"In Defense of Naïve Reading"

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/in-defense-of-naive-reading/

Literature and the arts have a dimension unique in the academy, not shared by the objects studied, or “researched” by our scientific brethren. They invite or invoke, at a kind of “first level,” an aesthetic experience that is by its nature resistant to restatement in more formalized, theoretical or generalizing language. This response can certainly be enriched by knowledge of context and history, but the objects express a first-person or subjective view of human concerns that is falsified if wholly transposed to a more “sideways on” or third person view. Indeed that is in a way the whole point of having the “arts.”

Likewise—and this is a much more controversial thesis—such works also can directly deliver a kind of practical knowledge and self-understanding not available from a third person or more general formulation of such knowledge. There is no reason to think that such knowledge … is any less knowledge because it cannot be so formalized or even taught as such. Call this a plea for a place for “naïve” reading, teaching and writing—an appreciation and discussion not mediated by a theoretical research question recognizable as such by the modern academy.

The “restatement of the aesthetic experience in formalized, theoretical or generalizing language” is precisely what Sanskrit literary theorists like Abhinavagupta and his rasa folk do. The nature of the aesthetic experience generated in the sensitive connoisseur (sahṛdaya) by a drama or literary piece is theorized at great length in these works and in scores of modern secondary literature on the topic.

What interests me, though, is the author’s second claim, that literature “can directly deliver a kind of practical knowledge and self-understanding”. Sheldon Pollock argues in his epic article “Sanskrit Literary Culture from the Inside Out” that the Sanskrit literary understanding tends not to attribute such epistemological powers to kāvya in general. Now, Sanskrit theorists do claim that kāvya can potentially teach us how to act. As Viśvanātha Kavirāja states in his Sāhitya-darpaṇa: rāmâdivat pravartitavyam na tu rāvaṇâdivat—“one must conduct oneself like Rāma and his like, and not like Rāvaṇa and his like”—and kāvya is of course a major source of such information.

The birth of poetry in Sanskrit

While translating the first verse of the Rāghavayādavīyam of Veṅkaṭādhvarin, I came across a word that I simply could not decipher on my own: mārāmorāḥ (मारामोराः in Devanāgarī). I had to look up the English commentary of Dr. Saroja Ramanujam to figure it out. She resegmented it as mā-ārāma-urāḥ, and glossed it as a bahuvrīhi (an “exocentric” compound functioning as an adjective) that means “one whose chest is a pleasure garden for Mā”. (There is no way I would have figured that out on my own!) 

But what, or who, is Mā? Dr. Ramanujam simply noted that it was a name for Lakṣmī, but I wanted to find out more and dug deeper. Now, digging too deep is fraught with difficulties. (Just ask the dear departed dwarves of Dwarrowdelf, who delved too deep, disturbing a denizen of the dark depths that then dealt the deathblow to their delightful dominion.) But in this case, what I found was pure mithril.

Prof. Ajay Rao has written a fascinating paper called “Theologising the Inaugural Verse: Śleṣa Reading in Rāmāyaṇa Commentary” for the Journal of Hindu Studies. The underlying argument of the paper (which Prof. Rao elaborates in his dissertation) is that the Rāmāyaṇa was not always perceived as a fully religious text, and that at least early in its history it was seen as a work of literature (kāvya) and not a received tradition (smṛti). Indeed, the Rāmāyaṇa is seen not just as any literary work, but as the first literary work (ādi-kāvya), and its composer, the poet-sage Vālmīki, is regarded as the First Poet (ādi-kavi). Prof. Rao further argues that the “theologization” of the Rāmāyaṇa was accomplished by a series of Śrīvaiṣṇava commentators who interpreted key episodes in the narrative as illustrative of the theological ideas underpinning their philosophical theology. Foremost among these commentators was the sixteenth-century Govindarāja, upon whose Rāmāyaṇa-bhūṣaṇa commentary Prof. Rao relies.

Definitions of negation

The Sanskrit grammatical tradition loves to name and define its terms, often in verses. For example, the privative prefix, which manifests itself as a- or an- (and is cognate with the Greek a- in words like atom), is called naÑ in the Pāṇinian tradition. A concise verse (from the voluminous Śabdakalpadruma) summarizes the various meanings that this prefix can express:

tat-sādṛśyaṃ virodhaś ca tad-anyatvaṃ tad-alpatā |

aprāśastyam abhāvaś ca nañarthāḥ ṣaṭ prakīrtitāḥ ||

The tradition enumerates six different meanings that can be expressed by naÑ:

“Extreme Poetry”: Sanskrit śleṣa

Prof. Yigal Bronner at the University of Chicago has written a remarkable book called Extreme Poetry: the South Asian Movement of Simultaneous Narration. This describes the staggering intellectual and literary phenomenon in Sanskrit of composing works that can be read in multiple ways to simultaneously produce different narratives. It is a brilliant work that casts light upon a phenomenon that is astonishingly difficult both to read and to ’rite. In perhaps no other language could something like this be realized on such a colossal scale.

Reading Prof. Bronner’s book has inspired me to turn to a 17th century Sanskrit text of the viloma genre called the Rāghavayādavīyam, composed by the Śrīvaiṣṇava litterateur Veṅkaṭādhvarin of Aracāṇippālai. Veṅkaṭādhvarin is also famous for his Viśvaguṇādarśacampū, a “travel” work that describes the condition of the Tamil lands of his time through the eyes of two celestial beings (gandharvas), one idealistic, the other sarcastic and cynical. His Śrī Lakṣmī Sahasram is, as the name suggests, a thousand verses glorifying the Divine Mother Lakṣmī, who is central to the Śrīvaiṣṇava religious tradition. Veṅkaṭādhvarin divided his work into twenty-five chapters, invoking the twenty-five-verse Śrī Stuti composed perhaps 300 years earlier by his revered predecessor, Śrī Vedānta Deśika. [It would be fascinating to look for systematic connections between the two works.]

<UPDATE>
It turns out that Veṅkaṭādhvarin also composed another work, the Ācārya-pañcāśat, fifty verses honoring the great teacher (ācārya) Śrī Vedānta Deśika. 
</UPDATE>

In comparison, the Rāghavayādavīyam is a much shorter work, consisting of thirty verses. It narrates the story of Rāma when read forwards. However, when each verse is read backwards (while the whole work is still read forwards), it narrates the story of Kṛṣṇa! Translating this level of Sanskrit is beyond my capacity, but I would eventually like to give it a shot. 

For now, just the opening benediction, with the help of the English commentary and translation of Dr. Saroja Ramanujam. I have chosen different interpretations for a couple of words where I thought my choices fit the context of the verse better; it is, of course, entirely possible that I am wrong.

May the same power that animated Veṅkaṭādhvarin to compose this work allow me to translate it as best as I can into English!

Verse 1 (anuloma)

vande ’haṃ devaṃ taṃ śrītaṃ rantāraṃ kālaṃ bhāsā yaḥ |

rāmo rāmādhīr āpyāgo līlām ārâ ’’yodhye vāse || 1a ||

I bow down to the Lord, 
the one sporting with Śrī
        splendidly for eternity,

Who, as Rāma, 
        His mind fixed on that beautiful woman (Sītā),
returned from the ocean

and fulfilled His divine play (līlā)
        dwelling in Ayodhyā.

Verse 1 (pratiloma)

sevâdhyeyo rāmā-lālī gopy-ārādhī mā-’’rāmôrāḥ |

yaḥ sâbhâlaṃkāraṃ tāraṃ taṃ śrītaṃ vande ’haṃ devam || 1p ||

Worshipable through loving service,

He charms beautiful women,
        delights, and is delighted by, the milkmaids;

His chest is a pleasure-garden for Mother Lakṣmī—

to Him, 
        splendid,
        His ornaments radiating light,

to the one sporting with Śrī,
I bow down to the Lord.

[Reading a text forward is called anuloma in Sanskrit, which literally means “with / following the hair”. Doing something anuloma means following the natural flow of things. Its opposite is pratiloma, which literally means “against the hair”. The two terms can be felicitously translated into English as “along the grain” and “against the grain”.]

The wondrous chain of hope

āśā nāma manuṣyāṇāṃ kācid āścarya-śṛṅkhalā |
yayā baddhāḥ pradhāvanti muktās tiṣṭhanti paṅguvat ||


What a wondrous chain Hope is for mankind!
Those bound by it run free; 
Those free from it stand still, lamed.

Strings, branes, and all that

 I came across a few articles today on Plus, an online mathematics magazine, which presented some of the basics of theoretical physics—string theory and M-branes in particular—in a simple, accessible way. If you’re interested, a good way to do this would be to start “From Newton to Einstein and beyond” and to try “Tying it all up” before you “Meet the mother theory”. 


Of course, the hard math underlying all these theories really is essential if you want to grok this stuff. I would recommend Sir Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality, about two-thirds of which is spent in actually explaining the math behind such things as general relativity. Stephen Hawking wrote in A Brief History of Time that his editor warned him that every equation he put in would scare away half of his readers. By this metric, Sir Roger’s editor was probably content to have an audience of five. Including himself. (I’ve worked through less than a third of the book so far!) The Road to Reality tries to cover, quite literally, everything. Reading it will do to your mind what diving into a P90X training program will do to an obese Indian bureaucrat’s body.

If you're stuck on a problem

This is a profound statement by Robert Pirsig, from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors.