nityatva and apaurusheyatva in language - nicholas kazanas (2016)

8/19/2019 Nityatva and Apaurusheyatva in Language - Nicholas Kazanas (2016)

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‘nity tv and p uru ey tv in language’

N. Kazanas, Athens,

0 Abstract This paper was first written in 2007 for the Centre for Sanskrit Studies (in JNU)but has been revised since. It argues that apauru !eyatva and nityatva can be found only in adeeper level of language where operate entities like the k"rak"#i as distinct from thevibhaktaya$ ‘declension-cases’.

1 Can these two qualities ‘non-humanness’ and ‘eternality/universality’ be found in anyaspect of language as we know language in our times - beyond the ak !ara sounds?

It is an axiom of the M ! m"#s" philosophical system that the Veda is apauru !eya ‘of non-human origin’; it is also nitya ‘eternal, universal’. The Veda is, of course, the three Vedas –% k, yajus and s"ma. This triad is known also as tray& vidy" ‘triple knowledge’. This is anothermeaning of veda ‘knowledge’– and the triple knowledge pertains in another sense to thematerial world, the divine (or mental) and the spiritual. So knowledge too hasapauru !eyatva ‘non-humanness’ and nityatva ‘eternality, universality’. Moreover, as has oftenbeen observed, the Veda was called ' abda ‘word, sound’ both in the P$rvaM ! m"#s" and theUttaraM ! m"#s" or Ved"nta (Pandurangi 2006; Raju 1971). So by a simple extensionapauru !eyatva and nityatva belong to ' abda also.

This view is much older than the M ! m"#s" and other philosophical systems. We do notknow the exact dates when these systems were formulated (absolute dates given areconjectural), but in the forms we now have them they are certainly post-Vedic and just ascertainly, they presuppose the Upanishads (Up, hereafter) and the hymns of the ( gveda. In

the Upanishads the philosophical doctrine has the general appellation ' abdabrahman ‘theWord [is] Absolute’ or ‘the Word [is] the Holy Power’; naturally, brahman is both apauru !eya and nitya. The ' abdabrahman doctrine is found fully developed in the V "kyapad& ya of thecomparatively late philosopher-grammarian Bhart%hari (late 5th cent CE?) with its fourstates: vaikhar & gross, spoken and written utterance; madhyam" mental, but with mostfeatures of the gross language; pa ' yant & spiritual, undifferentiated, full of potential andoutside all common experience (=silence); par " the absolute state, beyond description (VP1975; Aklujkar 1990). But we find it enunciated in the Maitr & Up 6.22: dve v"va brahma#& abhidhyeye ' abda ' c "' abda ' ca ‘two brahman aspects are to be meditated upon, one of soundand one of silence’; the passage further says that by &abda alone is the silent one revealedand ends with the indication - ' abdabrahma#i ni !#"ta$ para) brahma adhigacchati ‘whoever iswell versed in the sounding brahman reaches the supreme [silent] brahman’. In otherwords, through the manifest gross language one can reach the Supreme which remainsunmanifest in its own sphere.

The B% had"ra# yaka Up 4.1.2 changes the terms somewhat: it substitutes v"k for ' abda saying emphatically v" g vai brahma ‘speech/language indeed is brahman, the Absolute’ andthat brahman should be approached/worshipped as prajñ" ‘intelligence, wisdom’. Thisformulation takes us through the 'ra( yakas and Br"hma(as back to the ( gveda where v"c , amighty goddess as well as the speech of man, stands in place of ' abda. In one )f the best-known passages of those Hymns we find catv" *ri v" *k párimit " pad" *ni ‘speech/language hasbeen measured out in four divisions/levels’. These are not named but the same stanza tellsus that while the three higher ones lie hidden ( gúh"), tur & * ya) vacó manu ! y" + vadanti ‘menspeak the fourth (lower) level of speech’ (RV 1.164.45). Stanza 35 says that brahm" * yá) vacá$

paramá) vyòma ‘the brahma (=sanctity) is the highest heaven (=abode) of Speech’. Plainly


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there is no reason not to take the four levels of Speech V "c here as corresponding to, andbeing the basis for, the four states of Bhart%hari’s view of language.

2 Having accepted the M ! m"#s" general axiom that vidy" and ' abda (or v"c ) have ‘non-

human origin’ and ‘eternality’, can we find these qualities or a reflection of them in anactual spoken and written language like English, Hind ! or Sanskrit? Yes, we can find themin the K "rak"#i ‘factors contributing to the start, continuance and completion of an action’as given in P"(ini’s A !,"dhy" y& . The dh"tu ‘root, seed-element’ also has them as well as theak !ara ‘basic phonemes of language’ as distinct from enunciated sounds in speech (or lettersin writing).

Now it is observable that all sounds (belonging to the general category of dhvani andbeing called var #a) have beginning and end. They are uttered by humans, manifest brieflyand disappear into silence: thus they are both pauru !eya and anitya. The thinking in wordsthat precedes it, as much as the spoken utterance itself, belongs to the ordinary humancondition and has beginning and end: this too employs linguistic elements (vocables, verbs,

nouns etc) that are man-made and are subject to change. Thus French has different sounds,words, idioms, syntax etc from Italian, even though both languages derive largely fromLatin. Similarly Bengali and Marathi differ in all these aspects even though both derivelargely from Sanskrit. These differences have come about through human everyday use andto a degree, through contact with other, alien languages. The ordinary aspect of theselanguages is very much pauru !eya. And since the pronunciation and meanings of theirlexemes (nouns, verbs etc) have changed over the years, nityatva also is absent.

On the other hand, a is a always and everywhere: hence we have the term ak !ara ‘indestructible’ – which applies to all phonemes (i, u, ka, ta, kha, tha, etc) in this theireternal aspect. This aspect obviously does not belong to our common human usage,characterized by mutability (vaikhar & and madhyam"); it belongs to the pa ' yant & level oflanguage. This must be classed as apauru !eya and nitya.

There are other human phenomena or experiences that are universal and fall outsidethe range of ordinary volition or intent. One such common phenomenon is love. All peoplethroughout the world and throughout history love something or somebody. That love is auniversal, eternal state is indicated also by the common idiom “to fall in love”: so here wefind nityatva. In addition, we don’t choose to fall in or out of love and don’t know why orhow this happens. Only after the event do we try to find reasons and rationalize it. So, inthis sense, love has also apauru !eyatva. The same holds for some other human experiences.Everybody has a desire for (more) knowledge – and consequently people read variouspublications or ask questions and so on, but, again, we don’t know whence this desirecomes.

Such human experiences, too, at least in their inception, must belong to the pa ' yant &

level and must have nityatva.

3 We can now simplify the four-level scheme into two levels and so deal more clearly withour subject – but must not get carried away into thoughts of duality since the scheme issingle and our analysis is given only to facilitate understanding. The two levels can be andhave been termed “surface structure”, corresponding moreorless to Bhart%hari’s two lowerstates vaikhar & and madhyam", and “deep structure”, corresponding largely to the pa ' yant & state; or we can talk even more simply of gross and subtle levels/states. Clearly thequalities of non-humanness and eternality will be found in the subtle aspect or the deepstructure of language.

There seem to be at least three features of language that belong to the subtle aspect oflanguage and have apauru !eyatva and nityatva. One is the ak*ara which we touched upon in


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the preceding section. The other is the dh"tu the study of which is most revealing. The thirdone is the k"rak"#i. The dh"tu would require a separate and lengthy study since it toucheson the origin itself of languages (for some preliminary thoughts on this see Kazanas 2007,§22). In this paper we concentrate on the k"rakas as ‘contributors to the action’ expressed

by the verb.

4 At the start we need to make a clarification. We have actions (or transitive movements)and states (or intransitive conditions). In ultra-modern linguistics we meet new terms,thought to be “scientific”, but they add little to the distinctions I make here, so I leave themaside. The verb in every statement in the ordinary language denotes an action and iscategorized as “transitive” or a state and is termed “intransitive”. Although there areimportant and valid differences between the two, yet one can be translated into terms ofthe other. The simple “I sit/stand” (intransitive) can be rendered into (transitive) “I havemoved my body to a condition where I sit/stand”; or the transitive “I kick the ball” into theintransitive “[You see that] I am in the state of having my leg kicking the ball”. Some details

change but the core meaning is unaltered. Hereafter I shall use only act/action (transitive)for simplicity. But we should note also the Pr"ti&"khya definition of verb: We have tad"khy"ta- yena bhava- sa dh"tu$ (12.5) ‘a verb is that by which we mark existence, which is adh"tu+’; but in 7 is added: kriy"v"cakam-"khy"tam ‘the verb expresses an action’ (Müller1859: 161-162)1. It is interesting to note in passing that both Y"ska in Nirukta and Aristotlein Poetics ascribe to noun being/existence (embodied) and to verb being with a temporalcontinuity.

In a sentence the action is expressed by the verb – kick, hold, give, fill, drink, cure etc.In the statement “a doctor cures” certain things are implied but left unsaid. A fuller versionwould be “a doctor cures ill people by means of medicines, diet and exercise”. But even thiscould raise questions like “where, when, for what reason?”

In fact there are six essential constituents, explicit or implicit, in every statement

describing an action. They were termed k"raka by P"(ini and all six are necessary for theunfolding of the action: the environment or locus wherein the action takes place temporaland spatial; the performer who acts releasing some energy (subject); the entity – thing orperson – acted upon (direct object); the further entity receiving the effect of the action(indirect object); the means whereby the action is promoted (instrument); the cause,material or otherwise, which supplies the energy but itself remains stable. Thus a completedescription without additional elements (adjectives, adverbs) would read something likethis:

In the night, in the palace, the doctor restoredhealth to the king’s son by means of a mantra out of his knowledge and his devotion to the king.

In English (and other analytical languages like French or Hind ! ) we use manyprepositions to show the relation of the constituents to the action-verb (= restore). In ahighly inflected language like Sanskrit the noun-terminations would do this. Thus,although I have not seen this particular statement or any other quite so full, in Sanskrit, itwould read approximately like this:

1 Most of Müller’s observations are quire illuminating. His dates, however, which have

become mainstream doctrine ( RV 1200 down to S!tra period 200 BCE) are hopelessly late,

based as they are on his identification of K"ty" yana with Vararuci from a ghost story inSomadeva’s Kath"sarits"gara(c 1100 CE) assigning the s!trakara to c 300 (Müller 1859:

240-244). Although later Müller himself repudiated those dates suggesting for the RV 3000 or

even 5000 BCE, they have stuck and bedevil Indology even to our days.


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r "trau n% pag% he vaidyo mantre#a bh. pati-bhaktiheto$ svavidy" y"$ sv" sthyam r " japutr " ya pratyap"dayat.

(Indian traditional texts do give a sentence-example but I find it gross and limited.)

5 Before we delve into the “deep structure” of this statement, we need perhaps todistinguish between the contributing factors k"raka and the cases of nouns vibhakti. Englishhas not much inflexion and compensates for this with the use of prepositions. So do manyother languages – French, Spanish, Hind ! etc. Sanskrit has a very full system of inflexion;other languages like Latin, Greek, Russian and Lithuanian are not quite so full as Sanskritbut do have rich declensions of nouns.

Now the cases perform certain syntactical functions in the sentence, as is obvious inour example above, but these are not absolute or invariable. In the Indian grammaticaltradition this fact is acknowledged by naming the vibhaktaya$ with numerals. In the Westthe cases are given special terms that attempt to indicate the functions of the nouns in the

sentence. They do not succeed fully and their use has continued (mostly) in inflectedlanguages out of habit and respect for the classical tradition. But it is obvious thatnominative could apply to any case since “names” of things, of creatures and of persons arebeing used in all cases while the accusative rarely ‘accuses’ of anything blameworthy! Ablative again is an absolute misnomer since it indicates the entity which does not move butfrom which ablation proceeds! And so on. But let us look at the whole picture:

The Western names derive from Latin (and Greek usage). The first practical work wasThe Art of Grammar of Dionusios Thrax (2nd cent BCE) in Greek (though this is doubted by

several modern scholars) and was translated into Latin as Ars Grammatica. The term “case”derives from Latin casus meaning ‘falling off, loss of position’ and translating the Greek pt / sis ‘a fall’. Aristotle, as was noted in §4, used pt / sis for both nouns and verbsdistinguishing the latter by ascribing to it a temporal element (Poetics C20). But the five pt / sis for the noun were introduced by the Stoics. The “cases” are thought to be “falls” fromthe “upright one” (orth0 in Greek), which was subsequently named “nominative”, i.e.naming the subject, agent. The other terms “accusative” etc also derive from Latin names,which translated Greek ones. (See Kemp 1991 and Law 2003 with references.) However, theWestern system has some faults and is misleading because any given case does not performinvariably the same syntactical function; it is not always related in the same way to theverb. For instance, Greek had no instrumental and the dative was used to fulfill this need; ithad no ablative so the genitive (and some preposition) was used instead. In Sanskrit too the

Sanskrit

pratham"

dvit ! y"

t%t ! y"

caturth !

pañcam !

»

*a*,h !

saptam !

sambodhana

Western

nominative

accusative

instrumental

dative

ablative

»

genitive

locative

vocative

Our example

vaidya$

sv" sthyam

mantre#a

(r " ja)putr " ya

vidy" y"$

bhaktiheto$

compound

r "trau, g% he

–

doctor

health

mantra

(king’s) son

knowledge

out of devotion

King’s

night, palace

–


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t % t & y" is sometimes used in place of the pañcam& (e.g. bhakty" or premn") and the saptam& inplace of the caturth& ( siddhau for siddhyai), etc.. The commonest perhaps example is seen inthe use of the t % t & y" instrumental in the passive construction. Taking the example from oursentence above we could write quite correctly:

“the health has been restored by the doctor” sv" sthyam vaidyena pratip"ditam.

Here the health sv" sthyam, which was the object (in the second or accusative) in the activeconstruction of our sentence now becomes the grammatical subject in the nominative pratham" and the doctor, who was the subject in the nominative, now appears in the t % t & y" instrumental – even though he continues to be the actual subject/performer of the action.The names “nominative, accusative” etc are therefore misnomers.

The cases themselves, the vibhaktaya$, do not have valid grounds for apauru !eyatva andnityatva due to two defects. First, as was said, many languages have only a mostrudimentary system of inflexion (eg. English: genitive “cow’s horns”; nominative plural

“ox>oxen, chicken>chickens, goose>geese”; but little else). Second, the cases have noinvariable functions despite their names in the Western tradition. They are adventitious,neither eternal nor universal. So we put aside the inflexion itself. (It is possible that at somevery ancient period the k"rak"#i had definite and invariable vibhaktaya$ for theirexpression.)

6 The Indian grammatical tradition distinguished between vibhaktis and k"rakas – andvery rightly so. The former belong to the surface or gross aspect of language and aresubject to human intervention and mutability. The latter form an aspect of the deep orsubtle structure which is universal and invariable.

Although it is possible that earlier wise grammarians and/or philosophers made the

distinction between the two, the glory now goes to P"(

ini who actually left us the earliestextant formulation of the two linguistic categories in the fourth section of the first book ofhis A !,"dhy" y& . Below I present the s$tras defining the six k"rakas in the sequence given inthe A !,"dhy" y& – since this has some important philosophical nuances.

1. dhruvam apaye’ p"d"nam (1, 4, 24): the immovable/ permanentin any departure is the ap"d"na ‘the source’. This is the cause.

2. karma#" yam abhipraiti sa samprad"nam (1, 4, 32): whomeversomeone intentionally approaches with a deed, that is samprad"na ‘the recipient’ (i.e. the indirect or further object).Thus we have a movement, a giving away (apa+"-d"na) fromwhat is immovable relatively to what moves and this reaches arecipient.

3. s"dhakatama) kara#am (1, 4, 42): what is most beneficial/efficacious, that is kara#a the instrument’ [for the completionof the action/movement]. The action, the giving away ormovement in 1 and 2 above is done through some efficientmeans or instrument.

4. "dh"ro ’dhikara#am (1, 4, 45): what holds [the action] isadhikara#a the overseeing, surrounding [i.e. the framework orenvironment of space and time wherein the action unfolds].

5. kartur & psitatama) karma (1, 4, 49): what is most beloved of theagent/performer kart % that is karma ‘the immediate work-object’.

6. svatantra$ kart " (1, 4, 54): kart % ‘the agent/performer’ is


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independent (self-extending and having his own system), i.e.the actual/real subject.

We have now six indispensable factors contributing to the start, continuation andcompletion of the action. (I have left out the tat prayojako hetu ' ca ‘the mover thereof and thecause’ 1.4.55, which is an (important) extension of the kart % .)

7 r "trau n% pag% he vaidyo mantre#a bh. patibhaktiheto$ svavidy" y"$ sv" sthyam r " japutr " ya pratyap"dayat :

In the night, in the palace, the doctor restoredhealth to the king’s son by means of a mantraout of his knowledge and his devotion to the king.

Here I give two causes/sources (ap"d"na), the devotion bhakti and the knowledge vidy" (efficient and material causes respectively). The recipient ( samprad"na) is the king’s sonr " japutra – the indirect object. The instrument (kara#a) is the mantra – whereby therestoration of health is effected. Night (r "tr & ) and palace (n% pag% ha), both are theenvironment wherein the act of health-restoration is performed. The object karma of thedoctor/performer, what he wants most, is health sv" sthyam. Finally, the agent/performerkart % is the doctor who has an independent connexion with the system of knowledge out ofwhich he selected the most efficient mantra for the cure.

8 One could go on to a much more detailed and extensive analysis of the philosophicalaspects connected with the six k"rakas but this would carry us too far from our immediateobject – the identification of non-humanness and eternality in language. Of course, this toois a philosophical matter and one could argue that all k"rakas are ultimately manifest formsof the One Absolute in the play of creation. What the readers must realize (if they have notdone so already) is that the six factors are always and invariably present in every action

even if we don’t see them all in every case.One may object that impersonal statements like “It rains” do not have the six factors.

However, a little reflexion would show that rain falls from some ap"d"na (cloudy sky) and isreceived by the soil and water-masses, in the rivers and oceans ( samprad"na). On the oneside it fertilizes the seeds in the earth and on the other it is a stage in the cyclicalmovement of water>steam>rain>water. This is effected through the instrumentality of heat,air and cold (kara#a). The natural scenery or environment, the water masses on the earth,the atmosphere, air currents etc, constitute the adhikara#a. The rainfall itself is theimmediate object karma and the kart % is the natural water-cycle. In old mythologies therewas a god, Zeus in Greece, Enlil in Mesopotamia, Parjanya in India, who generated the rainsand storms. All these are non-human.

One may also object that the performer is often human, like the doctor in our example.True, but what ultimately is the origin of human beings? And when we act as humanshaving our own purpose, as we see it then, can we be absolutely certain that we are not, allunbeknown to us, propelled into action by forces beyond our ken? For instance, I know thatI derive great pleasure in writing this essay and hope to please the editor, and also acquiresome fame among the scholars who read it. But it is very probable that there are subtleforces that have caused me to write this paper for purposes unknown to me. In addition,humans have non-human, or at least unknown, derivation in that, beyond their materialembodiment, their origin and their source of intelligence, life, energy and perception,belong to a level not usually associated with ordinary gross humanity: these attributes arenot strictly of our own making, though we can extend or develop them.

Thus the k"rak"#i, implicit in every statement, exhibit the two qualities postulated by

the M ! m"#s" philosophy.


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9 However, there is another aspect – philosophical and historical at the same time. Thenative tradition states, as we saw (§1), that the Veda, whether as pure knowledge or as thesacred lore enshrined in the Vedic Scriptures, is apauru !eya and nitya. The %*is who actually

communicated, say, the hymns of the ( gveda did not really compose them but heard/sawthem at some otherworldly plane and then expressed them: the hymns were and are alwaysthere unchanging beyond our common world of change. Nonetheless, we know of RV 1.164hymn because D ! rghatamas Aucathya heard/saw it and revealed it to us. I could notperceive this nor can millions of others. In this respect, in perceiving and revealing it to usin a language that, at its own level at least, has changed palpably over the centuries, theKavi has himself contributed to the expression and, always in this respect, the hymn as wehave it is very much pauru !eya. So the revealed veda or ' abda is both apauru !eya and pauru !eya.

But here another thought presents itself from some unknown depth of the mind.Having said all this, I feel I should add that, since according to the UttaraM ! m"#s", man

has for his true self ("tman) the universal Self (brahman), then, in this sense, everything is pauru !eya. For the puru*a encompasses all and everything in his being. As the Bhagavad G& t " puts it: -

sarvabh.tastham-"tm"na) sarvabh.t "ni c "tmani‘himself in all beings and all beings in himself’ (6. 29).

But this is quite another matter.


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Bibliography

Aklujkar A. 1990 ‘Trik"#1& or V "kyapad& ya, with V%tti on Books 1&2’ in H.G. Coward &K. Kunnuji Raja eds, The Philosophy of the Grammarians vol 5, Encyclopediaof Indian Philosophers, N Delhi, M Banarsidass & Princeton UniversityPress (pp 126-172).

Kazanas N. 2007 ‘Greek Logos, Vedic V"c: Creative Power’ in Dr Sh.Kumar ed,Sanskrit across Cultures Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, JNU, N Delhi,Printworld.

Kemp A. 1991 ‘The emergence of autonomous Greek Grammar’ in P. Schmitter(ed) Geschichte der Sparchtetheorie vol 2, Tubingen (302-333).

Law V. 2003 The History of Linguistics in Europe... Cambridge, CUP.Müller F. Max 1859 History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, London, Williams & Norgate.

Pandurangi 2006 ‘P$rvam ! m"#s" Perspective on Veda as Word’ in Dr Sh. Kumar ed,Veda as Word Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, JNU, N Delhi,Printworld.

Raju P.T. 1971 The Philosophical Traditions of India London, Allen&Unwin.VP= Bhart%h"ri’s V "kyapad& ya, k"#1as 1&2 ed and transl K. R. Pillai, N Delhi, M Banarsidass.

nityatva and apaurusheyatva in language - nicholas kazanas (2016)

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