the Brahmanical traditions. However, the Vaiṣṇava saints like Purandaradāsa and Kanakadāsa (16th cent. CE) were not delinked from the Brahmanical tradition. Vyāsatīrtha (1447–1539 CE), a scholar in the tradition of Madhva’s dualist (Dvaita) Vedānta school during the reign of the Vijayanagara king Kṛṣṇadēvarāya, simultaneously pursued Sanskritic and vernacular interests. While writing highly erudite Sanskrit philosophical works expounding his dualist Vedānta views, he simultaneously encouraged participation of non-Brahman devotees of Viṣṇu into a devotional group called Dāsakūṭa . It was through Vyāsatīrtha’s encouragement and inspiration that the poet-saints Purandaradāsa and Kanakadāsa produced their Kannada devotional poems.
To illustrate this dual cultural and linguistic process, let us look at the region of Maharashtra in the 2nd millennium CE. During the 12th and 13th centuries we see several important figures at work. A Brahman Sanskrit scholar Mukundarāja (12th cent. CE) wrote a Marathi work Vivekasindhu to provide a vernacular exposition of the Advaita Vedānta of Śaṅkara. This is clearly an attempt to provide access to classical philosophical ideas to those who did not understand Sanskrit. The most prominent religious figure of this period is Jñāndev, also known as Jñāneśvara (13th cent. CE). Born to Brahman parents who were excommunicated by the local Brahman community, Jñāneśvara was initiated into the Nāth tradition by his elder brother Nivṛttināth. Jñāneśvara, his two brothers, and a sister, after their parents’ death, went to the Brahmans of Paithan to be accepted back into the Brahman community. However, after the Brahmans refused, Jñāneśvara performed many miracles, which launched his career as a saint. Thus, as a rejected Brahman, Jñāneśvara directed his attention to the religious needs of the people at large and produced the first vernacular commentary on the Bhagavadgītā. This Marathi commentary, popularly called Jñāneśvarī, is not just an attempt to bring the philosophical contents of the Bhagavadgītā into Marathi. It shows Jñāneśvara’s full pride in Marathi, and he says that his poetic Marathi can compete with the sweetness of nectar. Through his Jñāneśvarī, he removes a linguistic barrier to salvation, which is consequently accessible to everyone.
Eknāth (1548–1609) is the next poet-saint of great importance. Born a Brahman and trained in the Sanskritic lore, Eknāth is attracted to the tradition of devotion and turns his attention to the use of Marathi to express his devotion and erudition. Just as Jñāneśvara brought the Bhagavadgītā into Marathi, Eknāth translated the Bhāgavatapurāṇa into Marathi. The Brahmans of his day were not generally in favor of translating Sanskrit scriptural works into Marathi, and Eknāth was accused of sacrilege by translating the Bhāgavatapurāṇa into Marathi. We are told that Eknāth had to face a Brahman tribunal at Banaras. This tribunal ordered that Eknāth’s Marathi translation be thrown in the Gaṅgā. However, a miracle happened, and the Marathi translation floated on the waters of the Gaṅgā, instead of sinking.
We find similar stories about the saint Tukārām (1598–1649), who was born in a Śūdra caste and had no access to Sanskritic learning. Tukārām says that he does not speak with his own power, but it is his god, Viṭṭhala (Kṛṣṇa), who makes him speak. He claims to be a lame man who is made to walk by god’s power. Tukārām’s assertion that the god Viṭṭhala directly communicates with him, a Śūdra, in his own lowly language, brought him into conflicts with the local Brahmans. They also forced him to throw his Marathi devotional poems into the river Indrāyaṇī. However, again a miracle happened, and the books were saved from sinking, thus establishing Tukārām’s authenticity and his access to god.
Emboldened by his own religious experience, Tukārām claims that he, a Śūdra, alone knows the true meaning of the Vedas, while the Brahmans simply carry the burden. He heavily criticizes the Brahmans for simply playing linguistic games, and he says that all the Vedas, Śāstras, and Purāṇas ultimately teach devotion to Viṭṭhala.
The themes of a vernacular text being thrown into a river and the judgment of a devotee by orthodox Brahmans and the like are common to the received stories of north Indian saints like Tulsīdās, Kabīr, and Nānak and show a pan-Indian set of motifs indicating that the struggle of the vernacular bhakti tradition with the orthodox Sanskritic traditions maintained by Brahmans was not a narrow regional phenomena, but resonated in all the different regions and communities of India.
The linguistic tensions continued in Maharashtra in other arenas as well. Stories of the 17th-century king Śivājī (1627–1680) show some interesting issues. Born into a warrior family, Śivājī rebelled against the Muslim rulers in Maharashtra and succeeded in establishing his own independent kingdom. At this time, the Brahmans generally came to believe that there were no true Kṣatriyas left on earth any more, and while they continued to work for the local kings, they refused to accept them as genuine Kṣatriyas. Śivājī’s spiritual guru is said to be the Brahman–saint Rāmdās (1608–1681). Rāmdās’ poetic and philosophical works have been preserved mostly in Marathi. In 1676, Śivājī had his royal coronation performed and was officially declared a Kṣatriya Hindu king. The famous Sanskrit paṇḍit Gāgābhaṭṭa of Banaras performed his coronation. There are traditional stories about the tensions between Rāmdās and Gāgābhaṭṭa; Gāgābhaṭṭa, the stories say, did not want Śivājī to continue his association with Rāmdās and with Marathi. He promised to teach him Sanskrit, so that he could function fully in the image of a classical Kṣatriya king.
Importance of the Divine Name
In the process of making religious practice more accessible to the masses, a number of strategies seem to have come into existence. While the emphasis on knowing the true name of a thing or a divinity, thus ritually gaining access to and control over it, is attested in the oldest vedic literature, the devotional importance of remembering and reciting the name or names of god is attested in the epic and puranic literature. Prayers in the form of concatenation of various names of a divinity are attested in the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas. An early example of this is the popular Viṣṇusahasranāma (Thousand Names of Viṣṇu) found in the Mahābhārata. Such concatenations of 108 or 1,008 names become available in later times for almost all different Hindu gods and goddesses. These prayers – along with a widespread practice of repeating a given name of a divinity, a sacred symbol like oṃ, or a particular salutational formula like oṃ namaḥ śivāya – offer devotional access to a wide range of people who need not, and did not, know the Sanskrit language as such. Added to this are practices of naming one’s children after divinities, wearing clothes with imprinted names of a divinity, and writing down the names of a divinity on different household materials.Multiple Representations of Language and Scripture
We have already seen the process of linguistic performances of ancient vedic sages being preserved as potent incantations by the later generations. The same process continued to work with most religious texts. For example, the Bhagavadgītā was not just looked upon as a piece of philosophical literature, but it was looked upon as a powerful mantra “chant,” and there are several texts available that describe in detail the process of chanting the Bhagavadgītā and the rewards for chanting the whole text, particular chapters, particular verses, and even just uttering the word “gītā.” Manuscripts and printed books of works like the Bhagavadgītā came to be worshipped as holy objects. The Bhagavadgītā was at some point deified into a goddess, and prayers to “Mother, Goddess Gītā” were produced. In modern times, we find in India the so-called gītāmandirs (Gītā temples), where the Bhagavadgītā is represented in all these forms, ranging from the image of the goddess to stone image of the book, the text inscribed on the walls and recited in its halls, and copies sold in the bookshop. The devotees are encouraged to access the Bhagavadgītā in every possible way. The deification of texts was indeed not limited to the Bhagavadgītā: in the Purāṇas, we already find the full deification of the four Vedas, each with a distinct iconography of its own, and the Vedas, thus deified and personified, appear as interlocutors in various conversations. This deification and personification of specific texts need to be understood differently from the deification of speech into a goddess in the Ṛgveda, or representation of the goddess of speech in the form of the goddess Sarasvatī in classical times.The relation of language to religion in modern times is very complicated because of the variation one finds from region to region and from community to community. The interaction of Sanskrit and the vernacular, including English for many, is the most interesting continuing religious phenomenon. While Sanskrit largely maintains its symbolic presence as holy chants, the understanding of religious sentiment almost always takes place through one’s vernacular.
In modern times, religious language appears in all its modern technological manifestations. The first major shift was from hand-written manuscripts to printing. This was then followed by recording and broadcasting technologies. It started with the use of loudspeakers and microphones at religious performances. In the form of recorded cassettes and compact discs, the religious songs and discourses can now be mass produced and distributed. If a priest is not available on a given day, the worshipper can now buy a recorded priestly voice telling him what to do and say. With the telecast of the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata, and other stories about gods and goddesses, the religious language has made full penetration into every field of social activity and interaction. Finally, we are now in the age of the Internet, where numerous Web sites are providing access to different religious materials, and numerous chat groups are offering worldwide discussions of issues deemed to be important for one’s faith. From anywhere in the world, we can listen to the daily prayers recited in the Gaṇeśa temple in Bombay (the Siddhivināyaka Temple), online! Thus, beginning with its Vedic and Sanskrit forms and ranging to its modern vernacular forms, language remains at the center of the religious world of Hinduism.
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