Peacocks Egg Bhartrhari On Language And Reality

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269459/1

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THE PEACOCK'S EGG: BHARTRHARI ON LANGUAGE AND REALITY
Johannes Bronkhorst Section de langues et civilisations orientales, Université de Lausanne
philosopher, not merely those aspects of it that we choose and remove from their original context because they remind us of issues in Western philosophy?
I will argue that a deeper understanding, one that goes beyond mere historical fand sociological analyses, is possible in the case of an important part of Indian philosophy. This is due to a factor that too rarely draws the attention of modern Ticholars. I am speaking of the presence of a tradition of rational debate and inquiry. I use this expression to refer to a tradition that came to establish itself in India-or at least in the main philosophical schools-and that obliged thinkers to listen to the criticism of often unfriendly critics, even where it concerned their most sacred convictions, such as those supposedly based on revelation, tradition, or inspiration. Confrontations between thinkers so radically opposed to each other were no doubt facilitated by the dehates organized from time to time by kings about which we have some firsthand information from the pen of Chinese pilgrims visitine India in the middle centuries of the first millennium. Little is known about the reasons why. and the date when this tradition of critical debate came to establish itself in India. Its lects, however, are visible in the efforts made by Indian thinkers to systematize their positions, to make them coherent and immune to criticism.
These reflections allow us to identify a particularly important factor in the de. lopment of Indian philosophy. Under pressure from competitors. the Indian Pinkers of the early classical period were forced to do more than just preserve the achings they had received; they had to improve and refine them- perhaps in order avoid becoming the laughingstock of those they might have to confrontat a roval purt or on some other occasion. In doing so, they created systems of philosophy What might deviate considerably from the pre-systematic teachings that they had
Anyone who has ever opened a book on Indian philosophy will have been struck by the sometimes strange doctrines that were held by the different schools, and may have wondered to what extent it is possible really to understand Indian philosophy. And what do we mean when we say that we understand this or that Indian thinker or Indian philosophy in general? Indeed, to what extent did individual philosophers themselves understand the philosophies they wrote about? The Samkhya philoso phy, to take an example, proclaims the existence of twenty-five factors which they call tattws) that somehow evolve out of each other so as to create the phenomenal world. Did individual Samkhya thinkers know why exactly these twenty-five factors had to be accepted and not any others? Did they perhaps accept these factors simply because they had been sanctioned by their particular tradition, and because ean exposure lent them a degree of plausibility that they are unlikely to acquire in the case of those who do not become acquainted with them until later in life? If this is so, how much understanding can we modern scholars ever hope to attain? Are we condemned merely to record what the Indian thinkers thought, perhaps adding & historical dimension by investigating how some of these ideas succeed more or less similar earlier ones? Or a social dimension by pointing out that this or that position served the interests of this or that particular philosopher and those of his group? Such investigations, which put Indian philosophy in its historical and social contexts, are to be sure, possible and extremely important. Historical continuities have beer studied and more will no doubt be discovered. But is this as far as we can go? If so our understanding of Indian philosophy will not be very different from that of my thology: a number of just-so stories that we can study in their historical and socia contexts. Advocates of Indian philosophy will no doubt object that there is much more
t Indian philosophy than just this. They will point out that some of the discussions and analyses resemble, sometimes anticipate, certain discussions and analyses found Western philosophy. Such advocates often have a tendency to take these discussions and analyses out of their original context and concentrate, say, on the development of logic in the Indian schools. There can be no doubt that logic underwent a markable development in India that still draws far too little attention outside alim ited group of experts. But this logic was used-and this is too easily overlooked- defend the basic doctrinal positions of the schools concerned. These doctrinal pos tions themselves are often somehow taken for granted, or even played down, by modern investigators. If we wish to give these positions their due, we are back WIL our original question: to what extent can we understand the thought of an India
The history of Indian philosophy, seen in this way, becomes the story of the earch for coherence and immunity to criticism, starting normally-but not always,
seems-with some form of traditional teaching. This traditional teaching is usually f a nonphilosophical nature. Buddhist philosophy in its various manifestations for
Sample, based itself ultimately on the teaching of the Buddha, which concerned the c ape from suffering and rebirth and had no philosophical pretensions whatsoever. Several centuries separate the Buddha from the beginning of Buddhist systematic h ilosophy, centuries during which well-meaning monks organized the original
aching in various ways. Buddhist systematic philosophy, when it finally arose, was ased on, and continued in a way, these attempts at organizing. I tried to introduce herence and drew conclusions. Buddhist philosophy thus arose out of the attempt
introduce order and coherence in the received teachings. Other school c phi fosophy proceedlec similarly.
A history of Indian philosophy worth the name will have to deal in detail with e ways in which various early teachings were transformed into coherent systems of o ught. This is of necessity a somewhat technical endeavor, which I do not plan to
dertake, at least not in this essay. However, in their search for coherence and m unity to criticism Indian philosophers were also confronted with the question to
at extent their doctrines were compatible with certain convictions shared by all.
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or practically all of them. Such shared convictions existed. Practically all philu pners of Classical India, for example, believed in the doctrine of karma and Delieved in the close correspondence between language and reality. The reflect analysis of these two convictions exerted a profound influence on the doctrines the various schools. Some of these doctrines can indeed be looked upon as the direct outcome of this intellectual confrontation. In this essay I will concentrate the second of these two convictions: the belief in the close correspondence between
vel in the close correspondence between language and reality
Correspondence between language and reality means first of all that the objed_ in uie pnenomenal world correspond to the words of language. This observation may sound innocent enough, but it was given quite amazing twists by certain thinkers. Many Buddhists, for example, had come to believe that the obiects o pnenomenal world do not really exist. They do not exist because they are composite they consist of constituent parts. For reasons that cannot be dealt with at this moment these Buddhists maintained that only the constituent parts exist, but anything that is made up of them, that is, macroscopic -any of the things that fill
that is, macroscopic-any of the things that fill phenomenal reality-does not. This led them to ask the question: what are these mar
them to ask the question: What are these macroscopic objects, and wny do we tend to think they exist? The answer is that they are nothing but words-or, if you like, notions imposed upon reality by the words of language
upon reality by the words of language Most Branmanical thinkers disagreed with the imputed unreality of the phenomena world, but agreed that there is a close correspondence between words and thine Some of them went to the extent of analyzing the use of words in order to arrive at deeper understanding of objective reality.
All of these developments, although important cannot be dealt with her However, the belief in the correspondence between language and reality w extended, during the early centuries of the common era, from a mere belief in the correspondence between words and things to something more encompassing that
ning more encompassing that includes the conviction that statements as well correspond to the situations they de scribe. Or, more precisely (but still not perfectly): the words that make up a statement correspond to the "things" that constitute the situation described. Once again this conviction looks relatively harmless at first sight. After all, a statement like "John alle an apple" might be taken to describe a situation that is constituted of the three
c ments John, the act of eating, and an apple. Many, perhaps most, statements are such that they do not necessarily clash with this conviction. But some do. Take "John makes a pot." This statement describes a situation in which John and the acto making have their place, but the pot is not yet there. In other words, the words that make up the statement "John makes a pot" do not correspond to the things tha constitute the situation described. The same difficulty arises whenever something said about something coming into being. If we say "The pot comes into being there is clearly nothing in the situation described corresponding to the word "pot"
I am sure that many people nowadays would conclude from statements like "John makes a pot" and "the pot comes into being" that apparently the w
HU e por comes into being" that apparently the words of statement do not always correspond to the elements that make up the situation described. This would certainly be my reaction Interesting
u. Inis would certainly be my reaction. Interestingly, to the best of
knowledge all Indian thinkers of say, the first five centuries of me comm n nt draw this conclusion. I have studied the question in some clear com the writings of authors belonging to all currents of Indian philosophy. 86 all three maior religions of that period: Brahmanism, Budonist, onwine surprise I found that all these thinkers held on to this position and med various ways to resolve the difficulties to which it gave rise. All of the bene the words of a statement correspond to the elements that make up the situation the words of a statement corres described, also in the case of statements like "John makes a pot" and the pot comes into being."
Shortly I will discuss some of the solutions that were onero c o n arise in this manner. First, however, I wish to deal with a question that may cross u r minds at this point. Why did the Indian thinkers of that period hold on to a conviction that is so obviously in contradiction with every ance is this another example of intellectuals accepting a position wnosc acum visible to a child? Is this one more case of philosophers
l am not at all inclined to draw any such conclusions, and I would like to draw attention to two factors that no doubt encouraged the thinkers on that time not to give in their position simply because it seemed to contradict every one thing a number of thinkers, most notably the Buddhists, had already for other
one thing a number of thinkers, m acons come to the conclusion that the phenomenal world is ac n ntradiction between phenomenal reality and the conviction they che con not therefore, endanger this conviction. Equally important is the presence that time of a tradition of rational inquiry, which I mentioned earlier. Philosophers had hecome convinced that their reasons and arguments were end taken seriously-as seriously or even more so than tradition, revelation, and insight. We know that in ancient Greece one group of thinkers, the Eleatics, did not hesitate to reject perceived reality on the basis not of tradition, revelation, or special insight but of mere argument. The early Indian thinkers, too, proceeded on the basis of their newly acquired confidence in the power of human reason. Those of us who feel superior to them might do well to recall that our phenomenal reality, too, hidesa
plethora of entities--molecules, atoms, subatomic particles-the existence of which o willinoly accept on the basis of reasons provided and experiments can others.
What solutions did the Indian thinkers offer to the difficulties they thus encount tered, and which we might be tempted to consider to be of their own making? What does the word "pot" refer to in the sentences "John makes a pot" and "the pot fomes into being"? The literature concerned contains a variety of answers, earlier. Here I will concentrate on only a few of them.
Perhaps the simplest and in a way most obvious answer was adopted by the Samkhya school of Brahmanical philosophy, mentioned earlier. We are relatively well informed about the early history of this school. Most elements of its classical teachings figure in early works, such as the great epic of India, the Mandoidaan other texts. One important element, however, I never meno accounts and must have been a rather recent innovatio n
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wavide the doctrine according to which the effect exists before it is produced. Very concretely, this means that the situation described by the statement "John makes a pot" or "the pot comes into being contains already a pot, be it that the pot at that moment is still hidden in the clay from which it is being made.
Satkaryavada becomes an essential part of classical Samkhya philosophy; it is taken over by some schools and vehemently combated by others. The scholastic debates about this issue in later texts make one easily forget how profoundly strange this doctrine really is not only for modern Western readers!). They may have the further effect that the doctrine becomes familiar, and that one stops being surprised by its extraordinary content. Familiarity is easily mistaken for understanding. A better understanding, I submit, can be obtained by becoming aware of what specific problem the doctrine was meant to solve. In the case of satkaryavada this problem was the direct consequence of certain ideas regarding the relationship between lan guage and reality shared by all thinkers of that time.
The problem was shared by all thinkers, but they did not all propose the same solution. An altogether different solution was proposed by a particularly famous thinker. Nägariuna, In order to understand his solution we have to take into account that Nagariuna was a Buddhist The Buddhists of his time, as I pointed out earlier, had come to believe that the phenomenal world does not really exist. This belief had not been part of the message taught by the historical Buddha. It was the result rather of subsequent elaborations and reinterpretations of the early teachings. Whatever the details of this development with which we cannot deal at this moment--the Buddhists had come to believe on the presumed authority of the Buddha, that the phenomenal world does not really exist-but they could not prove it. This changed however, with Nagariuna, who could. The phenomenal world does not exist be cause it cannot exist. And it cannot exist because it is self-contradictory,
The basic argument to prove this has already been sketched above. The state ment "the pot comes into being" describes a situation that must contain a pot.it does not. The statement is therefore contradictory, and nothing comes into being. will cite one verse from Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika that deals with this particular problem: "If any unproduced entity is found anywhere it could be pro- duced. Since that entity does not exist, what is produced?" In the case of our pot this means: if there is a pot at the time it is going to be produced, it can be produced. If there is no such pot, the subject of "the pot is produced" has nothing to refer to, and the statement is empty. This is true if we assume, as Nagarjuna apparently did, that the terms of a statement have to refer to something that is there in the situation described
Nagariuna proved, with this and similar arguments, what a number of Buddhists had already believed before and without him. He did more, however. By introducing these rather nihilistic arguments into Buddhist philosophy he created a school of philosophy, known by the name of Madhyamaka or Madhyamika, that survived for a long time in India and survives to this day among Tibetan Buddhists.
My reflections so far have shown, I hope, that at least two crucially important doctrines held by different schools of Indian philosophy found their historical origin
not in meditative experience or supernatural revelation but in the need to deal with difficulties arising from shared assumptions: The satkaryavada of Samkhya and the nihilism of Madhyamaka are both to be understood as responses to a conviction shared by all thinkers of that time, concerning the relationship between language and reality that at first view would barely seem to justify such encompassing meta physical conclusions.
I will now turn to Bharthari, a Brahmanical thinker of the fifth century of the common era who is best known today as a "linguistic philosopher." Bhartrhari owes this reputation to the fact that the Indian
ation to the fact that the Indian grammarians, who were and marily linguists with few or no philosophical aspirations, came to accept him as . - or rather the-philosopher of grammar. They added his philosophy, ar part of it, to their own rather technical and nonphilosophical reflections, and now claimed that grammar, too, had a philosophical dimension. Also, some modern scholars have concentrated on aspects of Bharthari's thought that, they claim, show similarities with modern linguistics.
But whatever we think of the reputation that Bhartrhari acquired in later times, he was, first of all, a thinker of his own time who thought about the problems that Were around at that time. One of the problems he had to confront is the one we have ust discussed: how a pot can come into being if it is not yet there
There can be no doubt that this problem played a central role in Bharthari's thinking. He formulates it most clearly in the following verse: "If Isomethingl exists alreadyl, why does it come into being? But if it does not exist how does it come into being?" What is more, he offers no less than four different solutions to this problem in four different parts of his Väkyapadiya. The challenge, as you will recall, s to find something that the word "pot" in the statement "the pot comes into being" Fefers to and that is part of the situation described. Unlike the Samkhyas, who claim that the pot already exists at the time it comes into being, and unlike Nagarjuna, who Elaims that the very statement is self-contradictory, Bharthari presents objects that are present in the situation described and that are, he proposes, referred to by the
ord "pot." His first suggestion is that the word "pot" refers to the universal that pheres in all pots. He borrowed this notion of universals from another school of philosophy, but gave it an interpretation that was uniquely his own. For him the Universal is not just an eternal and unchangeable things that inheres in all pots: no, From Bharthari's point of view the universal plays an active role in manifesting the pot.
His second solution to the problem at hand is that the word "pot" refers to the substance of which the pot is made-or better: is going to be made. This substance
there while the pot is being made, so that the word "pot" does refer to somethine Tven at the time that the pot is being produced.
Bharthari's third solution is altogether different. He realizes that the demand that the words constituting a sentence have to refer to something in the situation de
cribed leads to major difficulties, for example in the case of negative existential state. ments. If I say "Martians do not exist," what does the word "Martians" refer to? Not
anything out there, one would say. Bharthari solves this problem by maintaining
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that words refer to a metaphorical reality (aupacariki sattā), which is different from absolute reality. He adds: "Metaphorical reality shows the own form of all things in all their states." "In all their states" probably means in the past, present and future In other words, the word "pot" in "the pot comes into being refers to the meta- phorical existence of the pot, which shows it in its future state; or, more simply, although perhaps less accurately, it refers to the future pot.
Bharthari's fourth solution, finally, is as simple as it is obvious: the word "pot refers to a mental reality, that is, to the pot that is in my mind (that I have in mind. when I pronounce the statement the pot comes into being." This final solution is so obvious, one would think, that one wonders why Bharthari has not offered it right from the beginning and, indeed, why others before him had not hit upon this solu- tion much earlier. This peculiar absence may have to be explained by the fact that the thinkers I have mentioned so far were very concerned about distinguishing themselves from the idealistic concepts that were gaining influence at that time in some schools of Indian philosophy.
Having briefly considered the four solutions offered by Bharthari to the problem connected with the coming into being of a pot, you may wish to know which of these four is Bharthari's own. To my knowledge the Vakyapadiya contains nothing that would allow us to make such a choice. And indeed, it seems that Bhartrhari did not express, and may not have had, any preference. This is the peculiar feature of his philosophical writings, which the Dutch scholar Jan Houben has called Bharthari's
rent positions are correct from different points of view. This should not be taken to imply that Bharthari had no philosophy of his own and that all he does is present various points of view without choosing between them. It seems quite clear that Bharthari has drawn at least one very clear, and im portant, conclusion from his various lucubrations about pots that do or do not come into being namely that phenomenal reality is unreal, and different from absolute reality. Bharthari's conclusion is in one important respect different from the one drawn by Nagarjuna. The latter, if Claus Oetke's analyses are correct, had come to the conclusion that nothing exists, nothing is absolutely real. Bharthari agrees that phenomenal reality is unreal, but differs from Nagarjuna in claiming that there is another reality that is real. After our reflections about the coming into being of the pot, it goes without saying that absolute reality for Bharthari does not come into being, and indeed does not change.
Bharthari's concept of absolute reality is interesting, especially if one contrasts it with the position of many Buddhists of his time and before him. Those Buddhists claimed that the objects of the phenomenal world cannot be real, because they are composite. These composite objects are in the end nothing but words that is to say phenomenal reality is in the end nothing but a trick played upon us by language Bharthari agrees with the last statement. Phenomenal reality is indeed the result of language, but language does not combine the ultimately real constituents (as some Buddhists believed). On the contrary, it divides the ultimately real totality of all there is, which is absolute reality.
Bharthari here introduces the notion that a whole, a totality, can be more real
than its parts. This sounds at first rather strange, but here his background in grammar and linguistics came to his help. It is a well-known fact, noted by thinkers long before Bharthari, that a word in language is more than the mere accumulation of the sounds that constitute it. Some Buddhist thinkers had, perhaps for this very reason postulated, already before the beginning of the common era, that words are entities that are different from their constituent sounds. They had claimed the same for whole sentences, which are more than the combination of the words that constitute them. The important grammarian Patanjali (ca. 150 B.C.E.), too, had made similar claims with regard to words. Here, then, Bharthari found examples of objects that are more than their combined constituents. Words are more than their constituent sounds, and sentences are more than the words in them. Strictly speaking, sounds are not parts of words, because the latter are altogether different entities, and words are not parts of sentences that, once again, are different entities. It is in this context that Bharthari brings in the example of the peacock's egg, mentioned in the title of this essay. The word, which in itself has no parts and no sequence, unfolds itself so as to give rise to something that appears to have both just as the vital essence (rasa) of a peacock's egg, which does not possess the variety of colors of a peacock, unfolds itself so as to give rise to a peacock that does. Bharthari generalizes this idea, and claims, for example, that pots, too, have no parts.
For Bharthari, then, the world, and each object in it, has two aspects: the one real, the other unreal. Vakyapadiya 3.1.32, for example, speaks of the real and the unreal parts that are present in each thing. The phenomenal world is unreal. It is the result of an (unreal) division of the undivided absolute." The essential reality of things, we read elsewhere in the Vakyapadiya, is beyond differentiation: "With regard to things (bhava), whose reality is beyond differentiation (vikalpatīta, the world is followed in linguistic expressions (vyavahăra) that are based on conventions sanketa)." Here it is stated that linguistic expressions correspond to the unreal divisions of reality. Another verse tells us more about the division at stake here: Heaven, earth, wind, sun, oceans, rivers, the directions, these are divisions of the reality belonging to the inner organ, leven though they are situated outside it." Note that this verse does not prove that Bharthari was an idealist, that he denied the
existence of the outside world. It states rather that the divisions of the outside world a re produced by the inner organ, and therefore by words, as we shall see.
Words separate things from each other: "By force of the fact that understanding has the form of wordsl, every produced thing is distinguished from other thingsl."!! Words are the only basis of the nature of things and of their use." It follows that those who know the nature of things see the power of words." Bharthari elaboabes on the power of words in the following verses: "The power residing in words is the basis of this whole universe.... Since the difference between sadja and other nusical notes is perceived (only when explained by words, all categories of
bjects are based on the measures of words." 14 The creative power of language is Semplified by the illusion of a circle created by a firebrand turned around: "It is Observed in the case of a torch-wheel et cetera, that the form of an object is per peved on account of words (šruti), even though the basis lof the perception is
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entirely different." 15 "There is no cognition in the world that does not follow words All knowledge appears as if permeated by words."16It is from words that things proceed: Iwords create the distinctions in the phenomenal world" One might he tempted to think that this last line speaks about meanings rather than things both called a tha in Sanskrit Bhartrhari speaks, however, about things in the obiective world. This is particularly clear from a passage of his commentary on the Mahabhasya, often called Mahabhāşyadipika, where the perception of words such ac Wheaven" anürva and "divinity" are presented as means to inter (anumana, the existence of the corresponding objects: "Just as the words 'heaven, apurva, and divinity when perceived, are the means to infer the existence of objects never observed."18 The same three obiects-"heaven, apúrva, and divinity are men
e. verse of the Vakyapadiya: "The sign of the thine denoted is that there is an object corresponding to all words. In the case of words like cow,' they say, it is similar to 'heaven' apurva, and divinity. 19
it will be clear from these quotations that the connection between language and phenomenal reality is close. And the language concerned is Sanskrit. But Bharthan anec further. The fundamental unit of language is the sentence; this is equally true the Vedic sentence 20 This is important: it shows that Bharthari does not merely postulate a correspondence between individual words and elements of the phe pomenal world. The link between statements, Vedic statements in particular, and tre phenomenal world is as important, or even more important. We shall return to this noint shortly. First we consider some of Bhartrhari's observations with regard to the role of the Veda in the unfolding of phenomenal reality: "Different sciences unfold based on the primary and secondary limbs of that Vedal which is the organize in principle vidhar of the worlds, sciences that are the causes of the menta! traces (samskara) of knowledge."21 The context of this verse leaves no doubt that actually concerns the Veda, and that therefore the Veda is the organizing principles
nerhans one is entitled to translate: creator of the worlds. A comparison with Vakvapadiva 3.14.198ab, cited above ("It is from words that things proceed; words create the distinctions lin the phenomenal world!"), which, too, uses the vero Viednia chowe that the creation of the world is essentially a division, a differentiation, of the undivided absolute. Another verse explains the relationship between the Veda ang the world in the following terms: "Those who know the sacred tradition know that this funiversel is a transformation of the word. In the beginning this universe pro ceeds exclusively from Vedic verses."22
The world having been created, or organized, by the Veda, tradition jagame smrtil bases itself on the Veda: The texts of tradition (smrti), which are muition and have visible as well as invisible aims, have been arranged by knowers of me Wade the basis of the Vedal with the help of indicators. This implies, Rhartrhari that the link between tradition and the world is close, too. The wong follows the rules of the word: "Even if (all) philosophies had disappeared, and there would pot be other authors, the world would not deviate from the rules expressed by the Veda (cruti) and by the tradition (smrti)."24 This implies, among other things, there the rules of behavior are in a way inherent in the world: "All duties (itikartavyat) i
the world are based on words, even a child knows them because of the mental impressions impressions (samskära) acquired earlier."25 The intuition (pratibha), which is called meaning of the sentence" and which makes us know our duties, either can be the result of verbal instruction or it can be inborn: "Whether the lintuitionl is dirertly produced by the word or by the result of impulsions (bhavand no one deviates from it where duties fitikartavyará) are concerned."26 Even animals are puided by this intuition: "Under the influence of that lintuition even the animals act.... Who changes the sound of the male cuckoo in spring? How have animals learnt to build nests and the like? Who induces wild animals and birds to eat love, hate swim. and so on, activities well known among the descendants of each species?
t hese verses have been interpreted to mean that the hereditary knowledge finds among animals and in children is the result of the use of language in an earlier existence 2" Nothing in the text supports this point of view. It is true that living beings are born with impulsions (bhivan.cr mental traces sansara, which are linguistic by nature, but it would appear that these linguistic impulsions are not or not always the results of instructions in an earlier life. One could here repeat Bhartrhari's question: What verbal impulsions would change the sound of the male cuckoo in spring! Bharthari himself answers this question, and the others that accompany it in the following verses: "It comes from tradition (agama) only, which follows the im pulsions (bhavana). As for the tradition, it is different for each individuall depending on ing on whether they are produced by the own nature, the Vedic school. practice Yoga, by the invisible (adrsta), or by a special Icausel 31 It follows that there is natural knowledge: "Since knowledge is natural, the traditional religious and scien. tific treatises (Sastra) serve no purpose whatsoever. This also applies to morality with regard to the two positions this is virtuous' and 'this is sinful there is little use for religious and scientific treatises (Sastra) right down to the untouchables "33
Bharthari uses the word bhavand, "impulsion," at several other occasions in the Vakyapadiya. The "impulsion of the word" (Sabdabhavand is required to set the Speech organs in motion, to emit an upward breath, and to make the points of articulation strike each other,34 The impulsions, moreover cause the imaginan divisions of the sentence, which has, in reality, no parts: Although the meaning of the sentence is without divisions, the imagined divisions are based on bhāvana."15 + The direct link between words and things explains the effects words can have on things: "Just as it is observed that colors et cetera have well-defined capacities with regard to certain things, in the same way one observes that words thave well-defined capacities to remove snake poison et cetera. Just as they have a capacity to do this to remove snake poison et cetera) it should be understood that they also have a capacity to producel merit. Therefore, good people desiring elevation (abhvudaval should use correct words." The capacity to produce merit belongs to correct words only: "On the basis of traditional knowledge treceived from the well-educated correct words are established as a means toward merit. While there is no difference in expressing the meaning, incorrect words are the opposite le not means toward merit)."
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The link between words and things having been established, the study of language, and of Sanskrit in particular, enables one to reach conclusions about the world. Bhartṛhari uses the words of Patañjali, who says in his Mahabhasya: "We accept the word as authority. What the word says is authoritative for us."38 Exactly the same phrase can be found in the Sabara Bhasya,39 but Bhartṛhari clearly gives it a wider interpretation. His Väkyapadiya observes: "People accept the word as authority; they are followed (in this] by the religious and scientific treatises (Sástra)."40
We return to Bhartṛhari's acceptance of the sentence as the primary linguistic unit. This implies that the phenomenal world corresponds to statements, first of all Vedic statements. This explains that, according to Bhartṛhari, injunctions and other rules are somehow built into the phenomenal world. Individual words do not constitute injunctions, or Sastras, or rules of behavior for animals and humans. And it is through its sentences that the Veda becomes what it is. If the world is created, or organized, in accordance with the Veda, Vedic sentences must be meant, not just individual Vedic words.
I hope that what I have said so far shows the extent to which Bharthari was both a philosopher who dealt with current problems and challenges and a traditionalist. In a fact, his writings are quite specific about his respect for tradition. We read here, for example: "Without tradition, logic cannot establish virtue (dharma); even the knowledge of seers derives from tradition."41 And again: "He who bases himself on tradition... is not hindered by logical arguments."42 His grammatical writing rep-. resents a change of attitude which Madhav Deshpande (1998, p. 20), from the University of Michigan, does not hesitate to characterize as a paradigm shift. Unlike his main predecessors, who lived a number of centuries earlier, with Bhartṛhari "an entirely new tone has set in. There is a strong feeling that the current times are decadent, and that there are no truly authoritative persons around. Grammarians in this decadent period must look back to the golden age of the great ancient grammarians and seek authority in their statements."
One might be tempted to accuse Bhartṛhari of using the philosophical debate of his time to try to gain respectability for the Vedic tradition to which he belonged, ( and one might very well be right in this. Let us not forget that philosophical debate! during the first half of the first millennium was almost totally confined to Nyaya,: Vaiseşika, Samkhya, and a number of Buddhist schools. None of these schools had any direct link with the Vedic textual corpus or with its ritual traditions. The oppo sition of Samkhya to the Vedic tradition is testified to by texts from various periods, some as old as the Mahabharata, others much younger.43 And the early texts of Nyaya and Vaiseṣika-although later categorized as orthodox, that is, "Vedic"show little evidence of having any particular link with Vedic texts and rites:44 the evidence we have points rather to a link with the worship of Śiva.45
The most orthodox schools of philosophy are, of course, Pürva- and UttaraMimāmsă. The former does not really join the philosophical debate until Kumārila Bhatta, one or two centuries after Bhartrhari. The latter, better known by the name Vedanta (or Vedantism), is perspicuous by its absence in listings of philosophical
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schools during this early period. This does not necessarily mean that there were no Vedantins during the early centuries of the first millennium, but it does strongly suggest that they did not yet participate in the philosophical debate, that they did not yet expose, and improve, their positions in the light of criticism received (and perhaps even solicited) from others. Bhartṛhari may have been one of the first truly "Vedic" philosophers. He joined the philosophical debate, took up the challenges that occupied the other thinkers of his time, and constructed a system that gave a place of honor to the Veda and to the way of life it represented to its followers. Indeed, Bhartṛhari maintains that the world has been created in accordance with the Veda, including the Vedic injunctions. Correct Brahmanical behavior is therefore anchored in the nature of the world itself, no less than the song of the cuckoo.
Bhartṛhari did not take his task lightly. In his effort to find a place for the Veda in the philosophical debate of his time, he read everything he could lay his hands on, and borrowed elements from practically all his sources (without acknowledgments, unfortunately). Vaiśeşika elements are particularly abundant, and Buddhist elements are important, but scholars have also traced elements from Samkhya and even from Jainism in Bhartṛhari's work. No doubt from Buddhist sources Bhartṛhari took the idea that the phenomenal world is not ultimately real. This allowed him to postulate a highest reality, which on one occasion he calls Brahman. He might in this way have claimed highest reality for the Vedic tradition and left ordinary reality (which is ultimately unreal) to the various philosophical schools that existed in his day. But he did not do so. He accepts the relative validity of those schools of thought in the realm of the phenomenal world (this is his perspectivism), but adds an important element of his own: phenomenal reality is determined by the Veda. The Veda is its creator for organizer), and this means, in the end, that only the Vedic Brahmins know its nature and are really in a position to influence it. Seen in this way, Bharthari's ideas on language and reality, and on the relationship between these two, are really the result of a Brahmanical twist given to ideas that had been around for a while.
Notes
This essay, initially foreseen to be a lecture only, draws heavily on material which I have published elsewhere and that is brought together in my article "Sanskrit and Reality: The Buddhist Contribution" (Bronkhorst 1996b).
In the Notes, the abbreviation Vkp is used for the Wilhelm Rau edition of the Vakyapadiya by Bhartṛhari. See Rau 1977 in the References section below. WI refers to the Word Index to the Prasastapadabhäşya by Johannes Bronkhorst and Yves Ramseier (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994).
-The results of this investigation have now come out in a small monograph, Langage et réalité. See Bronkhorst 1999 below. 2-Mülamadhyamakakärikā 7.17: yadi kaścid anutpanno bhavaḥ samvidyate kvacit/ utpadyeta sa kim tasmin bhave utpadyate 'sati (Nagarjuna 1977).
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3 - Vkp 3.3.43cd: yadi sas jāvote kasmad athasai Jayate katham. 4 - Vk 3.3.39, vapadese padarthänăm anyd saltaupacáriki / sarvāvasthasu
sarvesam atmarūpasya darsika/} 5 - Vkp 1.52: andabhavam ivåpanno yah kratuh sabdasaminakah / vittis tas
kriyarüpa bhagašo bhajate kramam // The Vrtti explains:... bahyo vyavaharikah
sabdo 'ntahkarane mayuradyandarasavat... pratiliyate. 6 - Vkp 3.6.15ab: nirbhågåtmakata tulya paramánor ghatasya ca. 7 - Vkp 3.1.32ab: satydsatyau tu yau bhagau pratibhavam vyavasthitau. Ch
Bronkhorst 1991, pp. 12-13. 8 - Vkp 3.3.72: yatra drastă ca drśyam ca darśanam cavikalpitam/ tasyaivarthasya
satyatvam śritās trayyantavedinah // 9 - Vkp 3.6.25: Vikalpatitatattvesu samnketopanibandhanah/bhávesu vyavahärä ye
lokas tatranugamyate // 10 - Vkp 3.7.41: dyauh ksama vayur adityah sagarāh sarito disah / antahkara
natattvasya bhaga bahir avasthitan // 11 - Vkp 1.133cd: tadvasád abhinispannam sarvam vastu vibhajyate. lac-relers
back to vāgrūpatā avabodhasya in verse 132. 12 - Vkp 1.13ab: arthapravrttitattvanām sabda eva nibandhanam. 13 - Vkp 1.171cd: svabhavajñais tu bhavanam drsyante sabdasaktayah. 14 - Vkp 1.122-23 abdesy evāśnita Saktir visvasvasva nibandhani / ... Sadia
dibhedah sabdena vyakhyato rūpyate yatah/ tasmad arthavidhah sarvah sab damatrasu nisnitan //. On the exact reading of this verse, see Bronkhorst 1988.
20 - See Houben 1995. - Vkp 1.10: vidhatus tasya lokanám angopanganibandhanah / vidvabhedah
pratāyante jnanasamskärahetavah //. Halbfass translates vidhat as "organizing
principle 0991, p. 5) or "Organisationsprinzip" (1991b. p. 126 2- Vkp 1.124: Sabdasya parinamo 'yam ity ámnayavido viduh/chandobhya eva
prathamam etad visvam pravartate // 3- Vkp 1.7: sm/tayo bahurupas ca drstadrstaprayojanah/tam eväsritya lingebhyo
o dviconin prakalplan // 4 - Vkp 1.149: astam yatesu vädesu kartes anyesu asatsv api/śrutismrtyuditam w ard!
dharmam loko na vyarivartate // 25 - Vkp 1.129. itikartavyata loke sarva Sabdavyapasraya/yam porvāhitasamskāro
balo 'pi pratipadyate // 26 - Vkp 2.146: saksāc chabdena janitām bhāvananugamena và / itikartavyatāyām
tani na kaścid ativartate / 17- Vkp 2.147cd and 149-150: samarambhah pratayante tirascam api tadvasit
... svaravrttim vikurute madhau pumskokilasya kah/jantvådayah kulayadi. k arane siksitäh katham // aharaprltyapadvesaplavanadikriyasu kah / jatyan
vayaprasiddhasu prayoktá mrgapaksinām // 8- Biardeau 1964, pp. 317-318; Subramania lyer 1977, p. 62. 9- One is reminded, of course, of the abhiläpavasana of the Yogacaras,
which is responsible for a number of percepts (viinapti) besides the one of linguistic usage (vyavaharavijnapti). Cí. Lamotte 1973, pp. 88-89. 108
= Mahayanasamgraha II.2.11.16). 20 - The commentator Punyarāja explains: the tradition is sometimes acquired in
this life, sometimes in another life. 1 - Vkp 2.151-52: bhavanānugatad etad agamad eva jayate isattiviprakar
sabhyam agamas tu visisate // svabhávacaranabhyasayogadrstopapaditam / višistopahitam ceti pratibham sadvidham viduh //. The reading carana instead
of varana is here accepted, with Rau's hyparchetypen and the Vitti. - Vkp 1.150ab: jane svábhavike narthah sastraih kaścana vidyate. 3 - Vkp 1.40: idam punyam idam papam ity etasmin padadvaye / Scandalamanu
syanam alpam sästraprayojanam //. This verse belongs to the Vitti according to Aklujkar 1971, p. 512 - Vkp 1.130: adyah karanavinyasah praṇasyordhvam samiranam / sthånānam
abhighatas ca na vina sabdabhavanam // 5 - Vkp 2.116 avikalpitavākyarthe vikalpa bhavanaśrayā). 36 - Vkp 1.155-156: rüpadayo yatha drstah pratyartham yatasaktayah / Sabdas
tathaiva drsyante visapaharanadisu // yathaisam tatra samarthyam dharme 'py
p. 124.
15 - Vkp 1.142: atyantam atathabhote nimitte śrutyapāśrayāt / drsyate Matacakrada
vastvakaranirūpană // (trans. Houben). 16 - Vkp 1.131: na so 'sti pratyayo loke yah sabdanugamad te /anuviddham iv
jñānam sarvam sabdena bhāsate // 17 - Vkp 3.14.198ab: sabdad arthah pratāyante sa bhedanam vidhayakah 18 - Bhartrhari, Mahabhasyadipiki (Manuscript. p. 11.1.1; "Critical Edition
Ahnika I, p. 28, 1.8-9; ed. Abhyankar-Limaye, p. 33, 1.24-p. 34, 1.1; ed Swaminathan, p. 40, 1.11): tatra yathaiva svargapūrvadevatasabda upalabhya mana atyantaparidrstänām arthanam astitvanumanam.... Bhavya's Madhya makahrdayakariká 9.5 ascribes to a "Mimämsaka" the position according to which the existence of such objects is known from the Veda; see Kawasaki
1976, pp. 6-7 19 - Vkp 2.119: asty arthah sarvasabdanám iti pratyayyalaksanam/apūrvadeva
tāsvargai samam ahur gavādisu //
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- A number of thinkers of the "old" school of Nyaya-Vaiśesika-viz. Prasastapada (probably), Uddyotakara, Bhasarvajna, and Vadi Vagišvara-were Saivites, or, more specifically, Pasupatas. See Bronkhorst 1996a (Prasastapada: the final colophon of the Nyayavarttika (Uddyotakaral: Ingalls 1962. p. 284: Raghavan 1942 (Vadi Vāgiśvaral; and Sarma 1934 (Bhasarvajna). The laina doxographer Haribhadra, in his Saddarsanasamuccaya, attributes the devata
Siva to the adherents of Nyaya and Vaišesika IQvarnström 1999, p. 1811. 46 - When, for example, Kalidasa (Vikramorvasiya 1.1) states vedāntesu vam ihur 6
ekapuruşam, he refers to the Upanisads, but by doing so he may reveal the existence of people who looked upon the Upanişads with reverence.
4
References
evam pratlyatám / sadhünám sadhubnis tasmad wcyam duyuldur
(trans. Houben). 37 - Vkp 1.27: sistebhya agamåt siddhah sadhavo dharmasadhanam / arthapra
tyāyanabhede viparītas tv asadhavah // (trans. Houben). 38 - Patañjali 1880-1885, vol. 1. p. 11, 1.1-2; p. 366, 1.12-13: sabdapramanaka
vayam / yac chabda aha tad asmakam pramanam/ 39 - Sabara Bhasya 3.1.36 (p. 184); cf. 6.1.3 (p. 183), 6.2.6 (p. 228), 10.5.73
3.10.183), 6.2.6 (p. 228), 10.573 (p. 431), 40 - Vkp 3.7.38cd: Sabdapramanako lokah sa sastrenanugamyate. 41 - Vkp 1.30: na cagamad ļte dharmas tarkena vyavatisthate / sinam api ya
janam tad apy agamapurvakam // 42 - Vkp 1,41: caitanyam iva yas cāyam avicchedena vartate / agamas tam upasin
hetuvadair na badhyate // 43 - Cf the passage in the Mahabharata (12.260-262) that records a discussion between Kapila, the supernatural "founder" of Samkhya, and the Vedic
atural founder of Samkhya, and the Vedic Syömarasmi. Syümaraśmi rejects the possibility of liberation and exhorts to action; Kapila preaches liberation through restraint and abstention from activ ity. A late example is Gunaratnashri's Tarkarahasyadipika on Haribhadra's Saddarśanasamuccaya (fourteenth century), which states the following about the Sámkhyas lain 1969. p. 141): "They are numerous in Vārānasi. Many Brahmins, fasting for a month, follow the way of smoke which is opposed to the way of light. But the Samkhyas follow the way of light. For that very reaso the Brahmins, to whom the Veda is dear, follow the way of sacrifice. The Samkhvas on the other hand, turning away from the Veda which is rich
he Veda which is rich violence, proclaim the self" (varanasyam tesam pracuryam/ bahavo maso pavasika brahmana arcirmargaviruddhadhumamärganugăminah / sankhyds arcirmärganugah / tata eva brahmanā vedapriya yajñamärganugah / samkhy
tu himsadhyavedavirata adhyatmavadinah/). 44 - Here one could draw attention to the "proof" in the Vaiseșika Sūtra of the exs
istence of seers (rsi) responsible for the composition of the Veda (Vai esika Sotra 6.1.1-2; see Jambuvijaya 1982 and Wezler 1985), as well as to the c currence still in Prasastapäda's Padarthadharmasangraha, of Vedic cosmo
Vedic cosmo oranhical concepts (varunaloka. "the world of Varuņa", adityaloka, "the world of Aditya"; and marutăm loka, "the world of the Maruts." See WI under these ceinnel Thece or related terms occur in the Vedic Brahmanas se ne
Vadim Brahmanas (see Kides 1920, pp. 5-6), a few times in the Mahabharata (Sorensen 1904, s.v. Varung loka, Váyuloka), but apparently only rarely, some of them perhaps not at all, the later Puranic literature. The Padarthadharmasangraha does use Puranic, that is, non-Vedic, material in the context of God's creation of the world, but this appears to be new material brought into the school by Prasastapada himself
the schoot by Prasastapada himsel (Bronkhorst 1996a).
Aklujkar, Ashok. 1971. "The Number of Kärikäs in Trikāndi, Book I." Journal of the
American Oriental Society 91:510-512 Biardeau, Madeleine. 1964. Théorie de la connaissance et philosophie de la parole
dans le Brahmanisme classique. Le Monde d'Outre-Mer Passé et Présent, Pre
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Oriental Research Institute Bronkhorst, Johannes. 1988. "Etudo eur Rose Bronkhorst, Johannes, 1988. "Etudes sur Bhartrhari, 1: L'auteur et la date de la Vrtti."
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