I was pleasantly surprised by the vigorous responses to my little essay entitled 'Grammar', my offering, both rebellious and humble, in my mother tongue, to Divine Mother, Goddess of Speech. Those responses encouraged me to write 'Footnote on Grammar', 'Mister Demon Raptor', 'Against Constructive Criticism', and 'Presenting Bbocchino'. I am presently further motivated to elaborate on the Mother of Language, for there is no end to Her power to generate the streams of discourse that nourish our world.
First of all, I was a little astonished by the sceptical and hostile reaction to 'Grammar', for I believed my subject was too obvious to be doubted or to be left unappreciated, and that nobody would object to my casting the subject in my own peculiar manner as an independent work of art, however dependent its success might be on somebody else's view of my grammar. The article was, in a word, an acroama. That is, I intended therein to make rhetorical declamations rather than pointed arguments.
But it seems that only pointed critical arguments are acceptable to many people in this kaliyuga. Hence that which that which I thought was obvious and clearly presented in my own fashion was instead thought to be vague, obscure, and mysterious to some of my audience. And, furthermore, it was given that I should have no right to be vague, obscure, and mysterious, or to give that sort of impression even if I wanted to do so.
Therefore, instead of the acroama I intended, in its exoteric sense as a common rhetorical device, my work appeared to some as acroamatic in the esoteric sense, as a secret whispering about an occult subject, if not gobbledygook.
'Acroama' means to hear: the word was once employed to denote secret oral communications. Oral communications were once considered to be far superior to written ones. As a matter of fact, some Brahmins in India still distrust written versions of the Vedas, preferring the oral tradition over the written versions and interpretations. This is not simply to maintain authority because writings can be challenged, but to establish a living personal relation, both individual and social, with Reality, rather than an empty dead-letter existence.
Or, here is a more mundane example: Aristotle would deliver an acroamatic lecture to his intimates about what his presentations to the vulgar public really meant. In my case, you must rest assured that I did not believe the general public would be too vulgar to understand me. Indeed, I leave that belief to those demeaning gate-keepers who withhold truth from the public because they whisper, acroamatically, that it would "go over the stupid heads of the audience."
Notwithstanding that whispering, it seemed from the hostility 'Grammar' aroused in some critics, that I had cast a spell on them. I even received a fax charging me with corrupting the public by intentionally misspelling 'strange' as one of its old forms, 'straunge', for special effect. In his opinion, such a practice would bring the universe of discourse to its ruin. But that was just one-half the gist of my dialectic, which he admitted he did not read in full because he was busy scanning things. It seems the average attention span on the Internet is less than two minutes, that the average brain is thus about five-hundred words long for a slow reader, a subject I addressed in my article 'Short Brains'.
'Spell' is the key word here, for there is a relation between "to cast a spell" and "to spell a word", one that goes to the radical root of my 'Grammar'. I speak of the magical and religious nature of language: the magic of coercing spirits with words, and the religion of asking for divine favors in a nice way. And I speak of the one mother tongue of all tongues and its origin, Divine Mother.
Indeed, with the magical nature of language in mind, perhaps I should have called my essay 'Gramarye' (also: gramary), instead of 'Grammar'. A gramarye is an obscure book of magic spells, a black book of unintelligible language, so named for those horrid Latin grammar primers pettifogging pedants abused their pupils with, primers written by imbeciles who thought grammar was a science! However, my article was not a brain-basher of that sort. It does, however, seem that it was a wee ark of magic spells considering the controversial issues still coming ashore.
Life for man involves intensely the life of the mind. For that purpose his Divine Mother is required. In India she is often called Vac. The impersonal form is vac, which is, of course, feminine. Vac is usually translated as "speech", "Word", and sometimes as "language" although "language" does not implicate its full purport. Vac, then, is what is uttered as well as She who utters it.
I shall hereafter use the "k" and call the Goddess of Speech "Vak." Vak is the power of the Silence before the Word is spoken as the Universe, as well as the appearance of the Universe itself. Vak is one of the many names of Divine Mother, or Sakti, the fundamental Power or Energy underlying the Universe, without which her Form or consort Siva would be a lifeless corpse. Some students believe Vak is the ultimate personification of those feminine energies called "gnas" in the Vedas, also known in ancient times as the "wives of gods."
Speech has a magical creative power or maya, a term that eventually came to signify not only something that is made, the creation, but also the power of making as well as the process of making; i.e., the triune: Maker, Making, Made. Since both men and women are born of woman, it is no surprise that Vak is female, the goddess who measures out speech; she is the Ma or Matr of Man, he whose thoughts are measured out.
The origin of the life-giving power that quickens the mind into speech as well as instigates the Universe into apparent existence is certainly mysterious, even beyond description; and despite our best scientific efforts, the material world, or what is made, often deceives us as if it were some sort of grand magic trick. What is made by mother is really there as a thing; nevertheless, our perceptions of it are often illusions, and our conceptions are sometimes delusions.
Vak's Truth is presented in mantras, or words of power, in sacred verbal formulae pregnant with riddles and infinite correlations. Vak is the Cosmic Cow from whom flows the streams, rivers, lakes and oceans of milk that constitute the Universe of Discourse. Her words are called "the footsteps of the Cow", the secret and mysterious tracks to the transcendental Truth followed by the sages.
Vak's primordial, original Truth is expressed in the single syllable OM (AUM). OM sums up Brahman, the Supreme Reality, the Universe, in an emphatic YES. The sound AUM as its three morae is the Universe of Past-Present-Future. Coincidentally, the three Greek Fates, or Morae, preside over Birth-Marriage-Death.
In India, the philosophy of Grammar is based on linguistic theology, which establishes that Wisdom, the Vedas, the words thereof, are of eternal import. That is to say that the Vedas are founded on the primacy of the Word or vac, a term comparable but not quite identical to our Logos in the West.
Grammar, then, is a 'darsana', a view of Truth, an approach to Supreme Reality, and a philosophical school. Primary emphasis is placed here on the female aspect, energy or 'sakti'. This tradition has been maintained for over 5,000 years. Vak is the Word, the "Mother of the gods", the Godhead that creates and upholds the Universe. In the Beginning there was the Word as Living Force, our Mother who is at the same time Word, consciousness, breath, and vital energy. And in the Creation there is no discontinuity between the cosmos and man the microcosm.
The Universe as it is spoken emerges in divine consciousness just as language emerges in human consciousness. But what is the Word good for? It is the means to human liberation. Yes, in the East and in the West, the object of a liberal education is ultimately liberation. And Grammar, is of course, in the West, the first of the trivium and of the seven liberal arts.
So the Word is the means to return to the Source of our speech, where we shall be freed from the chains of becoming. Why is the Baby crying? What is it that we all really want in our distress? Is it not to be picked up, to be held, to be fed with Mother's milk? And, when She puts us down, she teaches us to exchange Mother's milk for Her words, the gift of Grammar. Yet we long to return to Her arms, to Reality.
So we see here that liberation runs both ways, to and fro, but ultimately freedom and absolute autonomy are fundamental characteristics only of the Godhead from whence we were born. For when the Word becomes human language it is restricted or bound by human conventions, so when I urged grammarians to rebel in my 'Grammar', I urged them to throw off those chains, to cast off the restrictions of ignorance, and to return to the arms of Vak.
As I said, Vak is one of the names associated with Divine Mother. She was originally a folk divinity who gained in influence and eventually, as men became liberated, took precedence over the great god of fire Agni. She was associated with the river goddess Sarasvati, and it would be disrespectful not to say a few words about Sarasvati, for she is adored by poets and writers as the goddess of eloquence and wisdom. Here is something from the Rigveda, one of the oldest if not the oldest statements of wisdom know to man; the hymns therein provided the singer with access to the magical powers of Vak: "So may Sarasvati, the Hero's Consort, brisk with rare life, the lightning's Child, inspire us, and, with the Dames (Gnas) accordant, give the singer a refuse unassailable and flawless." (VI 49.7, Griffith) Sarasvati ("watery, elegant") was once a famous river, now almost dried up, described as "Best mother, best of rivers" who became "best of goddesses", the tutelary deity of authors. She is presently worshiped in libraries with offerings of flowers, fruits, and incense. In ancient times, one of the most important centers of brahmanic culture was on the banks of the Sarasvati. It was said that without her water and fish, the brahmins would be too hungry to remember the sacred scriptures. She was referred to as "queen of the gods", "the melodious cow who milked forth sustenance and water", "the mother of the Vedas", "the wife of Indra, who contains within herself all worlds," and "mother of mantras." Sarasvati's most popular attributes are wealth, fatness, fertility, and ability to purify.
I hope the foregoing has served to adumbrate the goddess of eloquence to some small extent, so that others of greater vision may pierce the veil of Maya for a more illuminating view. Thus I lay my own shadow at her feet, and close with a few quotes from Madala Ten of the RigVeda. The speaker here is Vagambhrini, now known as Vak, who is describing her powers and functions:
"I go with the Rudras, with the Vasus, I go with the Adityas and the All-gods. I bear both Mitra and Varuna, Indra and Agni, and both the Asvins.
"I bear fermenting Soma, I bear Tvashtar, and also Pushan and Bhaga. I assign wealth for the sacrificer, for him that offers firsts, that presses the Soma.
"I am the queen, the assembler of treasures, the wise, the first of the worshipful ones. In manifold placed did the Gods divide me, who dwell in many abodes, causing me to penetrate many regions.
"Through me he eats food who perceives, who breaths, who hears what is spoken. Unknowing they repose upon me. Hear, O illustrious one, that which is worthy of belief I say to thee.
"I even of myself say this, an utterance acceptable to Gods and men: whomever I desire, him do I make strong, him do I make the priest, the seer, the sage.
"For Rudra I stretch the bow, that the arrow may smite the hater of the spell. For the people I make strife. I penetrate heaven and earth.
"I give birth to the father in his head. My birthplace is within the waters, the ocean. Thence I spread through all beings, and touch with my head this heaven.
"I blow forth even as the wind, reaching all beings, beyond heaven, beyond ths earth. Such have I become through my greatness."
---AUM--- VEDIC HYMNS, translated from the Rigveda by Edward J. Thomas, M.A., D.Litt. London: John Murray, 1923, Chapter XL. To VACH, SPEECH HYMNS OF THE RIGVEDA, Transl. H.R. Griffith, Benares: Lazarus, 1920
