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6.1
The Sound of Shrieking
6 ANALYSIS
of "cross-cultural parallels", or of "mutual inference" 287 In the following, I give a preliminary, but no definitive evaluation of some of the semantics of the root which denotes the act of "shrieking", for instance ✓ KRAND, and its substitutes.
6.1 The Sound of Shrieking In Śr (750), (105d), (106b), (121b), (1370), (139c), (141b), (1510), (158b) Vasunandin is concerned with the problems which arise from sudden and violent actions (sahasā/ sahasam).288 He gives manifold illustrations for the evil resulting from harmful thought and deed. The thief, for instance, commits acts involving intentional harm and physical violence (105ff.). Our author argues that intense mental affliction and physical pain could be the result of unrestrained activity. "Activity" (yoga) in this context denotes the mental and physical actions caused by lack of self-knowledge and the operation of the gross passions. In Sr (170ff.) Vasunandin applies several verbs by means of which he describes the acts of "shrieking", "crying", "wailing", and "lamenting". Generally speaking, the activities of "shrieking" and "crying" are not only attributes of human animals, but also non-human animals can utter noises out of pain, while "lamentations" are reserved to human animals only. Especially dogs and other predators289 are described as having the ability to howl and wail in Indian literature. The idea of the lamentation of the creature in suffering has also been transferred to the elephant. It appears in a narrative passage of the Sanat-kumāra-caritam.290 Vasunandin applies more than one verbal root in order to describe the suffering of creatures. The origin of some of these verbal roots seems to be onomatopoeic. Let us now examine KRAND.
287 The concepts which we find outlined in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain eschatological literature relate to the idea of the lamentation of the "hungry ghost" in the strict sense. There are different religious contexts in which Skt. ātman, Skt. /Pkt. jiva, or Skt. preta/ Pkt. peta are used in the sense of a "spirit". With "spirit” we could understand either 1. "soul thought of as separate from the body"; 2. "ghost"; 3. "supernatural creature" (Cowie 1989:1233). 288 I owe this reference to Prof. Balbir (p.c.). 289 For examples of crying and howling of dogs in Indo-Iranian literature see the study of Bollée 2006, for instance p. 43.
290 In Vasunandin's description of mental sufferings of celestial beings (198) the elephant is also mentioned. Haribhadra illustrates this idea in an exquisite narrative episode of the Sanat-kumāra-caritam (689-702, cited according to Jacobi 1921). The celestial being is forced by its lord Indra to blow up its body, to enlarge and condense its own form entirely according to the will of his master. The elephant is suffering immensely during these stages of transformation. The regions of heaven resound with its scream (cikkāra). The idea of shrieking of plants is rare, but we find some examples in the classical Kāvya literature of the Buddhists. (See Hara 2003:466, note 1). Poetical texts are not short on the anthropomorphism of nature, because the poets depict nature to be animate.
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