The Hidden Lives of Brahman: Sankara's Vedanta through His Upanisad Commentaries, in Light of Contemporary Practice

Chapter 5

 CondItIonIng the mInd for Brahman Saṁskṛta Training Past and Present Apart from training in upāsana practice, there is another layer of cultural particularity that frames Śaṅkara’s proclamations of trans-cultural truth, equally essential to his teaching method: the grammar, aesthetics, and logic learned by studying the Saṁskṛta language. Śaṅkara values the way Saṁskṛta grammar, aesthetics, and logic work together to condition the brāhmaṇa mind. Such conditioning supports upāsana practice inspired by Saṁskṛta sources, but also enhances understanding of, and reverence for, Saṁskṛta as a medium of expression. The sensitivity developed through such conditioning distinguishes Saṁskṛta experts from brāhmaṇas trained primarily in the recitation and ritual technique that inspire upāsana practice. The skill developed through study of Saṁskṛṭa grammar, aesthetics, and logic is the second of the three types of training described in the introduction , whose perfection leads to the qualities Śaṅkara lists as prerequisites for inquiry into the nature of brahman (UMSbh 1.1.1). In this and the following two chapters I observe that the imaginative capacity developed through Saṁskṛta training is intimately tied to the perfection of the two affective qualities of disenchantment with the enjoyment of limited things and yearning for release from all limitations. I emphasize that the artful and imaginative use of Saṁskṛta words is for Śaṅkara one of the most uniquely effective means for nurturing these mutually reinforcing qualities. The logical capacity developed through Saṁskṛta training also lays the foundation for discriminating between the constancy of brahman and the inconstancy of all limited forms, dealt with more fully in part 3. The culturally distinctive conditioning produced through Saṁskṛta training is so thoroughly taken for granted by brāhmaṇas, and so often ignored by outside observers, that it is seldom explicitly named. Rather, descriptions of such conditioning center around a number of interrelated terms. First, vyākaraṇa (“dividing up [words]”) most commonly refers to the Chapter 5 the hidden lives of brahman 108 study of grammar defined by the fifth century BCE grammarian Pāṇini, and by subsequent commentators building on and modifying his system of rules. Secondly, alaṁkaraṇa (“finishing” or adorning) refers in its earliest uses to adornment of verses using, on the one hand, alliteration and rhyme (śabda or “sound” adornment) and, on the other, metaphors and figures of speech (artha or “meaning” adornment), often linking some mood or human predicament with a parallel situation in nature.1 Such adornment through both the sounds and meanings of words is an integral part of both early vedic poetry and brāhmaṇa prose formulas; detailed cataloguing of its varieties and techniques develops primarily during the medieval period, with the evolution of post-vedic (i.e., “classical”) Sanskrit literature, especially in verse form, today commonly labeled sāhitya (“collection [of literary works]”). Thirdly, a range of terms designate advanced forms of reasoning based on limited evidence, the most common today being nyāya (“leading [the mind]”) and anumāna (“inference” or “conjecture”);2 such reasoning is applied first to Saṁskṛta grammar, then eventually also to natural phenomena and to ritual. Śaṅkara’s composition of first-person declarations, especially in BUbh 1.2.7 and 1.3.28, reviewed in chapter 4, clearly displays the grammatical acuity, poetic skill, and inferential reasoning developed through these disciplines. Yet grammar, literary aesthetics, and logic are common to many languages and cultures; what makes Saṃskṛta training in brāhmaṇa communities distinctive is its association with the notion of saṁskāra, “consecration” or “perfecting.” Chapter 4 has mentioned Śaṅkara’s use of the term “saṁskāra” in referring to the consecrating effect of envisioning a horse as Prajāpati; chapter 10 will emphasize that he uses the same language to describe all forms of purificatory preparation for brahman insight. Brāhmaṇas today typically use “saṁskāra” to designate the various life cycle rites that mark the (mostly male) brāhmaṇa’s life stages, including the all important initiation to study; and the same prefix-verb combination designates the very language of vedic and post-vedic culture itself as “Saṁskṛta,” “perfected” or “consecrated.” All these applications of “saṁskāra” imply bringing distinct elements into harmonious alliance, whether in carefully selecting and preparing ritual objects and actions; forming memories...