[advaitin] Re: Notes on Brahmasuutra I

[H.B.Dave]

Dear List Members,

Here is a small note on formats of Indian tests.

Enjoy!

-- Himanshu
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Regarding Overall Formats of Indian Texts :

Shri Sadanandaji has started his series on Brahmasuutra, which is very
welcome. I do look forward to read and learn from it. During my own study of
BrahmaSuutra, I was struck by its format. It looks so much like our
Hypertext document! Just for fun, but only very minimally in lighter vein,
I put together the following about various formats of text in Indian
knowledge systems. I thought the list members may like it.

The Suutra method of presentation of some knowledge or vidyaa or collection
of ideas is very special and unique (as far as I know) with Indian authors.

Modern prose is generally written as a tree structure :
book --> chapters --> sections --> subsections, etc.
We illustrate it by the following diagram :

                        "Book" format
        +---------+---------------------------+---------+
        |         |        book               |         |
        |  TOC    |       /  |  \             |  word   |
        |         |      /   |    \           | index   |
        |         |  chapter      chapter     |         |
        |         |  |     |      |     \     |         |
        |         | sec.   sec.  sec.   sec.  |         |
        +-------------------------------------+ --------+
        |              References (External)            |
        +-----------------------------------------------+
        There are references from a section to other sections.
        e.g., most of the modern books.

There are references from one part of text to others. There are external
references also. More important, there are assumed references to various
ideas, concepts and axioms, (implicit references), which may or may not be
stated in the book. The oldest text in this format I know of is Nirukta,
by Yaska, though it is really a commentary on word lists (Nighantu).
Upanishads are mostly this "book" format.

Another ancient format is an "Anthology" format, as is in RigVeda. It is
like a collection of papers (Suktas) by independent authors, belonging to
diffent schools of thoughts. Each paper is generally concerned with a
subject (devata) from certain view-point (.r.si). There are almost no
explicit links, implied links may be there,but generally are yet to be
searched out! We illustrate this with :

                         "Anthology" format
        +---------+-------------------------------------+
        |    A    |        paper-1: subj, auth;         |
        |    N    |                                     |
        |    U    |        paper-2: subj, auth;         |
        |    K    |                                     |
        |    R    |        paper-3: subj, auth;         |
        |    A    |                                     |
        |    M    |          ...     ...   ...          |
        |    A    |                                     |
        |    N    |        paper-n: subj, auth;         |
        |    I    |                                     |
        +---------+-------------------------------------+
        e.g., RigVeda, most of the modern antologies.


The next format that we come across is "story-telling" format, as in Epics
like Mahabharata, Ramayana, Puranas, etc. This is called "Recursive" style,
because within a story another story is started. While describing or
discussing something, a jump is made to more detailed or related exposition
is made, at the end of which the original flow is resumed. It is very much
like "sub-routines" that we computer people use in programming. There may be
implied or explicit references to other texts.
We illustrate is as :
                         "Story-telling" format
                  +-------------------------------------+
                  |  [ ]  [ ]                           |
                  |  [ ] /[ ]  /[ ]                     |
                  |  [ ]/ [ ] / [ ]                     |
                  |       [ ]/  [ ]                     |
                  |  [ ]        [ ]                     |
                  |  [ ]\ [ ]\  [ ]                     |
                  |  [ ] \[ ] \ [ ]                     |
                  |  [ ]       \[ ]                     |
                  |  [ ] /[ ]                           |
                  |  [ ]/ [ ]                           |
                  |       [ ]                           |
                  .                                     .
                  |                                     |
                  +-------------------------------------+
           e.g. Epics, Purana, Panchatantra, Hitopadesha


Poems have generally a central "theme", an idea running through, with
various idioms used to decorate it. This I call "Sparklers" format. The
"sparks" are highly abstract references to concepts, visions, attitudes,
etc. Usually there is a last "spark" (called camatk.rti) which jolts the
sah.rdayii reader into understanding and there may be a colophone,
identifying the author. The "sparks" are explicit, but hidden references to
ideas elsewhere.

                          "Sparklers" format
                     +--------------------------+
                     |                          |
                     |         [  ]             |
                     |   <-----[  ]--->         |
                     |        /[  ]\            |
                     |       / [  ] \           |
                     |      v  [  ]  v          |
                     |        /[  ]\            |
                     | Last spark  colophone    |
                     +--------------------------+
             e.g. poems,

Amongst all these various formats, Suutra is very special, due to the fact
that to understand its contents, the explicit and implicit links should be
known and understood. There are external references, stated only through Key
words (pratika), which should also be known.

The suutra itself has many links (sa.mgati), in fact, it consists mainly of
links only. It is a kind of Linked-List data structure, which is in form of
a Graph, but with some restrictions.

                          "Suutra" format
                         +----------------------+
                         |                      |internal links
                         v                      |
      [  ]<----[  ]<---[  ]<---[  ]<----[  ]<---[  ]--> external links
          \
           \-<-[  ]<---[  ]<---[  ]<----[  ]<---[  ]--> external links
            \
             \-<-[  ]<---[  ]<---[  ]<---[  ]--> external links
                   |              |
                   |              +------------> external links
                   |
                   +---------------------------> external links

The external links may to another adhikarana, paada, adhyaaya or text.

To appreciate what this format gives us, take any sentence from a "book", a
mantra from an "Anthology", a shloka from a "story" or a stanza or verse
from a poem; its meaning is understood, within the context of the work,
directly. Not so for a Suutra, because if at all, it forms a sentence only
formally, many times not even that. Semantically, the meaning is not
available without the links.

So suutra is a thread on which beads of ideas are threaded, the thread
need not be a linear one, it may be rather like the decorative screens made
by ladies from glass rods and beads. As stated above, it is very much
similar to a Hypertext document. A suutra gives a sequence of ideas or
arguments, but without the details, which must be found out (or known) by
the reader. It is a very compact way of specifying a large body of
information, in a particular sequence.

While studying such a "text" the reader should be aware of the links.
-- Himanshu