The Nāda Theory of Language: A Śaiva Perspective on Verbal Communication
Prof. Francesco Sferra
(Dipartimento di Studi Asiatici, Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”)
Asia-Africa Institute, University of Hamburg, 30 April 2008
Summary
The nāda theory of language is first formulated by Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha II (or Rāmakaṇṭha) in his Nādakārikā (’Stanza[s] on Sound’), which was probably composed in Kaśmīr around the beginning of the 10th century and was later commented on in prose by the celebrated southern Indian master Aghoraśiva. The Nādakārikā with its Vyākhyā was edited, annotated and translated by Filliozat (1984), and the stanzas alone were translated into English by Krishna Śivarāman (1977).
The nāda theory was apparently never diffused outside the Śaivasiddhānta, yet it is an original attempt to explain what permits the understanding of meaning (arthabuddhi, °pratīti, °pratipatti) in the cognitive and linguistic process. It appears to be a tacit adaptation and ‘reformulation’ of the sphoṭa theory of language in a system based on completely different ontological presuppositions. Although Rāmakaṇṭha does not clearly explain the differences between nāda and sphoṭa, Aghoraśiva’s glosses on stanza seven introduces and refutes sphoṭa with arguments similar to those put forward in Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti.
Prof. Sferra presented an in-depth analysis of the nāda theory of language on the basis of the Sanskrit works of the Śaivasiddhānta, particularly the Nādakārikā and the Ratnatrayaparīkṣā. Rāmakaṇṭha’s nāda theory is an attempt to combine the Grammarians’ sphoṭa thesis with a dualistic interpretation of the scriptural doctrines, aiming to explain a cause of knowledge and an instrument of creation, and at the same time preventing consciousness from sinking into insentience.
Currently Prof. Sferra is preparing a new edition and annotated English translation of the Nādakārikā and its Vyākhyā, to appear in a single volume together with the Ratnatrayaparīkṣā by Śrīkaṇṭha, its Ullekhinī by Aghoraśiva and another recently discovered, and still unpublished, anonymous commentary on the Ratnatrayaparīkṣā.
- See also: Teaching at the CTS