Linguistics

Creative Communication: Language and Reality in Indian Tradition

Authors: Sunil Sondhi
Comments: 21 Pages.

The unifying vision of reason and intuition in Indian linguistic tradition as established in the Vedas, Upanishads, and the works of scholars and sages like Panini, Patanjali, Bharatmuni, Bhartrihari, and Abhinavagupta, embraces levels and structure of language, objective reality, and the absolute reality. The search for general rules underlying the diversity of languages is ultimately an exploration of the very nature of human mind and its relation with reality. It reveals the interconnections between language, thought and reality. Panini’s grammar, Bharatmuni’s view of dramatic performance as an integrated entity, and Bhartrihari’s view of sentence as a meaningful unit reveals the unifying relationship of the parts and the whole, between the objective reality of the world and the Absolute Reality, and between reason and intuition. The essential message of Indian classical texts with regard to language and communication is that there are different levels of language between the two extremes termed as Vaikhari and Pasyanti, which correspond to different levels of consciousness of the Absolute Reality. The Absolute Reality lies outside human perceptions of space and time and is, therefore, is not expressible in ordinary language. The experience of that reality can only be indicated by words that try to go beyond words. Meaningful thought and communication requires constant interplay of lower and higher levels of speech, symbolizing constant interplay of the relative and Absolute Reality, and reason and intuition.
Category: Linguistics