Hindu Communication Theory

Hindu communication theory, or the account of the methods and purposes involved in the use of language, concerns a diverse grouping of religious/philosophical traditions on the Indian subcontinent. In some cases, sources in the Hindu tradition explicitly theorized about communication (such as Bharata on rasa theory and Bhartrhari on speech). In most cases, however, accounts of language and its use were bound up with other concerns. This entry will largely concentrate on the implicit theory of communication in Hindu tradition. The purposes/ends and methods/means of communication will be examined.

Hindu tradition begins with an important group of texts called the Vedas. The earliest of these texts dates from around 2000 BCE. The Vedas were learned and transmitted among priestly castes (classes) by the oral means of chanting. These texts are classified as s'ruti, a term that literally means “perceived through hearing.” There are no known actual authors of these texts; instead, they are likely a collection of verses inspired by tribal experience and are remembered as useful as parts of vedic rituals. Whereas the Vedas tend to focus on ritual means of edifying the gods and in gaining worldly goals, another group of texts began to become prominent between 1000 BCE and 400 BCE—the Upanis'ads. These texts contain the core of what would become modern Hinduism—the commitment to reality being undivided at its most basic level and to a general renunciation of worldly goods. After the time of the Buddha (circa 563–483 BCE), a prominent critic of vedic concerns, what could be identified as modern Hinduism began to develop the upanis'adic themes in a variety of ways. These include the six orthodox schools (darsana) of Indian philosophy that flourished in India after the time of the Buddha.

One significant aspect of Hinduism presupposed by most schools of Hindu thought is the idea of liberation (moksa). This end is important to communication, as the way that a person understands language (such as s'ruti or philosophical texts) will impact that person's chances for liberation. From what is a person to become free? In most schools of Hindu thought, the sources of suffering are the cycles of change evident in this world. Often the problem relates to how one orients to desire and its changing objects and to the “self” that supposedly gains from attaining the objects of one's desires (success, goods, etc.). Thus, Hindu traditions tend to emphasize the desirability of relieving the burden of harmful orientations to the world; indeed, this liberation is often talked about as becoming enlightened about the true nature of one's self and the world. Instead of the normal everyday notion of self (the empirical body one appears to have), the Upanis'ads argue that a person's true self (Atman) is really the Self of all beings and objects (Brahman). One's self is the Self of all things, undivided and nonindividuated.

Hindu views of communication have an interesting relationship to this underlying monism (the view that reality is without divisions or parts). On one hand, language is extolled as a way to achieve such knowledge. Instead of merely transmitting knowledge, the Hindu tradition tends to see the hearing and understanding of language as a realization of some state of affairs. Thus, if one has an enlightened teacher (guru), one can attain the state of liberation by attending to that teacher's utterances and commands. In such accounts as that offered by the rasa theory, attending to poetic or dramatic uses of language can instill certain moods [Page 477]of renunciation or detachment (i.e., that of realizing that one's empirical, divided self is not really “who” one is). In this view, then, language holds the power to remove ignorance and illusion about the world. On the other hand, Hindu communication theory seems pessimistic about the ability of language to “grasp” ultimate reality (Brahman), since that reality is undivided and utterly whole. Language excels at categorizing and dividing, whereas reality is the undivided substratum to all change and division we appear to witness in life.

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