4 ms·

> language(Sanskrit) depends on analogies and metaphors a tad too much ie, not being quantitive and exact This is absolutely true. You will find a bunch of mo

by fooker 4y ago

> language(Sanskrit) depends on analogies and metaphors a tad too much ie, not being quantitive and exact This is absolutely true. You will find a bunch of modern keyboard warriors who have not studied Sanskrit literature vehemently disagreeing with this based on some misplaced sense of pride. Sanskrit is --syntactically-- a very exact language with no room for debate. The flip side of this is that every dialect got labelled as an aberration (literally!) with no hope of mainstream adoption. Now moving on from syntax, Sanskrit semantics is intentionally loosely defined. So much that you are discouraged from interpreting it yourself. The usual argument for that is that you would have a teacher who will teach you the correct interpretation. Obviously this did not scale, and caused knowledge to get lost wholesale over time. A concrete example is the grammar rules of the language itself, which is supposed to be exact and well defined. Well, it turns out that these rules were only written down in terms of mnemonics (similar to remembering the first letter of trigonometric identities to recall it), and people have interpreted these mnemonics in different ways.

akprasad 4y ago
> Sanskrit semantics is intentionally loosely defined I have studied Sanskrit literature extensively and do not know what this means. > people have interpreted these mnemonics in different ways Your implication is that people interpreted these mnemonics differently due to misunderstanding these rules. The mainstream scholarly response is rather some version of प्रयोगशरणा वैयाकरणाः ("grammarians take refuge in usage"), i.e. that different grammarians working in different eras and time periods were forced to reconcile the Ashtadhyayi as a fixed document with the slight divergence in contemporary usage -- that is, that they followed usage and intentionally reinterpreted rules to fit usage. For an example of how this accounts for Patanjali's readings in particular, see [1]. [1]: https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/markers.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/markers.pdf
- fooker 4y ago
  >I have studied Sanskrit literature extensively and do not know what this means. This means a sentence can often have many different meaning, not just the literal one suggested by the words. The idea is you either accept multiple meanings or settle it through debate. I am not criticizing this, this is fundamentally what makes literature and poetry interesting. But this makes it really difficult to draw a line between philosophy and science.
  - progmetaldev 4y ago
    Perhaps this was intentional, or supported by having teachers and a stronger oral history/tradition? Just as with Buddhism, I always felt there wasn't as much of a clear divide between philosophy and science as you find in western thought. You seem more well versed than I in this topic, so thought I would throw this out there in case you have any insight into this (or I easily could be misinterpreting).
    - fooker 4y ago
      That is exactly right. The claim from the Greek historian is that this is what caused eastern science and engineering to stagnate compared to Greek/Roman efforts. I am inclined to agree, of course it is not really possible to prove any causality here.
      - progmetaldev 4y ago
        This is one of those topics where we can only dream of where we could currently be, had these traditions been allowed to continue and the knowledge shared. Being from the western world, with a deep curiosity in eastern thought and practice, these types of thought experiments are very interesting to me, but also depressing when you look closely at the reality of how things played out.
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        Did knowledge stop being freely shared? Or rich families stopped hiring teachers? I'm not sure this ever happened on a worldwide scale.
        progmetaldev 4y ago
        This was strictly in regards to the oral tradition of passing down knowledge in India.
        4y ago
- fooker 4y ago
  >that they followed usage and intentionally reinterpreted rules to fit usage. Makes sense. What I was touching upon was the culture of leaving things up to interpretation though, not just this particular issue.

by fooker 4y ago

akprasad 4y ago

> Sanskrit semantics is intentionally loosely defined I have studied Sanskrit literature extensively and do not know what this means. > people have interpreted these mnemonics in different ways Your implication is that people interpreted these mnemonics differently due to misunderstanding these rules. The mainstream scholarly response is rather some version of प्रयोगशरणा वैयाकरणाः ("grammarians take refuge in usage"), i.e. that different grammarians working in different eras and time periods were forced to reconcile the Ashtadhyayi as a fixed document with the slight divergence in contemporary usage -- that is, that they followed usage and intentionally reinterpreted rules to fit usage. For an example of how this accounts for Patanjali's readings in particular, see [1]. [1]: https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/markers.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/markers.pdf

fooker 4y ago
>I have studied Sanskrit literature extensively and do not know what this means. This means a sentence can often have many different meaning, not just the literal one suggested by the words. The idea is you either accept multiple meanings or settle it through debate. I am not criticizing this, this is fundamentally what makes literature and poetry interesting. But this makes it really difficult to draw a line between philosophy and science.
- progmetaldev 4y ago
  Perhaps this was intentional, or supported by having teachers and a stronger oral history/tradition? Just as with Buddhism, I always felt there wasn't as much of a clear divide between philosophy and science as you find in western thought. You seem more well versed than I in this topic, so thought I would throw this out there in case you have any insight into this (or I easily could be misinterpreting).
  - fooker 4y ago
    That is exactly right. The claim from the Greek historian is that this is what caused eastern science and engineering to stagnate compared to Greek/Roman efforts. I am inclined to agree, of course it is not really possible to prove any causality here.
    - progmetaldev 4y ago
      This is one of those topics where we can only dream of where we could currently be, had these traditions been allowed to continue and the knowledge shared. Being from the western world, with a deep curiosity in eastern thought and practice, these types of thought experiments are very interesting to me, but also depressing when you look closely at the reality of how things played out.
      - marcosdumay 4y ago
        Did knowledge stop being freely shared? Or rich families stopped hiring teachers? I'm not sure this ever happened on a worldwide scale.
        progmetaldev 4y ago
        This was strictly in regards to the oral tradition of passing down knowledge in India.
        4y ago
fooker 4y ago
>that they followed usage and intentionally reinterpreted rules to fit usage. Makes sense. What I was touching upon was the culture of leaving things up to interpretation though, not just this particular issue.