Bhartrihari

Bhartrihari is the odd man out in India's anthology of the ancients. First of, how does one categorize him. Is he more important for his philosophical writings, or for being the first ancient to study LInguistics after Panini or was he best known for being a well known member of one of the most illustrious ruling dynasties of India.

Here are 2 curriculum vitae until we have time to digest all that he has produced

The importance of the Bhartrihari traya Shataka is nothing less than Ramayana, Geeta or Mahabharata. This Shatak unites the complex knots of life and directly captivate the human heart. People could feel divine acquiring inspiration from the Shataka. One can seldom find anything comparable to Bhartrihari Shatak, especially with relation to philosophy of life.

The Vairagya Shataka, Neeti Shataka and Shringar Shataka are related to spirituality, social life and personal life respectively. But on the whole the benefits of this Shataka encompass every sphere of life.

The ultimate aim of human life is attainment of the state of bliss, which is impossible until the mind is vagrant, aimless and instable. It is because of this reason that one needs love and eroticism in youthhood. Every person is endowed with some aesthetic sense. Detachment is simply impossible without aesthetic sense. The philosophy of Satyam Shivam Sundaram is rightly based on the above-mentioned concept. What is true, that only is welfare-oriented and what is welfare-oriented is undoubtedly beautiful. The Shringar Shataka adheres in totality to this concept.

Man attains the highest state of bliss eventually, only after he initially treads on the path of beauty, understands the concept of morality and finally renounces desire, hatred, sensual-pleasure etc.

Bhartrihari was not only a king but was a distinguished scholar, a gifted poet, a philosopher, thinker, and a religious person.

He expressed all those feelings through poetry, which he imbibed through different experiences of life. Technically speaking the art of Bhartrihari’s poetry is inexplicable. No amount of discursive writing can ever encompass the uniqueness of style, the benevolence of emotions, the structure of words, all these sublime factors simultaneously.

Bhartrihari was the king of Malwa whose capital city was Ujjain. The famous emperor Vikramaditya was the younger stepbrother of king Bhartrihari.

After being throned as a king, Bhartrihari became so physically attached to his wife that he spent most of the time with her. Vikramaditya tried to make him realize his foolishness, but all in vain. On the contrary on the command of Queen Pingala, Bhartrihari, threw Vikramaditya out of the city.

The story goes that Bhartrihari was gifted a rare fruit from a Brahmana that would increase his life span. The king did not eat the fruit himself but gave it to Queen Pingala, because he was madly obsessed with her.

Queen Pingala took the fruit and pretended that she was very happy and said that she would eat the fruit after having a bath. The king agreed to this and happily returned. The Queen Pingala was in love with a horse keeper. She gave the fruit to him. The horse keeper was in love with a prostitute. He presented this fruit in turn to her. The prostitute was a pious women and she decided that she would gift the king with this fruit. Thinking thus, she proceeded towards the king’s palace.

King Bhartrihari was busy along with his councilors in the court. The prostitute came and gifted the fruit to the king and told him about the greatness of the fruit.

Seeing the same fruit in the prostitute’s hand the king was confused. He immediately, took it and ate it. Realizing the insincerity of the Queen, Bhartrihari felt very sad.

This event had such an impact on Bhartrihari that he became detached to this world and starting abhorring material life. He renounced the palace and all the physical pleasures and went to the forest.

The results of his renunciation are these 3 Shatakas. Whatever the circumstanes surounding them , these three Shatakas shall always guide mankind for ages to come.

Bhartrihari

Bhartrihari is the author of vairagya satakam (hundred verses on renunciation). In the verses, he reflects the inner struggles an aspirant faces in his sadhana. He was a king of Ujjaini and was said to be an extremely powerful and rich king. However, he renounced everything and became one of the great yogis. The reason can be traced to one of the verses (verse 31) in his vairagya satakam

With enjoyment, comes fear of disease
With social position, fear of disfavor
With riches, fear of hostile people (kings)
With honor, fear of humiliation
With power, fear of enemies
With beauty, fear of old age
With scholarship, fear of challengers
With virtue, fear of traducers
With the identification with body, fear of death
Everything in this world is done with fear
Renunciation alone makes one fearless.

In a later verse (35), he brings out the beauty of self-surrender

Life trembles, like a drop of water on the edge of a lotus leaf
then it is swallowed by the wind
The wise fix their mind in Truth, which comes to all in the 
calm of self-surrender achieved by renunciation


His other works, niti-satakam and sringara-satakam are hundred verses 
							on worldly wisdom and love, respectively.

Some Reflections on Bhartrihari's View of Language

by Ananda Wood, Ph.D.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Ancient Greek Ideas of Learning

Modern and Traditional Ideas

Living Tradition

Levels of Language

1. Elaborated structure

2. Mediating mind

3. Seeing in itself

4. Beyond all differences

Descriptions of the World

Introduction

In this essay, I'm going to reflect a little on an old philosophy of language, in order to ask how it might help us with our modern theories of language and learning. We know of this old philosophy from a classical Sanskrit grammarian called Bhartrihari. He comes from a time earlier than the 7th century CE, when his treatise the Vakyapadiya was reported by the Chinese traveller I-tsing as already established in the traditional curriculum of Sanskrit learning.

This treatise is an advanced text of Sanskrit grammar, or 'vyakarana' as it is called in Sanskrit. Literally, 'vyakarana' means 'making distinct' or 'analysis' (from the prefix 'vi-' implying distinction and the verbal root 'kri' meaning to 'do' or to 'make'). Classical Sanskrit grammar goes back to Panini's Ashtadhyayi, which is largely about grammatical rules and forms laid out in a highly abstract and analytic way. Bhartrihari comes somewhat later on, both in history and in the traditional curriculum, with the emphasis shifting from grammatical forms to an analytic investigation into the nature of meaningful experience.

As Bhartrihari explicitly describes his own approach, it is essentially the same as that of linguistic analysis in modern philosophy, and of Wittgenstein in particular. As will be seen, the approach is one of detailed logical analysis, rigorously investigating a living practice of language that is central to our learning and education. And the analysis is meant to be used in a very practical way, to clarify mistakes that confuse our understanding and thus lead us on to feel and think and act mistakenly as well. (See Vakyapadiya, 1.13-4 quoted below at the end of this paper.)

Of course, Bhartrihari used this approach in a somewhat different cultural context from our modern academic one. From there, he used it to arrive at conclusions that might seem very strange to many linguistic philosophers at modern universities. Despite the strangeness, perhaps there's something to be learned, across the cultural divide.

Ancient Greek Ideas of Learning

But first, before getting to Bhartrihari, it might help to go back to ancient Greek ideas of knowledge, from which our ideas of modern science have developed in the west.

In some ways, the beginnings of western science can be traced back to the Greek philosopher Parmenides. He distinguished between two ways of learning: first, the way of 'aletheia' or 'truth'; and second, the way of 'doxa' or 'belief'. Parmenides is quite scathing about the second way, the way of belief. He says that nothing proper can be known through it. Strictly speaking, it is the way of falsity and ignorance. In order to find truth, our habitual and customary beliefs must be rigorously examined, to remove all falsities that mere assumptions and beliefs have brought in.

In ancient Greek philosophy, the word 'doxa' did not mean just 'belief', but also 'opinion' and 'appearance' or 'seeming'. The basic sense is one of opposition to true knowledge and reality. In Plato's dialogue, the Republic, Socrates describes this opposition, through the famous simile of the divided line. In this simile, the line is taken to represent a continued progression of learning, from appearances to truth. The progression comes about by examining perceived appearances, so that intelligence may show what is truer and more real in them. This is a distinction between what superficially appears from what is more deeply intelligible, upon a further and more accurate consideration.

Applying this distinction to the line of progressive learning, Socrates divides it into two. So he distinguishes two kinds of learning: which are shown in Figure 1 (below), on the left side of the vertical line. The lower and inferior kind is 'doxa', which includes belief, opinion and appearance. The higher and superior kind is 'episteme', which implies a knowing and an understanding that has been refined by an intelligent examination of observed experience.

But the same distinction, between superficial appearance and truer consideration, can be further applied to each of the two kinds of learning that have now been distinguished. The result is a division of learning into four kinds, shown on the right hand side of the vertical line in Figure 1.

Here, four kinds of learning are distinguished:

1. The lowest kind of learning is 'eikasia' or 'illusion'. This is a deceptive appearance, which seems different from what is truly shown. The deception is created by imagination, through our personal faculties of sense and mind. To correct the deception, Plato uses two methods. One is the somewhat paradoxical use of poetic metaphor, which is explicitly admitted to inspire the suggestion of a different reality from what is outwardly described. The other method is through the sober enquiry of analytic reason, which thus proceeds to higher kinds of learning.
: 2. The second kind of learning is called 'pistis' or 'customary faith'. This is the habitual faith of long-accepted common sense. It's to this settled faith that people return, when they sober down from their inspiring but fanciful flights of imagination. This is a higher kind of learning, in the sense that it corrects some obvious errors of imagined fancy. But it depends on customary habits of belief that are not properly examined, and so it still remains in the realm of 'doxa' or 'believed appearance'.
: 3. The third kind of learning is called 'dianoia' or 'formal science'. Here, learning is formalized by making its assumptions explicit. And reasoned argument is used to deduce conclusions. For Plato, the prime example of such science is geometry and mathematics. By making its assumptions explicit, as formal axioms or postulates, such scientific argument throws open its beliefs to actual enquiry, against the test of experience. The test is to deduce results and to investigate if they correctly show what's actually experienced. Thus mere beliefs are left behind, and we enter the realm of 'episteme' or 'investigated understanding'.
: 4. The fourth kind of learning is called 'noesis' or 'clarifying reason'. Here, the direction of reasoned argument is no longer to deduce results that describe observed phenomena. Instead, it is just the opposite, to turn attention back towards underlying assumptions from which the results have been deduced. Investigation is thus turned reflectively, to ask how far the assumptions are correct and to show up whatever falsity remains in them. There is thus a repeated reflection back and forth, between observed results and accepted assumptions. As the reflection is repeated, it is meant to keep showing up remaining falsity, which gets accordingly removed, in a progression towards clarity of truth. For Socrates, this is the highest kind of reason on the way to truth.

Modern and Traditional Ideas

So, in the end, Socrates is just as skeptical as Parmenides, about mere 'doxa' or 'belief'. Both treat such unexamined belief as a compromise that must be transcended utterly, in order to arrive at truth. But, through the course of European history, this Greek idea of 'doxa' has come to have a much more ambivalent influence upon our modern thought. For, related to the Greek 'doxa', there is the Latin 'docere', which means to 'teach'. And, from 'docere' come many words in modern European languages, with meanings that are not just negative, but often positive as well. In Figure 2, some modern English words are shown, deriving from the Greek 'doxa' and the Latin 'docere'. The more negative words are grouped on the left, and on the right are those with a more positive meaning.

As these words show (both negative and positive), there is a problem with traditional learning, when viewed from a modern perspective. The trouble is that the old ways can seem inherently dogmatic, as they are seen to proceed more from assertion of authority than from an open-minded questioning. But, in this view, the old learning is not seen impartially. It's only seen one-sidedly and superficially, from an external view, without rightly taking its own view into account.

Traditional teaching was indeed authoritarian in its manner of expression. The reason was quite simple. Before the introduction of printing, students had to memorize their texts, in a largely oral system of transmitting the forms of learning. So, at first, a traditional student had to memorize things formally, and questions of meaning could only come later on.

Our modern system is quite different. Because books and other forms of knowledge are so easily available through modern media, students can be encouraged to ask questions right from the start of learning. So our modern approach is to question first and to remember accordingly.

In the traditional approach, the attitude was just the opposite. It was to memorize first, in a formal way, in preparation for a questioning that would come later on. But this doesn't mean that the essence of traditional learning was dogma, in opposition to enquiry. The essence was a systematic and scientific enquiry, just as it is for modern learning. And further, traditional enquiry was supposed to be all the more thorough and rigorous, for the long and hard preparation that led up to it.

Traditional statements often look dogmatic and mystifying, because they were expressed in a condensed way that was suitable for memorization. But, behind this authoritarian and mystical appearance, they were often meant to raise hard questions that our modern sciences have not penetrated so deeply today. As I see it, this is just what Bhartrihari does, in his Vakyapadiya and its vritti commentary.

In particular, I would suggest that Bhartrihari has something to add to our modern academic sciences of language and semiotics. These modern sciences are largely focused on symbolic systems or symbolic structures. However, I would say that there is a undermining problem here, in these modern sciences. Their notion of system or structure is somewhat mechanically conceived, in association with modern physics.

And I would go on to say that Bhartrihari's view was not thus undermined, for he used a traditional physics that allowed for a broader and a deeper way of conceiving the phenomena of 'life' and 'mind'. Thus Bhartrihari uses old ideas of life and mind to analyse what symbols and symbolic structures mean. He does this in particular by analysing language -- which he considers in its broadest sense, to include all meaningful experience.

In Bhartrihari's Sanskrit tradition, there are many words for 'life' and 'mind'. But, in particular, life is conceived as 'prana' or 'living energy', which animates our living faculties of action in the world. And mind is conceived as 'manas', which is etymologically related to the English word 'mind'. It implies a mediating faculty -- a faculty that mediates between an inmost consciousness and our objective faculties of outward sense or action in the world.

In a way, the old idea of 'prana' is akin to the energy of modern physics. It conceives that material objects are only crude appearances perceived by our gross senses. Behind these crude appearances, objects are more accurately described as functioning patterns of dynamic energy.

But, in another way there is an essential difference between modern physics and the old idea of 'prana'. For, in modern physics, the functioning of energy is purely mechanical. Its patterns of energy are mechanically described, through mathematical quantities that are measured by externally constructed instruments. But, in the old idea of 'prana', the functioning of energy has also a living component that is organically described. This organic description includes qualitative purposes and intentions and meanings -- which have to be reflectively interpreted, through living faculties that are reflected back into a consciousness that they express.

Such an interpretation is essential to our experience of language. In any living speech, the speaker's meaning is expressed from consciousness in outward words, which are then understood by a listener. To understand what has been said, the listener must take the spoken words back into consciousness, through an interpretation that reflects into a common meaning that the words express for both the speaker and the listener.

Speech thus involves an energy that is not just mechanically structural, but is organically alive. This is a living energy, which inherently expresses an underlying consciousness, in purposes and meanings that are understood by going back reflectively to what has been expressed. It's through this living energy that speech expresses meaning and that learning is handed down, in traditions that remain alive.

Living Tradition

In both the Vakyapadiya and its vritti commentary [1], Bhartrihari makes it plain that a living tradition does not consist of formal rules and structures or outward texts in themselves. In order to express a living knowledge, all structured forms and outward texts depend upon an intelligence that is expressed in the living power of meaningful symbols and words. What keeps a tradition alive is not just the forms and the texts, but a living practice of selecting and interpreting the forms and texts, so that each generation comes afresh to living knowledge. Here are some short passages to this effect, somewhat freely translated from the Sanskrit original.

1.137
: All arguments and inference
depend upon intelligence.
They're nothing but the power of words.
: Where reason follows abstract rules
but does not flow from living speech,
it ties no concrete meaning down.
It cannot record anything.
Such logic is not found in texts
of genuine authority.
: 1.140
: It's commonly acknowledged that
unseen effects may be achieved
by chanting from the sacred texts.
But it is always possible
to say conflicting things about
what's in the texts and what they mean.

: 1.140 vritti (last sentence)
: Therefore, some sacred text is made authentic, and a settled standpoint is established. There, whatever reason finds fit and proper, confirmation is obtained.
: 1.141
: Linguistics is a discipline
whose aim is knowledge, clarified
from errors of mistaken use.
: It is recorded through an
uncut continuity -- of learning
that is called to mind, by those
who've learned it well and hand it down.; 1.141 vritti (last sentence)
: From each generation to the next, the intent remembered is reconstituted, over and over again, in an unbroken succession. In an established tradition of common knowledge that has not been recorded in words, only the unbroken practice of those who succeed in learning is remembered.