Saturday, September 19, 2009

Analysis of Language

Ludwig Wittgenstein , reportedly a German student of Prussian origins of Bertrand Russell, is supposed to have famously remarked – “..the only job left for philosophy is an analysis of language” - This is probably the reason why a D.Litt is a conferred degree while a PhD has to be earned. Also, this statement was presumably a retort to either a statement that called Mathematics as a language of Physics or probably in context of World War I/II or even more improbably after his visit to Benaras, where after observing and enquiring after the suryanamaskar ritual, he was introduced to hindu philosophy and is supposed to have understood why time stood still in that place.
This blog is for Ludwig.
It is only after an analysis of sound that language is born. This fact is known to all living beings. I am sure this is also known to all proponents of the Word despite the existence of a Babel of languages in their times. Any language that is born out of a good society is called Sanskrit or perhaps I should say, Samskritah or Samskritam. Not created by Sams.
सम्यक यत कृतः इति संस्कृतः।
तस्मात् ते देवभाषा न अहूराभाषा॥
मम मते न अन्य पन्था विद्यां उत्तर अयनाय।
दक्शिन्ताम परा भाषा विराजन्ते इति ते प्राकृत घोश्यनते॥
It must have been this that drove the great Samkara (सम्यक यत करोति) to say नही नही रक्षति दुक्रून कराने , to reiterate that all Bhaja Govindam won’t make up for grammatical faux pas (in plural, if 'faux pas' is singular).
Handsome always is that Handsome does.
As much as we cannot deny our own Existence, we cannot deny the existence of an Other.
Existence, itself is, however, an undivided continuum. I am sure we all agree.

2 comments:

  1. A brilliant piece. The real part that deserves our attention is "Silence" from which sound is born. Eckherdt Tlle calls it "stillness".

    I would submit to Naresh , since he is addressing a family audience, that he should try and make his pieces easily reach the untrained & disparate readers among us. Bertrand Russell named one of his books " Unpopular Essays". He had stated that since he had tried to make the book understandable to even pre-teenagers he would , on that score, hardly expect it to be popular among the scholars. There are elders and women among our people not to say of the transcontinental next-gen who are at different level of awareness and readiness. Since Naresh has the erudition and the depth of character to delve into the deeper aspects of human existence ( something that all of us desire to do too but find difficult ) , it is for him to draw us in (Currently I feel overwhelmed by his intellectual reach and energy). For this he has to become a teacher who sets aside his personal enquiries and pursuits aside( very urgent as they are) and talks in a language , format & style assidously chosen for our benefit. We all will agree that the most perplexing of phenomenon can be made interesting and even comprehensible to lay audience by competent teachers. Naresh should find that faculty within himself.

    I have a suggestion here. Vichu and Narsh have been going big guns on the blog. In my currently enervated state I find it absolutely awesome that they can write actually wrtite such consistently long pieces & loaded articles. Having said that , it is best if some of us can take the responsibility of collating these articles, classifying them academically . The point is that a compendium can be extracted out of this and the subjects classified . There will be eminently discardable pieces and a lot of it will not be worthy of preservatipon. If we can retrieve the truly original pieces and make for some sort of formal classification , then there will be a great service for any reader at large.

    We can start with Naresh & Vichu themselves . They may sift out the best and the worst among their contributions, classify the subjects, etc etc. Others like Arun , Ganesh, Anand, can then be given speicifc editorial responsibilties.

    I invite your responses to the suggestions.

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  2. My request to folks

    I have posted a fresh blog in response to Ambu's suggestions, instead of a "comment".

    I am not even hoping that it is read by all. But some answers are there, if one is interested in going thru them.

    Love

    Vichu

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