Language as Creative Expression Author(s): Lokenath Bhattacharya Source: India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. 11, No.

2, LANGUAGE (JUNE 1984), pp. 177186 Published by: India International Centre Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23001657 . Accessed: 21/01/2014 09:09
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LANGUAGE

AS

EXPRESSION

Language Lokenath

as

Creative

Expression

Bhattacharya

man EvEN in the darkest and deepest caves of his consciousness, never attains a state free from speech. He thinks he has reason to believe that, at times, he has discovered this speech everywhere in the universe and, specially, in the origin itself of the universe. The creation of all life, he assumes, if not synonymous, has been simultaneous, with the creation of speech.

The manifest world of whatever the senses or the mind can perceive or imaginethe hiranya-garbha or the golden embryo of the Rigvedais peopled by words, spreading itself coolly, and comfortably, beyond the borders of time and space, into layers and layers of light and darkness, not just crying for expression but simply by being expression. A name here, or a flower there, it is an expression. A pain only as is no a the same less nomenclature of sensed, yet nameless, And are all words, already fully expressed, irrespec they description. tive of the minds in which they may, or may not, have evoked images, also of whether such words are already articulated or irrespective a splendid and lying merged in silence. Silence itself is an expression, is not ripe fruit for anyone to savour. It is even greater, since silence but the mother of expression, two states of an only an expression, existence merged into one. here about 177 the Indian concept of chandas,

A word may be added

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which originally meant revealed lore, but later came to be identified with the metre which gave an utterance a rhythm and bound its con tents together. The hymns that man sang spontaneously to God were the earliest literature produced by him. They were motivated by his realisation that, after all, he is but a toy, kridanaka, in the hands of his

maker. The chandas or revealed lore, in its formal as well as expres sional meant for the ancient. Indian everything that covered aspect, from which chandas) his sins and he submitted himself (chadayati, breath in for him God's congenially to his prayer, which represented man returning to its source. This was for him the logos or the Word, and all other utterances of breath a mere waste seemed (vaco This expression of deep religious sentiment, though viglapanam). primarily restricted to the verse form, was soon thrown open to be used by one and all (prapattih sarvadhikara), without any distinction of caste, creed, or nationality.

A distinction may be made here between, on the one hand, that speech which is the symbol of creation and, on the other, language as understood in common Even in the latter case, man finds parlance. himself confined to which limits, no to the limits of his language, the German refers when he says, doubt, Wittgenstein philosopher "The limits of my language signify the limits of my own world" (Trac tatus, 5.6). What follows from such a remark is that there are other worlds and other expressions which, as they lie beyond the reach of are not known to me. The creative man's craving, from my language, time immemorial, has been to push the limits of his language to such extremes which alone can open for him the realm of superior expres sionas distinct from utterances amounting to a mere waste of breath.

not need to be stressed that nothing intelligible in this be attained This is the without the help of language. not only for understanding primary instrument that man possesses his world, but also for registering the effects of his action. world can has remained an essential concern of explains why language in the East and philosophers West; why it is a favourite topic for and methods and psychologists linguists; why the intricate techniques attention in an have to pay ever-increasing employed psycho-analysis for to the subject; or the fascination that it has always exercised poets strived to who, particularly, more than any others, have ceaselessly This

It does

that the limits-so to the farthest possible carry the effect of speech can at last be seen, the inaudible unseeable heard, the unspeakable spoken. "Do remove, 0 Sun," cried out the author of the Isopanishad (verse 15), "the lid of the golden vessel in which the face of the Truth

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LANGUAGE

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lies concealed." The sun, which is the subject of the prayer expressed in the verse, represents for the poet his own power of expression, which he desires to be forceful enough to hit the target and tear apart the veil. of which language is but a part, holds the key to know Speech, a system based on symbols, could be ledge and action. If language, as an essential means of communicating and preserving developed it is because of its proven ability to represent the world knowledge, in its infinitely diverse material as well as spiritual aspects, to organise, structure, and give form to that representationin short, to make the intelligible and a subject for man's reflections. As Benveniste, the eminent French furnishes remarks, linguist, "Language in fundamental configuration of properties which the spirit recognises "To he of "is to the things." think," adds, language." manipulate signs the cannot Can there be a thought then which the power of speech the realm it a Or is the well within continuation of same line penetrate? of speech, but nevertheless a portion of which must lie in darkness and beyond the reach of utterance? It will be necessary to come back to this question later. universe

The point to be made meanwhile is that the symbol that is a sublimity of sophistication of the human spirit language represents which, since the primeval utterances of man, has, using the means of to wonder at the mysteries of the universe. never ceased language, In the matter of creative expression, some such of the first utterances of man have often reached a peak of excellence which not only remain in later annals but also exemplify, for posterity, qualities unsurpassed that must constitute the core of any creative expression worth its name. One immaterial, of those qualifications is the omnipresence the irrational, the beyond. II This to my mind the mystery which surrounds the topic suggests word 'inspiration'; and the nature of the experience which it produces in man. I am reminded, in this connection, of Plato who said, "God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but to the foolish ness of man. No man, when in his wits, attains prophetic truth and in them of the

but when he receives the inspired word, either his inspiration; is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by some distemper intelligence of possession" is clearly one of (Timoeus, 71). The view expressed which may have few advocates inspiration as an ecstasy or possession,

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bhattacharya

today. Perhaps the pejoration implied in the statement can be softened is the that what Plato may have meant to emphasise by explaining of this kind. role of the irrational in an experience preponderant I am also reminded of the Hindu conception its of the subject, and of and its oral theory tradition, inspiration revelation, long of its division of literature into the two broad categories especially that is received which the divine voice sruti, heard, meaning thereby to posterity through by the human ear and then directly communicated and smriti, that which is stored up in memory and study. I am mastered through observation the ancient poets and seers of the Vedic hymns, have "seen" the sacred texts before expressing

pen or oral teaching; and denotes learning reminded of the rishis, who are described to them in words.

The Sanskrit term for poet, kavi, etymologically means visionary; and the human poet is said to be a facsimile in miniature of the creator of the universe who too is described as a visionary. The following verse (No. 8) of the Isopanishad specially comes to my mind:

Bright and bodiless, pervading all, without scar or sinews, pure and unpierced by evil, he, who is the seer (kavi), omniscient, transcen dent and uncreated, has duly allotted to the eternal world-creators their respective duties. as a purely However, unlike the theory explaining inspiration external phenomenon, an intrusion of a foreign element into the here is on the discovery of the revealing force system, the emphasis as identical with the agent receiving the revelation. I am indeed He, who dwells there, says verse 16 of the Isopanishad.

that Purusha,

I thought of the difficulty in understanding every individual word in the poetry of Saint-John Perse. Would the help of a dictionary be of that poetry or, constantly sought then for a better comprehension if the general meaning had already been grasped, should it not suffice and should I then just go on reading line after line, absorbed in the possessed atmosphere they create? The very idea of that atmosphere the my soul: that pitch of the poet's voice, the tone; and his audience, of Time; the magnified man exposed to the great winds and oceans the poet performing as a priest the invocation ceremony of elements; the journey. tone of the poet, The thought of the elements, and of a special also reminded me of lines from contemporary Greek poetry, lines such as these from Elytis:

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LANGUAGE On your lips there is a taste of storm But where have you wandered All day long with the hard reverie of stone An eagle-bearing Stripped wino stripped the hills your desire to the bone.

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CREATIVE

EXPRESSION

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and bare

sea

(Marina

of the Rocks)

world will continue to weigh on the minds of men for thousands of to until the scene of enacted and the final the drama is years come, curtain drops. Would it then be the apocalypse predicted throughout the ages, a negation of all life? It cessation, signifying a complete could also be the pralaya conceived by our seers, in which state the dust of the pre-creation era would return and remain, merged golden into an endless oneness.

From a news item quoting a new study of atomic fallout and nuclear waste, I was led to ponder over the possibility of an impending of the world. The warning contained in the news was that the collapse polar melting and its effects causing floods, heat waves, widespread and monsoons could strike us all by the year 2000. The end of the

When life has ceased to exist, it may be argued, it matters little what view of that cessation is taken; since no one will be there then to take any view whatsoever. But what happens then to all this chatter of mankind, his vibrations, his language, his desire for expression, Does it then lead us on a return journey, through dark and speech? silent alleys, to the primeval source of expression? Any worthwhile reflection on philosophic and creativity of expression language postulate as its base. Ill Proust, the illustrious French writer needing no introduction, on the contrary, the possibility of both of the permanence found, the present moment as well as its immortality only in the past and in its restoration and reconstruction through a cultivated processwhich he sees as a journey "in search of lost time". His approach is in contrast literature. to the Rigvedic pronouncements, and those of later Indian The mention of Proust in combination with Rigvedic pro Marcel must have this

may be surprising, since one may have understandable about the epoch and the society depicted in his work. If the Proustian chosen to be cited here, it is example is specially because of two principal reasons; reservations of First, few contemporary writers have grappled with the subject what ultimately constitutes the core of creative expression as intensely

nouncements

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LOKENATHBHATTACHARYA

"the

His discovery has not remained confined to mere in theory, but is exemplified as a living proof of that theory validated the recording of events reconstructed his own from his past life, in and more importantly, its apparent words. unparalleled Secondly, the contrast with the Rigveda and similar literature notwithstanding, discovery of Proust, in its final effect, attains the same aim of crossing has done. order embodying also achieved of time"as the ancient hymns. remarks:
that has crossed the order of time, has re-created in us the man And that such a If the simple cros man taste

as Proust

in the superior

expressions

of

speech

Proust
A minute

the minute, the order sing, as he experiences should be confident in his Joy, one understands of a madeleine understands what could does not logically that the word death'

of time.

that well, even

to contain the reason for this joy; one appear has no meaning tor him: situated beyond time, he fear from the future ?

of a madeleine, a small cake, while sipping a herbal drink, which had the effect of an ignition and, in a flash, revived in him the memory of a long lost world. The whole village of Combray of his childhood days with its people, odours, and sounds seemed to jump out from the very cup of that herbal drink. When such rare tells us, we can have Therefore, he pleads to a complementary and privileged moments arrive in our life, Proust "the intuition of ourselves as absolute beings". that the theme of time which destroys, responds theme of memory which preserves, The point

The reference in the quotation is to one particular instance, a much known one among others in Proust's life, through which the sensation of such a "minute" could be produced. The instance was his tasting

here is that this preservation will have to be captured in a transformed speech which alone can serve as a passport to eternity. To be equally noted is the point that the question here is not about just any kind of memory, but about the manner in which the past is evokedwhich makes all the difference, in the example of Proust.

can never see it in any other form. There is not just one universe, there are millions of themindeed, as Proust himself says, "as many of them as there may exist apples of the human eye and signs of human intelligence which wake up every morning." There is no use,

It is a manner of what he himseif has described as his "search" for lost time, which cannot be carried on in a world ordinarily called real and which in actual fact is irreal or at least unknowable, because of the simple fact that it is so much distorted by our passions that we

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EXPRESSION

183

therefore, necessary
searched

or only for them; what is illusions living amidst these is to revive the past in us and re-live it, after having
and re-searched the nooks and corners of our memories to

trace out from amongst them the lost paradises are the only paradises existing anywhere.

which, Proust

affirms,

As illustration of what is sought to be said, here is a complicated but luminous sentence from Proust; complicated of its syntax because and structure; and luminous of its content, affirming the because importance the Proustian principle attaches to the meeting between a which it produces, and the sensation memory involuntarily aroused forms the basis of the creative impulse. He says,
thanks to oblivion, contract no link or throw no chain of could memory, between at its place, on its it and the present has if it remained bondage minute, of a valley or at the date, if it has kept its distances, its isolation in the hollow it is because point of a peak, it makes us suddenly breathe a new air, precisely an air which one has breathed vainly before, an air purer than the one desired and repeatedly this because by the poets profound generated already, to reign sensation over of the Paradise renewal which one and has which not lost. could been not have breathed if it had If the

the true paradises

are those

not always Although apparent, there are certain points in the Proustian conception of creativity which have a profound resemblance to the classical Indian doctrine on the subject. real I," he "Our remarks once, "which occasionally seemed dead for a long time but was not so entirely, wakes up, becomes animated, by receiving the food brought to it," food which is precisely that "permanent liberated and suddenly by habitually hidden from things" of eternity". When such a thing memory, a fugitive "contemplation the bells, in celebration of the event, start ringing in the happens, innermost is silence which alone of the heart; and that language creative expression is born. IV to traditional Indian thinking, speech of a is possessed According is second to nothing else. While in its power which in its supremacy loftiest form it is the divine "vibration", the core of the reality, in a downward movement it regulates and disappearance the appearance of the worlds. It can also limit itself, bringing the empirical world into becoming the human languagethereby lending itself of error and slavery. But even then, it never ceases to retain its power of deliverance, as the omnipresent remains reality hidden to the adept who will have the only to the ignorantnot to chances means to recognise it. existence and celestial essence

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BHATTACHARYA

Here is how Vac, or speech, in a Rigvedic hymn (X. 125.4-5):

speaks

of herself, as she is feminine,

The man who sees and breathes, who hears what is spoken, obtains his sustenance who dwell only through me. There are those by my side but do not know: you who have hearing, listen, I am and telling you the sacred truth. Yes, it is I who am speaking these are my words which both the Devas and men will welcome. I make him mighty whom I love, I make of him a Brahmana, a gifted man. Speech, says the Taittiriya Brahmana (II. 8.4-5), a Rishi,

is endless, beyond all creation, immense. All the gods, the gandha rvas, men or animals live in it. It is in speech that men have their foundation. Speech is the syllable, the first born of the Order, mother of the Vedas, the navel of immortality. which syllable itself is known in Sanskrit by the term akshara again, according to traditional etymology, means that which does not indestructible, slip away or perish and, therefore, is imperishable, eternal. From the Rigveda, record of Indian the earliest available with sacred speech, present in literature, akshara is found associated the very beginning of the universe: With the dawning of the earliest of mornings the great eternal (akshara) manifested itself on the body of the cow. Revering, therefore, the wishes of the devas I proclaim: great is the single divinity of the devas. (III. 55.1) But if energy is speech and speech energy, if the whole world of action can express and assert itself only in and through speech, it is no less true that the movement of speech, of its in the beginning at the must start also return from a which it must to journey, point and and that is void or the end, point silence, grand great Sunyaa is contained. work of creation unique frame in which the splendid Here the celebrated Rigvedic hymn of creation comes to mind: Darkness v/as there concealed in darkness and an indiscrimainte chaos pervaded all\ only the one enveloped by the void manifested itself through the might of tapas. As the primal germ of the mind, there arose desire in the beginning-, the sages searched their hearts with wisdom to find the kin of existence in non-existence. (X. 129. 3-4) The

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CREATIVE

EXPRESSION

185

question may arise at this point When silence has been is it within its power to express fully and into speech, transformed The question is linked with the one ask totally a reality experienced? ed earlier here: can there be a thought lying beyond the reach of utterance? Once again the Vedic seers come to our rescue as it is in India more than perhaps anywhere else that the whole subject of treatment. In speech and its scope has been given a most elaborate Another the profound experience realised their attempt to describe by them, of the inadequacy their sense the Vedic poets have often expressed of four grades A Rigvedic of of language. hymn (1.164.45) speaks speech known to the men of divine wisdom, three of which "make no motion" and must be "kept in secret" while only the last quarter of it as spoken, or written for that is given to man to utter. So language matter, can express only the one-fourth enced; the rest must remain submerged The same idea is part of what has been in eternal silence. experi

elsewhere expressed (Yajurveda, Vajasaneyi Samhita, 30.19) in a slightly different manner: "While the eloquent man is for the finite, the mute is for the infinite." What, then, is the The universal answer creative solution to one seeking expression? to such to the symbolic points to the inevitable recourse much more, since for a a little but suggesting expressing not yield a straightforward which does logical symbolic language of the meaning it may be easier to come close to the target because of logic nor within its simple fact that it is neither the business which alone is the con significance, power to hint a transcendental a question language of any creative expression in such an expression, worth the name. Hence of the irrational and the

cern and content the importance, beyond.

which Not unexpectedly, the reference to that quarter of speech is the only expressible part of it has an exact parallel in the descrip of the divinity, in another the manifestation tion of the Purusha, famous hymn of the Rigveda which says: Such, indeed, is his magnificence, though Purusha is greater than this. All beings constitute only a fourth of him, while three-fourths, his immortality, rest in the supreme region. (X.90.3) This the expressible speech identical with the manifest world, a complete oneness with the achieves the totality of speech ultimate reality. makes words that are The difference that so obviously exists between of breath" and that form of speech more than a "mere waste

while

no

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which alone hymn says:

can be creative

expression

is also

highlighted.

A Rigvedic

There is the man who sees Vak (speech) without actually seeing her, like the man who hears but has not heard her, while to another she reveals her lovely form as does to her husband a loving wife, finely robed. (X.71.4) Verse 7 of the same hymn, a good even more accentuated: specimen of poetry, makes the

difference

with sight and hearing, differ in the Friends, though ail endowed quickness of their mind. While some may look like pools reaching to the mouth or armpit, the others resemble lakes in which a man can bathe. The language that is creative expression has to be such a lake a man can bathe. There is no other way-indeed, no other

in which way.

Our present discussion has only tended to circle around what is a still centre, a perpetual point, any journey towards which cannot but be in the form of a devotee's circumambulation, involving neither nor regression, and where hitting the mark with a sure progress arrow is no more than a metaphor. In conclusion, we can only echo the sentiments a the in expressed by Rigvedic following verse poet (VI.9.6): My ears strive to hear, and my eyes strain to see this expanded light residing within my spirit. My mind wanders far and wide, beyond its confines; What am I to speak, and what, indeed, am I to think?

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