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| Mikael Stamm, scholar from Denmark, in Chennai. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam |
Philosopher Hume wrote that books on metaphysics
contained nothing but “sophistry and illusion.” Most analytic
philosophers were inspired by Hume’s condemnation of metaphysics. The
logical positivists even tried to develop artificial languages, which,
by their very nature, would make it impossible for metaphysical
questions to be asked in those languages. The Vienna circle, which not
only included philosophers such as Neurath, Schlick and Carnap, but also
mathematicians such as Godel, also wanted to steer clear of
metaphysics.
Coming to the Indian scene, it is hard
to conceive of Hindu philosophy completely shorn of metaphysics. Hindu
philosophers also had linguistic concerns, but their thoughts ran on
different lines.
Grammarians such as Katyayana and
Patanjali believed that language was eternal, very much like the Vedas.
Speech after all, was the mode through which gods were invoked when
Vedic sacrifices were performed.
Patanjali
introduced the concept of ‘sphota.’ “Sphota is that which is manifested
in the mind through the agency of hearing, and that which manifests
meaning in the mind,” writes Dr. Pierre Filliozat.
Grammarian
Bhartrhari (5th century C.E.) elaborated on sphota. When we say
something, we enunciate all the letters in the sentence, sequentially.
As each letter is uttered, the previous one fades away. How then do we
get an idea of what is being said? This is where sphota comes in.
Canadian scholar Harold Coward wrote: “Sphota is an object of each
person’s cognitive perception.” Patanjali gave the example of the word
cow — ‘go’ in Sanskrit. The moment the word ‘go’ is uttered, we get a
mental image of a cow with all its features. Bhartrhari called the
essence of speech ‘sabda.’ To him, ‘sabda’ is Brahman. Grammar helps us
to see what errors have crept into language, and helps us to get rid of
them. If speech is Brahman, then grammar is the path that leads us to
this Brahman.
So while Western philosophy was
occupied with language in a negative way, in India, language was looked
at through a metaphysical prism.
My curiosity is
aroused when I hear that a student of Western philosophy from Denmark,
is doing his Ph.D in Saiva Siddhanta in the Sanskrit Department,
University of Madras. I meet Mikael Stamm one afternoon, and he explains
why he was disenchanted with Western philosophy. “I didn’t like its
rejection of metaphysical questions. You don’t skirt round questions,
simply because they are uncomfortable. I couldn’t accept the notion that
it was the business of philosophy to clear up linguistic misconceptions
for the sake of science. So I moved away from Western philosophy, and
studied Computer Science, and for many years I worked in UNI- C, a
government organisation, which develops service networks for
Universities in Denmark.”
But the philosophical
questions kept nagging him, and he thought perhaps India might have the
answers. His first trip to India took him to Goa, and there he picked up
a translation of the Bhagavad Gita. Reading it, he realised that the
Gita had answers to many questions that had been troubling him. In
subsequent trips, he visited many other towns, but when he went to
Varanasi that things fell into place.
A visit to the
Viswanatha temple and conversations with pandits there, helped him to
make up his mind. He decided he would study Saiva Siddhanta, and applied
to three Universities. Madras University was the first to respond, and
Mikael did his Masters in Tamil Saiva Siddhanta.
He
had read books on Hindu temples in Denmark, but had seen the temples
merely as architectural marvels, without connecting them to the
religion. It was his many visits to temples that made him realise that
here was a living culture.
“In Denmark, our original
culture was the Viking one, but within 200 years of the advent of
Christianity into our country, the Viking culture was wiped out. So we
don’t have an ancient, indigenous living religion and culture as in the
case of Hinduism here,” Mikael says.
Tracing the
history of Saiva Siddhanta, Mikael says, “The surfacing of distinct
Saiva Siddhanta doctrines started at about 800 C.E. and lasted till 1300
C.E. After this, significant expressions of Saiva Siddhanta were
confined to Tamil Nadu. The most important dualistically inclined Saiva
Siddhantists were Sadyojyoti, Bhojadeva, Ramakantha and
Aghorasivacharya, who based their views on the Agamas, especially the
earlier ones such as Parakhya, Karana, Paushkara, Mrgendra, Matanga and
Raurava. Aghorasivacharya was criticised by later Tamil philosophers
such as Sivagnanamunivar and Śivaagrayogin, who were non-dualistic in
their philosophy. But Tamil Saiva Siddhanta was not non-dualistic in a
sense like Advaita, and the Tamil Saiva Siddhantists did not subscribe
to the theory that the world was illusory.”
Mikael
began studying Sanskrit from his very first day at the Madras
University. Early lessons were self taught. Later, Dr. Balasubramaniam
of the Sanskrit College, Mylapore, taught him Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra.
“I didn’t waste a minute. I would study Sanskrit from memory cards, while waiting for buses and in between lectures.”
Back home in Denmark, he studied under an Indian professor who also took spoken Sanskrit classes. From him, Mikael picked up an interest in Nada Karika, which is a text of 25 verses, written by Ramakantha II (11th century C.E.). It has a commentary by Aghorasivacharya. Nada Karika asks questions about the origin of sound, and how words relate to objects.
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Source: The Hindu
