Science and Advaita - 5

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Humanities

 

In our modern education, as it stands at present, there is a certain bias towards mechanical sciences and the external world that they describe. Accordingly, we tend to think of information as a transacted commodity, which is recorded and conveyed in external forms. But, in old sciences of language, there is a very different view of information and recording. This older view is clearly shown in the English words 'inform' and 'record':

 

 

 

The English word 'inform' comes from the Latin 'informare'. It implies an inner formation: a giving of shape that arises from consciousness within. This is the root meaning of 'information'. It describes a communication whose external form is shaped from within, so as to express a living meaning.

 

 

The English word 'record' comes from the Latin root 'cor' -- which describes an essential 'core' of mind and meaning, found living in the 'heart' of each outward personality. To this root is added the prefix 're-', which means 'again' or 'back'. What's here implied is a reflection back from outer form into the inner core of heart, through which a living meaning is recalled to mind.

 

The same conception is implied in the Sanskrit words 'akrti' and 'nibandhana':

 

 

 

 

In the word 'akrti', the prefix 'a-' implies an inner origin and 'krti' means a 'making' or a 'forming'. Thus, 'akrti' describes a generic name whose form arises from within, so as to represent a universal principle that's shown in common by differing particulars.

 

In the word 'nibandhana', the prefix 'ni-' means 'down' or 'back' and 'bandhana' means 'tying' or 'relating'. Accordingly, 'nibandhana' describes a 'tying down' or a 'relating back' of living meaning to an inner ground. This word 'nibandhana' is used to mean 'recording'. It conceives of recording as a tying down of meaning. But here, the tying down is not an objective correspondence, which relates outward symbols and their represented objects. Instead, it is a subjective grounding -- which relates back in, to underlying consciousness.

In this old view of communication, all structured forms and their meanings are conceived as differing expressions of a common ground that is unstructured in itself. That ground is an inmost universal or generic principle. From it arise all differentiated things, as its particulars. As it becomes expressed, it gives rise to a variety of generic names and classes that in their turn give rise to more differentiation into further and further particulars. [This concept of an inmost universal is described in some ancient verses that are appended and translated at the end of this posting.]

 

 

The differentiation is resolved by observing structured form and interpreting its meaning, so as to understand how different things relate. That understanding is recorded by assimilation back into the underlying ground, which has continued through the arising and the resolution of apparent differences. Communication is accordingly conceived as a living process which keeps reflecting back and forth -- between a structured world that is perceived outside and an unstructured ground of consciousness from where the world is known.

In Sanskrit, the science of linguistics is called 'vyakarana', which means 'analysis'. The name is revealing. It describes an ancient science that is highly analytic, both in its formal descriptions of objective structure and in its reflective questioning towards an underlying ground of subjective knowing:

 

 

 

The description of structure is laid out in a standard text by the grammarian Panini. It is called the Ashtadhyayi. In a highly mathematical and concise way, it defines the complex structure of classical Sanskrit grammar -- including the formal roots of words, their inflected conjugations and declensions, their augmented and compounded formations, and their syntactic use in sentences.

 

 

 

The reflective questioning is opened up in a further text, called the Vakyapadiya. It was composed by Bhartrhari, who is a linguistic philosopher. In the Vakyapadiya, he makes a study that belongs to the classical tradition of Sanskrit linguistics; but the study is reflective. It starts out from the accepted formulations of the Sanskrit language in particular. But it makes use of these formulations to investigate more fundamental principles -- which are shown in common by all meaningful experience, in all languages and cultures and in nature as a whole.

 

In traditional times, before the rise of modern mechanics, classical systems of education were centred on the learning of a classic language -- like Arabic or Latin or Greek or Hebrew or Mandarin Chinese or Persian or Sanskrit. Accordingly, a student was initiated into higher learning by the formal systems of a classical language -- in particular the systems of pronunciation, semantics, inflexion and syntax -- which were analysed and cultivated through the science of linguistics. In this practical way, linguistics was the initiating science of a classical education. It was the first science that was used to train a student's mind; and other sciences were subsequently learned, through that initial training.

It was then only natural that linguistics should serve as a model for many other sciences, in a variety of classical traditions. Today, in our mechanical sciences, the calculating discipline of mathematics provides a model of reasoned exposition that is central to many special branches and extensions of mechanics, through which we describe and fabricate external structures in the world. Similarly, in our various classical traditions, the educating discipline of linguistics has provided a model of reasoned exposition that is central to many further disciplines -- through which we cultivate our communication of information, and thus clarify our cultural conceptions of a meaningful and valued world.

These further disciplines are called the 'humanities'. We use them in two ways. On the one hand, we use them creatively, through an essential element of imagination that conceives our various descriptions and pictures of the world. But on the other hand, we also use the humanities in a reflective way, through an equally essential element of interpretation, which finds meaning and value in the pictures that have been conceived.

In the Sanskrit tradition, the humanities include vyakarana or linguistics, tarka or reasoned argument, itihasa or history, purana or mythology, sahitya or literature, natya or performing art, and shilpa or architecture. So also there are similar examples of educating disciplines that use a corrective analysis to cultivate descriptive and persuasive and conceptual capabilities, in many different traditions. But, in thinking of these disciplines as 'sciences', two delicate questions arise.

The first of these questions asks how science can accommodate the creative and artistic element of the humanities. They work through a combination of analytic science and imaginative artistry. Each of these disciplines is both an art and a science, at the same time. It is a human art that develops living skills of conceiving imagination. But the skills are refined through the systematic governance of a science that is reasoned analytically.

This throws into question a habitual opposition that we make, between art and science. The opposition is based on a restricted view of nature, as an external world that is opposed to the imagination we experience and develop in our minds. When nature is viewed more broadly, to include our inwardly conceiving minds, then the opposition between art and science is resolved. It is then quite legitimate for science to apply its study of nature to the intuitive and imaginative skills of our creative arts. And it is also quite legitimate that science should be tested and applied through the cultivation of those skills.

That broader view of nature can be seen in the very name of the Sanskrit language. 'Samskrt' means 'cultivated' or 'refined'; and hence the word 'samskrti' means 'culture'. But this is a cultivation that takes part in 'prakrti' or 'nature'. A look at the etymology is helpful here.

In the word 'prakrti', the prefix 'pra-' means 'forward' and 'krti' means 'acting' or 'doing' or 'making' or 'forming'. Thus, 'prakrti' means 'acting forth' or 'producing forth'. In particular, it refers to an acting forth of nature that produces all physical and mental appearances.

In the word 'samskrt', the prefix 'sam-' means 'together with' or 'in harmony with' and 'krt' means 'acted' or 'done' or 'made' or 'formed'. Thus, 'samskrt' means 'harmoniously done' or 'harmoniously formed'. In particular, it refers to a cultivated expression that relates things properly together -- in harmony with underlying nature, from which all expression has been born. It's here conceived that all arts and cultures are refined reflectively -- through a reflective grounding back into an underlying life of nature, in which they all participate.

It's from this reflective refinement that the second question arises, in thinking of the humanities as sciences. The question is concerned with cultural relativity. It asks how our expressions are used and interpreted, in a variety of contexts. As different cultures come into contact with each other, it becomes quite evident that our use of language and expression is essentially relative. As words and expressions are interpreted, they convey a meaning that is understood in relation to their cultural context.

All our statements and descriptions are thus culturally relative, including those that we make in our scientific disciplines. But then, how can these disciplines be truly scientific? How can their statements be interpreted to show us an impartial knowledge that applies to different cultures, beneath the many differences and partialities of cultural expression?

Today, this question is investigated in our modern disciplines of history and anthropology. These disciplines describe a variety of different cultures, over different periods of time and in different parts of the world. Through the use of modern media and communications, we are able to record and examine a far greater variety of cultures than was possible in traditional times; so that our modern history and anthropology is far better informed with externally recorded facts about historical events and cultural behaviour.

Thus, in the stories that we tell, we are now much better able to distinguish a historical recording of external facts from a mythical and fictional imagination that makes use of stories for more subtle purposes of conceptual meaning and emotional judgement. In the Sanskrit tradition, there was relatively little historical recording that was kept distinct from mythical imagination. In this particular tradition, an inward-going tendency has long been associated with an emphasis on 'purana' or 'mythology', at the expense of 'itihasa' or plain 'history'. It wasn't till the nineteenth century that Hindus took wholeheartedly to a recording of plain history, where external facts are kept carefully distinct from mythical and fictional embellishments.

From this lack of historical recording, it might be thought that Hindus have less interest in their past, and that they might not have much sense of cultural relativity. But, in fact, the opposite is true. In the Sanskrit tradition, there is a keen sense of relativity in different cultures, past and present. Early cultures are treated with a great respect, as seminal expressions of an ultimate knowledge whose expression has now grown to become more elaborate.

Each system of culture is described as a 'darshana' or a 'seeing'. Through its use of language and expression, each culture forms its own distinctive view of the world. And each such view is a relative approach to a common goal of true knowing that all cultures and their views express.

This relativity is exemplified by Shri Ramakrshna -- who lived in Bengal, in the nineteenth century. Through his disciples, we have some fine historical accounts of his life, with a careful attempt to distinguish fact from hearsay and embellishment. He was extremely traditional in his own outlook; and he usually conceived the world in puranic and religious terms, as a worshipper of the goddess Kali. But he very clearly recognized that this was only one view among many others. At various different times in his life, he adopted very different views, including Christian and Islamic meditations, as relative paths to a common goal of truth. And when it came to choosing a successor, he handed on his teachings to Svami Vivekananda, who was very much a modernizing rationalist. A major transition was accordingly achieved -- between a teacher and a disciple who were educated very differently, in ways that might seem to be quite incompatible.

The same relativity is found, of course, in many different parts of the world. We find it also in the teachings of Socrates -- as recorded by his disciple Plato -- in ancient Greece, some two and a half thousand years before Shri Ramakrshna. In Plato's dialogues, we find that Socrates combines a very thorough reasoning with a profound respect for ancient traditions like those of Egypt, which must have had a rather different culture from Socratic Greece.

But when we speak like this, of different cultures that are relative, it must be understood that this relativity is cultural. As Socrates and Ramakrshna make quite clear, it's only cultures that are relative, not truth. Each cultural expression is a partial instrument, limited by its particular conditioning. It is an instrument that shows a meaning, but the meaning is not fully shown. Each expression partly shows and partly hides its meaning. The meaning that is shown at first is only partly true. It's partly true and partly false as well. To understand it properly, it has to be interpreted more deeply, so as to uncover a truer meaning.

That's why the humanities are needed. They are educating disciplines, which cultivate our faculties of expression and interpretation, in the context of our various cultures. They help us to make better use of our partial and particular expressions; and they help us to interpret those expressions, towards a better understanding of less partial and more universal principles.Ananda

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The concept of an inmost universal is described in the following ancient verses that are quoted in the Vrtti commentary on Bhartrhari's Vakyapadiya, 1.1:

 

tasyai 'kam api caitanyam bahudha pravibhajyate .amgara-'mkitam utpate vari-rasher ivo 'dakam ..

Thus consciousness, though one alone,seems differentiated forthin a variety of ways;just like the convoluted showinduced by energy of heat,in water vapour seen arisingfrom the ocean's vast expanse.

tasmad akrti-gotra-sthad vyakti-grama vikarinah .marutad iva jayante vrstimanto balahakah .. It's that which stands, the inmost form,the common, universalprinciple of every different class.From it are born all kinds ofchangeable particulars: as rainythunderclouds are born from air.