The-Sanskrit-Effect/#: Scientific American January 2018

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/322256076
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-neuroscientist-explores-
the-sanskrit-effect/#
Article in Scientific American · January 2018
CITATIONS READS
0 3,717
1 author:
James Francis Hartzell

IE University
7 PUBLICATIONS 44 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Sanskrit and the Brain View project
All content following this page was uploaded by James Francis Hartzell on 02 July 2018.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

A Neuroscientist Explores the "Sanskrit Effect" - Scientific America... https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-neuroscientist-e...
SUBSCRIBE
Observations
A Neuroscientist Explores the

"Sanskrit Effect"
MRI scans show that memorizing ancient mantras increases the size of brain
regions associated with cognitive function
By James Hartzell on January 2, 2018
1 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
Manjuvajramandala with 43 deities, from Tibet. Credit: Google Cultural Institute Wikimedia
ADVERTISEMENT
A hundred dhoti-clad young men sat cross-legged on the floor in

facing rows, chatting amongst themselves. At a sign from their
teacher the hall went quiet. Then they began the recitation. Without
pause or error, entirely from memory, one side of the room intoned
one line of the text, then the other side of the room answered with
the next line. Bass and baritone voices filled the hall with sonorous
prosody, every word distinctly heard, their right arms moving
together to mark pitch and accent. The effect was hypnotic, ancient
sound reverberating through the room, saturating brain and body.
After 20 minutes they halted, in unison. It was just a demonstration.
The full recitation of one of India´s most ancient Sanskrit texts, the
Shukla Yajurveda, takes six hours.
I spent many years studying and translating Sanskrit, and became

fascinated by its apparent impact on mind and memory. In India's
ancient learning methods textual memorization is standard:
traditional scholars, or pandits, master many different types of
Sanskrit poetry and prose texts; and the tradition holds that exactly
2 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
memorizing and reciting the ancient words and phrases, known as

mantras, enhances both memory and thinking.
I had also noticed that the more Sanskrit I studied and translated,
the better my verbal memory seemed to become. Fellow students
and teachers often remarked on my ability to exactly repeat
lecturers’ own sentences when asking them questions in class. Other
translators of Sanskrit told me of similar cognitive shifts. So I was
curious: was there actually a language-specific “Sanskrit effect” as
claimed by the tradition?
ADVERTISEMENT
When I entered the cognitive neuroscience doctoral program at the

University of Trento (Italy) in 2011, I had the opportunity to start
investigating this question. India's Vedic Sanskrit pandits train for
years to orally memorize and exactly recite 3,000-year old oral texts
ranging from 40,000 to over 100,000 words. We wanted to find out
how such intense verbal memory training affects the physical
structure of their brains. Through the India-Trento Partnership for
Advanced Research (ITPAR), we recruited professional Vedic
pandits from several government-sponsored schools in the Delhi
region; then we used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
at India’s National Brain Research Center to scan the brains of
pandits and controls matched for age, gender, handedness, eye-
3 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
dominance and multilingualism.
What we discovered from the structural MRI scanning was

remarkable. Numerous regions in the brains of the pandits were
dramatically larger than those of controls, with over 10 percent more
grey matter across both cerebral hemispheres, and substantial
increases in cortical thickness. Although the exact cellular
underpinnings of gray matter and cortical thickness measures are
still under investigation, increases in these metrics consistently
correlate with enhanced cognitive function.
Most interestingly for verbal memory was that the pandits' right
hippocampus—a region of the brain that plays a vital role in both
short and long-term memory—had more gray matter than controls
across nearly 75 percent of this subcortical structure. Our brains
have two hippocampi, one on the left and one on the right, and
without them we cannot record any new information. Many memory
functions are shared by the two hippocampi. The right is, however,
more specialized for patterns, whether sound, spatial or visual, so
the large gray matter increases we found in the pandits’ right
hippocampus made sense: accurate recitation requires highly
precise sound pattern encoding and reproduction. The pandits also
showed substantially thickening of right temporal cortex regions
that are associated with speech prosody and voice identity.
Our study was a first foray into imaging the brains of professionally
trained Sanskrit pandits in India. Although this initial research,
focused on intergroup comparison of brain structure, could not
directly address the Sanskrit effect question (that requires detailed
functional studies with cross-language memorization comparisons,
4 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
for which we are currently seeking funding), we found something

specific about intensive verbal memory training. Does the pandits’
substantial increase in the gray matter of critical verbal memory
organs mean they are less prone to devastating memory pathologies
such as Alzheimer's? We don't know yet, though anecdotal reports
from India's Ayurvedic doctors suggest this may be the case. If so,
this raises the possibility that verbal memory “exercising‘ or training
might help elderly people at risk of mild cognitive impairment
retard or, even more radically, prevent its onset.
If so, the training might need to be exact. One day I was filming four
senior pandit teachers demonstrating the different recitation speeds.
Partway into one session all four suddenly stopped. “What’s wrong?‘
I asked. “One of us made a slight error," came the response. "I don’t
mind," I said. "Yes, but we do," and they restarted the entire
recitation from the beginning.
ADVERTISEMENT
Author's note: Senior personnel responsible for this project were

not involved in the conception or writing of the blog text; it was not
presented to them for approval; any opinions or conclusions
expressed in the blog are Dr. Hartzell's alone.
This post was written by a graduate of the online course Share
5 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
Your Science: Blogging for Magazines, Newspapers and More,

offered by Scientific American and the Alan Alda Center for
Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, with
sponsorship from the Kavli Foundation.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Rights & Permissions
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
James Hartzell
James Hartzell is a postdoctoral researcher at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, in
Spain; a Guest Researcher at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences at University of Trento, in Italy, and a
Consultant for the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, in New York.
LATEST NEWS
6 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
EVOLUTION POLICY & ETHICS
The Medusaceratops Mystery The Infinite Optimism of Physicist

David Deutsch
11 hours ago — Brian Switek
14 hours ago — John Horgan
B E H AV I O R & S O C I E T Y POLICY & ETHICS
Illusions from the National 50 Years Ago, a US Military Jet

Archives in New York City Crashed in Greenland – with 4
Nuclear Bombs on Board
17 hours ago — Stephen L. Macknik
18 hours ago — Timothy J. Jorgensen and The
Conversation US
7 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
N AT U R A L D I S A S T E R S
Moon's Tug Doesn't Cause Big

Quakes
January 19, 2018 — Christopher Intagliata
M E N TA L H E A LT H
5 Body Hacks to Instantly Calm

Overwhelming Emotion
18 hours ago — Savvy Psychologist Ellen
Hendriksen
NEWSLETTER
SIGN UP
READ MORE
8 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
PREVIOUS
The Chronification of Pain

By Daniel Barron on December 29, 2017
NEXT
Building the Ultimate Ultimate Disc

By Laura G. Shields on January 2, 2018
Every Issue. Every

Year. 1845 - Present
Neuroscience. Evolution. Health. Chemistry. Physics.
Technology.
SUBSCRIBE NOW!
9 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
FOLLOW US
Store
About
Press Room
More
Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands
of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific
American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to
our readers.
© 2018 S CIE NTIFIC A ME RICA N, A DIVIS ION OF NA TU RE A ME RICA , INC.
A LL RIGHTS RE S E RVE D.
10 di 10 21/01/18, 09:12
View publication stats

The-Sanskrit-Effect/#: Scientific American January 2018

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The-Sanskrit-Effect/#: Scientific American January 2018

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Article in Scientific American · January 2018

James Francis Hartzell

Sanskrit and the Brain View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

A Neuroscientist Explores the

By James Hartzell on January 2, 2018

A hundred dhoti-clad young men sat cross-legged on the floor in

I spent many years studying and translating Sanskrit, and became

memorizing and reciting the ancient words and phrases, known as

When I entered the cognitive neuroscience doctoral program at the

dominance and multilingualism.

What we discovered from the structural MRI scanning was

for which we are currently seeking funding), we found something

Author's note: Senior personnel responsible for this project were

This post was written by a graduate of the online course Share

Your Science: Blogging for Magazines, Newspapers and More,

Rights & Permissions

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

EVOLUTION POLICY & ETHICS

The Medusaceratops Mystery The Infinite Optimism of Physicist

B E H AV I O R & S O C I E T Y POLICY & ETHICS

Illusions from the National 50 Years Ago, a US Military Jet

Moon's Tug Doesn't Cause Big

5 Body Hacks to Instantly Calm

The Chroniﬁcation of Pain

Building the Ultimate Ultimate Disc

Every Issue. Every

© 2018 S CIE NTIFIC A ME RICA N, A DIVIS ION OF NA TU RE A ME RICA , INC.

View publication stats

You might also like