Originally posted on sciy.org by Rich Carlson on Mon 30 Jun 2008 08:21 AM PDT
Speech versus Writing in Derrida and Bhartrahri
by Harold Coward
A question suggested by Processor T. R. V. Murti in his 1963 Presidential Address to the All India Philosophical Congress focused on the status of the spoken word within language. [1] Murti points out that for Indian thinkers, language was primarily the spoken word or speaking itself (vÄk). However, this definition of language does not identify it with the overt sounds produced physiologically or with the written signs which are merely phonetic copies of the spoken sounds. In fact, said Murti, "the distinction between Å›abda (Word) and dhvani (Sound) is basic to the Indian philosophy of language. To identify them, to take the physical sound as the word, is a category mistake." [2] With this contention Jacques Derrida agrees. It is Derrida's contention that virtually the whole of Western metaphysics from Plato to Rousseau and Levi-Strauss has made the category mistake of identifying language or logos with the spoken word. [3] But whereas for Murti the category mistake was in taking the outer sound instead of the inner word to be the essence of language, Derrida makes the utterly surprising move of seeming to go in the opposite direction -- of identifying the essence of language with writing. While Murti was challenging naturalistic schools of philosophy such as the Buddhists, Derrida confronts both the logocentric position (which Murti represents), as well as the Buddhists. For when Derrida describes language as "writing" he not only means that writing is prior to the spoken reflection of the inner logos, but also that language is not merely a sort of external speaking or writing as the Buddhists suggest. What Derrida attempts is a deconstruction or self-analysis of language that exposes the mistake of a reductionism in either direction, inward to the divine logos or outward to the conventional sign. In his desire to escape all philosophical oppositions such as ''inner" versus "outer," Derrida subtly states his position: "language is not merely a sort of writing 'but' a possibility founded on the general possibility of writing." [4] For Derrida, as we shall see, "writing" characterizes both the "inner" and the "outer" word in dynamic interrelationship, which, at points, bears striking similarity with the Indian philosophy of language put forth by Bhartá¹›hari in his VÄkyapadÄ«ya. [5]
Indian philosophy has been even more emphatic than Western thought with regard to the priority of the oral over the written. The tradition in both Hindu and Buddhist philosophy has been to correct the written text with the oral. It is the oral word, carefully memorized, guarded by the discipline of the PrÄtiÅ›Äkhyas, [6] and passed down from teacher to student through succeeding generations that has remained authoritative in India. [7] Thus Derrida's proposition that writing is prior, not secondary, to speech will seem at first blush to be quite incredible. Even the West, with its greater stress on the written, has generally accepted the historical priority of oral languages to writing and so finds Derrida's thesis to be outrageous. However, recent research by Andre Leroi-Gourhan on the marks associated with cave paintings, and by Alexander Marshack on the possibility of calendrical markings on prehistoric bone implements, in the discovery of the Tartaria Tablets, raises fundamental questions about our dating of the invention of writing to Sumer, around 3100 B.C. [8] Derrida cites this evidence as an initial reason for why we should take him seriously. But his real point has nothing to do with the historical priority of the written. His proposition that writing is prior to speech is simply part of his NÄgÄrjuna-like tactic of exposing the weakness of a position by turning its own stratagems against itself. [9] By reversing the usual speech/writing hierarchical opposition, which has obtained in the West since Socrates and throughout Indian thought, Derrida's ultimate aim is to counter the simple choice of one of the terms over the other -- to escape the system of metaphysical opposition that has dominated much Western and Indian philosophy. "Writing" for Derrida is not just the inscription of words on paper or computer program, but includes the neuronal traces in the brain which Freud identifies as memory, [10] and indeed is the active moment of differentiation which is the creative force of all language. [11] Derrida even playfully alludes to DNA as a "writing" or trace present in all living substances. Writing and its originary trace begins to sound like the saá¹skÄras or originary memory traces of traditional karma theory. Derrida's initial aim in all of this is to deconstruct the traditional priority accorded speech (and its logocentric metaphysics of presence) over writing.
In relating Derrida's critique to Indian philosophy and, in particular to Bhartá¹›hari, we will examine: (1) Derrida's deconstruction of the logocentric priority of speech over writing, (2) language as manifested in Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari, and (3) language as a means for spiritual realization.
Derrida's Deconstruction of the Priority of Speech over Writing
Derrida follows Nietzsche and Heidegger (and perhaps implicitly NÄgÄrjuna in Indian philosophy) in elaborating a critique or "metaphysics," by which he means not only the Western philosophical tradition but everyday thought and language as well.
Western thought, says Derrida, has always been structured in terms of dichotomies or polarities: good vs. evil, being vs. nothingness, presence vs. absence, truth vs. error, identity vs. difference, mind vs. matter, man vs. woman, soul vs. body, life vs. death, nature vs. culture, speech vs. writing. [12]
These opposites, however, have not been seen as equal entities. The second term is always put in the position of being a fallen or corrupted version of the first. Thus evil is the lack of good, absence is the lack of presence, error is a distortion of truth, and difference is an obstruction of identity. The two terms are not held in an opposing tension but are placed in a hierarchical order which gives the first term priority both in time and quality. The general result has been the privileging of unity, identity, and temporal and spatial presence over diversity, difference, and deferment in space and time. Thus Western philosophy (and much of Indian philosophy) has answered the question of the nature of being in terms of presence.
Within this broad context, Derrida's critique of Western metaphysics focuses on the privileging of the spoken over the written word. As we have already noted, this same privileging of speech over writing has characterized Indian thought. Barbara Johnson, one of Derrida's translators, clearly summarizes his analysis of the privileging of speech as follows:
The spoken word is given a higher value because the speaker and listener are both present to the utterance simultaneously. There is no temporal or spatial distance between speaker, speech, and listener, since the speaker hears himself speak at the same moment as the listener does. This immediacy seems to guarantee the notion that in the spoken word we know what we mean, mean what we say, say what we mean and know what we have said. Whether or not perfect understanding always occurs in fact, this image of perfectly self-present meaning is, according to Derrida, the underlying ideal of Western culture. [13]
Derrida calls this belief in the self-presentation of meaning "Logocentricism," from the Greek logos (speech, logic, reason, the Word of God). Writing, from the logocentric perspective, is seen as a secondary representation of speech to be used when speaking is impossible. The writer puts thought on paper, distancing it from the immediacy of speech and enabling it to be read by someone far away, even after the writer's death. All of this is seen as a corruption of the self-presence of meaning, an opening of meaning to forms of corruption which the presence of speech would have prevented. [14] Derrida's critique is not aimed at reversing this value system, and showing writing to be superior to speech. Rather, his critique attempts to dissect the whole system of metaphysical opposition upon which the speech versus writing debate is grounded. In so doing, Derrida finds that both speech and writing are beginninglessly structured by difference and distance. The very experience of meaning is itself an experience of difference, and this difference is shown by Derrida to inhabit the very heart of what appears to be immediate and present. In his commentary on Freud's "mystic writing-pad" Derrida shows that difference is present even in the structures of the unconscious. [15] The apparent experience of a unitary self-presence of meaning and consciousness is found to arise from the repression of the differential structures from which they spring. [16] Logocentricism deconstructed is shown to depend on difference, and difference, in both time and space, to be characteristic of speech as well as writing.
Before examining Derrida's deconstruction of logocentricism in detail, let us see if there are schools of Indian philosophy that fit into the logocentric category and are thus subject to Derrida's critique. Within the Ästika or Orthodox traditions certainly the SÄá¹khya/Yoga, Vedanta, and NyÄya schools are structured in terms of polarities such as identity versus difference, soul or self versus matter/mÄyÄ, truth versus error, and so forth, in which the second term of the pair is always of a lower status. Ontological Being/Presence/Consciousness is identified with the first term of the pair. All also venerate speech over writing, perhaps even more strongly than is the case with Western philosophy. There is also a valuing of phonetic speech and writing over nonphonetic languages, such as Chinese. PÄṇini's Aá¹£á¹ÄdhyÄyÄ« or Grammar is based on the sound of spoken Sanskrit, [17] and is thus a prime candidate for what Derrida calls "phonocentricism," which is open to all the criticisms of logocentricism. [18] The negative status given to writing in the West is paralleled and accentuated in the Indian tradition. Scribes in India have had a low status and the texts they write are judged to be very unreliable. The written is valued only as a teaching aid for those too dull to remember. In fact the very act of writing was held to be ritually polluting in a late Vedic text -- the Aitareya Äraṇyaka 5.5.3 states that a pupil should not recite the Veda after eating meat, seeing blood or a dead body, having intercourse or engaging in writing. [19] Clearly the Ästika or Orthodox schools of Indian philosophy (with the exception of the Grammarian school, which will be discussed later) largely share the same logocentric biases toward Being and Speech and against writing as those located by Derrida in Western metaphysics. Nor do the nÄstika or Heterodox schools escape Derrida's net. Jainism strongly shares in the soul/matter dialectic and, like Buddhism, agrees that language is merely conventional and cannot touch the real. This complete separation of speech from the real (most extreme in the MÄdhyamika negation of speech into silence) is attacked by Derrida as being just as unsatisfactory as the extreme logocentric position, with its identification of speech with the real. It is not just the logocentric view which Derrida criticizes, but any philosophy which privileges one opposite or extreme over the other. Derrida's net of deconstructive critique would then seem to be as potentially devastating to Indian philosophy as it is to Western philosophy. The one school that may escape Derrida, by having prefigured much of his critique, is the Grammarian school, especially in its formulation by Bhartá¹›hari. Let us now test out this suggestion as we examine Derrida's deconstruction of logocentricism.
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Both Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari agree that since philosophy must be done in language, literary analysis is as important as, and perhaps more important than, logical analysis. As Derrida puts it, philosophers have been able to impose their various conceptual systems only by ignoring or suppressing the disruptive effects of language. [20] Bhartá¹›hari in VÄkyapadÄ«ya I:14 describes grammar as the "purifier of all the sciences." It is through the use of correct forms of language -- as identified by the Grammarians -- that philosophic or any other kind of knowledge can be obtained. Both Bhartá¹›hari and Derrida break down the barrier between literary criticism and philosophy.
If all knowledge comes through language, is there a source or ground of language which is outside of or beyond language? Does language depend on something else -- God, the logos, Brahman? The answer for both Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari is "no." In Bhartá¹›hari's VÄkyapadÄ«ya the Absolute is the Åšabdatattva, the Word-Principle, and therefore is not something apart from or beyond language. Derrida establishes his "no" by deconstructing the point of view that has dominated metaphysics: namely, that a separate Being or Presence is immediately reflected in speech and then given a secondary representation in writing. Derrida deconstructs this argument as it is presented in Plato, Rousseau, and others, by finding writing, when understood as diffèrance, to contain all of spoken language, and all inscribed language. This of course requires an enlarged concept of writing. In his reading of the Phaedrus, Derrida locates the basis for such an enlarged view of writing in Plato's own text. Whereas Western philosophy has seen writing in the Phaedrus as being an orphan unable to communicate knowledge, Derrida finds evidence for a second kind of writing at 276a of the Phaedrus:
Socrates: But now tell me, is there another sort of discourse that is brother to written speech, but of unquestioned legitimacy? Can we see how it originates, and how much better and more effective it is than the other?
Phaedrus: What sort of discourse have you now in mind, and what is its origin?
Socrates: The sort that goes together with knowledge, and is written in the soul of the learner, that can defend itself, and knows to whom it should speak and to whom it should say nothing.
Phaedrus: Do you mean the discourse of a man who really knows which is living and animate? Would it be fair to call the written discourse only a kind of ghost (eidolon) of it?
Socrates: Precisely... [21]
In this passage Derrida finds evidence for a deconstruction or reversal of the usual Platonic view of writing:
While presenting writing as a false brother -- traitor, infidel, and simulacrum -- Socrates is for the first time led to envision the brother of this brother, the legitimate one, as another sort of writing: not merely as knowing, living, animate discourse, but as an inscription of truth in the soul. [22] This other sort of writing, written on the soul of the learner, is called the trace [23] or arche-writing [24] by Derrida, and is seen as the dynamic source of both speech and external writing. The necessity of arche-writing or trace being composed of the movement of difference is established in Derrida's analysis of another dialogue, Philebus (17 a-b). Here Socrates notes that although the sound or cry which we first speak is one, it also possesses an unlimited variety of different sounds. [25] It is only through a limiting and mastering of the differences that understanding is obtained. Difference and relation are irreducible, says Derrida, and are designated as "writing" by Plato. [26] Derrida goes on to observe that all of this wisdom of Socrates, though originally spoken, comes to us only because it is written down after his death.
Derrida also establishes the need for the inner trace or arche-writing by a critique of Saussure's linguistic theory. For Saussure, the basis of language is found in the natural bond of the signified (concept or sense) to the spoken word of which the written linage is a contamination. [27] But Saussure suggests that language can be best understood by an analogy to both the form and content of writing. Saussure finds that "difference" is the source of linguistic values. [28] It is precisely this general movement of difference, says Derrida, that is the arche-writing or trace which contains within it the possibility for all oral and written language. Speech and writing are expressions of one and the same language. Arche-writing is nothing but dynamic expressive difference. It does not depend on sound or writing, but is the condition for such sound and writing. Although it does not exist, its possibility is anterior to all expressions (signified/signifier, content/expression, and so forth). This intrinsic diffèrance, concludes Derrida, permits the articulation of speech and writing, and founds the metaphysical opposition between signifier and signified. Diffèrance is therefore the formation of form and the being imprinted of the imprint. [29]
Instead of the term arche-writing or trace, Bhartá¹›hari uses the term Åšabdatattva or Word-Principle. [30] Brahman, the Word-Principle, is without beginning or end. Although proclaimed to be one, it is divided by the function of its inherent powers. In particular it is through the sequencing power of time (kÄla) that the Word-Principle manifests itself in the expressive activity of language, which becomes the model for all other activity. [31] This activity is seen as a real manifestation and not as a merely apparent (Åšaá¹…kara's understanding of vivartate) activity. Bhartá¹›hari states:
Knowers of tradition (the Vedas) have declared that all this is the transformation [pariṇÄmaḥ] of the word. It is from the chandas [hymns of the Vedas] that this universe has evolved. [32]
"Here the term pariṇÄmaḥ is used to describe the same process which is described in I.1 by vivartate." [33] Writing at the end of the fifth century A.D. Bhartá¹›hari does not speak in terms of causality such as typify Åšaá¹…kara's later debates, but emphasizes the marvelous activity by which the multiple universe is manifested out of the one Word-Principle or Åšabdatattva. [34] For our present purposes the important point is that for Bhartá¹›hari, Brahman, as the Word-Principle, is an intrinsically dynamic and expressive reality, and that language (and all of the universe) is its manifestation through the process of temporal becoming. [35] Like Derrida, Bhartá¹›hari also uses the notion of a beginningless trace which is inherent in consciousness. Unlike Derrida, however, Bhartá¹›hari discusses the trace of speech in relation to previous births.
This residual trace of speech has no beginning and it exists in every one as a seed in the mind. It is not possible that it should be the result of the effort of any person. Movements of the articulatory organs by children are not due to instruction by others but are known through intuition. [36]
Iyer notes that the term pratibhÄgamyÄḥ used here stands (1) for the residual traces of language use in previous births, and (2) for the faculty of speech with which the child is born and for the child's instinct toward activating these traces in human life situations. [37] The next verse makes clear that such instinctual traces are inherently involved in all cognition, for "There is no cognition in the world in which the word does not figure. All knowledge is, as it were, intertwined with the word." [38]
As was the case for Derrida, Bhartá¹›hari sees the inherent trace consciousness of language as conditioning all psychic experience from deep sleep to dreams, to ordinary awareness and even to mystical states (states in which there is a direct supersensuous perception of the meaning-whole or sphoá¹a). In the dream state, says Bhartá¹›hari, the only difference is that the seeds or traces of language function in a more subtle manner. [39] It seems evident that Derrida's development of Freud's thought would be easily accommodated within Bhartá¹›hari. Just as Derrida finds the psychological mechanism behind the Western experience of an unchanging logos, presence, or Self to be the suppression of the experience of difference within the psyche, so Bhartá¹›hari rejects other Indian schools who equate the experience of Self with something external to consciousness and language. "[The Self] exists within in every individual, but appears to be external." [40] For Bhartá¹›hari, and it would seem for Derrida, the experience of Self is the unobstructed experience of Åšabdatattva or arche-writing manifested in the temporal dynamic of language. Obstacles to this experience are identified as the incorrect understanding and use of language forms and the "ego-knots" that such impure usage produces. [41]
Not being part of the Western debate over the opposition between speech and writing as sparked by Socrates in the Phaedrus, Bhartá¹›hari gives only passing reference to the status of writing -- and then only to identify texts whose authors are known as opposed to texts considered to be without an author (apauruá¹£ey.). When he does refer to it, as in VÄkyapadÄ«ya I:132, Bhartá¹›hari uses the term Ägama. In his review of this verse and others where Ägama is used, Iyer concludes that what is meant is simply a text composed by some writer, in contrast to Å›ruti or Vedic texts, which are said to be without authors. The contrast is not between written and spoken -- as is the case for Derrida -- but between texts whose authors are known and texts that are considered to be without any author. [42] Although the Vedas may be written, they are, like consciousness, eternal and so do not depend on any human author. [43] They are the criterion manifestation of the Åšabdatattva and do not depend on being written down by any human author for their preservation. For those who cannot see the meaning of the Vedas, the composing of commentaries, through the use of reason which divides up the unitary meaning of the sentence, is done for teaching purposes or for the benefit of those who can only see superficially. [44] Bhartá¹›hari, however, agrees with Derrida that one benefit of Ägama is that when teachers or authors die, their words continue and serve as the seed basis for the formation of further tradition. [45] Overall, there is no doubt that texts composed by authors, like authorless speech, are a manifestation of the Åšabdatattva for Bhartá¹›hari. For both, however, the temporal transformation of the originating source of language through speech and writing is seen to be continuous. If Bhartá¹›hari were here today, and able to understand Derrida's thought, perhaps he would not find the term arche-writing too far from his Åšabdatattva. Certainly both would find common cause against those who locate the absolute outside of language or who maintain that language has no purchase on reality.
Language as Manifested in Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari
For both Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari it is the pure possibility of difference that is manifested as language. It is the intrinsic diffèrance of the arche-trace that permits the articulation of speech and writing. The arche-trace manifests into the opposing forms of inner concept and outer sound-image. Derrida uses the technical term "sign" to refer to the whole, "signified" to refer to the abstract concept, and "signifier" to refer to the spoken and heard sound-image. [46] Bhartá¹›hari's technical terminology would seem to provide a virtually perfect parallel: "sphoá¹a" [47] to indicate the whole, "artha" to refer to the concept or meaning and "dhvani" to refer to the uttered and heard sound. For both Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari the linguistic whole (the sign or sphoá¹a), has an inherent force toward differentiation that produces the double manifestation of inner meaning (signified, artha) and spoken sound (signifier, dhvani). Although sign and sphoá¹a are irreducible, neither can be experienced as pure presence.
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Rooted within language, even in its most holistic form, is the pregnant push towards sequencing, sparing, punctuation -- differentiation in time and space. In the VÄkyapadÄ«ya, the Åšabdatattva, symbolized by the seed sound AUM, [48] is sequenced by the power of time into the various recentions of the Veda and all spoken words. [49] For Derrida the image is one of the sign, as the linguistic whole, being differentiated by spacing (on the page) and interval or pause (in speaking) into articulated meaning and sound-image. It is the actualizing of this inherent force for differentiation that enables language to function. But it is, at the same time, the limit of language. As Derrida puts it, since a sign (the unity of signified and signifier) cannot be produced within the plentitude of absolute presence, there is, therefore, no full speech, no absolute truth or full meaning. [50] In the words of Lao Tzu, "The tao that can be spoken is not the eternal tao" [51] Or as Hegel once put it, "When speaks the soul, alas, the soul no longer speaks." [52] But whereas Lao Tzu and Hegel are mourning the inability of manifested language to make present the soul or the tao, Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari emphasize the positive contribution of articulated speech. The sphoá¹a and the sign (Derrida's whole) are manifested, and in the dynamic tension of that manifestation lies truth.
Rather than arriving at a skepticism of language, namely, that it is devoid of any truth content (the conclusion of the Buddhists and many modern skeptical critics of language), truth is seen to be contained in the very dynamics of language itself. Thus Derrida's thesis that there is no referent outside of the text is not as nihilistic as it at first sounds, and Bhartá¹›hari's sphoá¹a is not as artificial an entity as much Indian philosophy has assumed.
In VÄkyapadÄ«ya I:5, there are two terms which Bhartá¹›hari uses to describe the Veda: it is the prÄptyupÄya or the means for the attainment of Brahman; and it is the anukÄra or symbolization of Brahman. For now let us confine our attention to the term anukÄra, which comes from the root ká¹›, "to do" or "to make" and suggests the dynamic activity of the Word-Principle. The Vá¹›tti elucidates the verse by stating that the activity of the Vedic seers in speaking the mantras is the criterion case of word-making activity. The term mantra, notes Aurobindo, signifies a "crossing over" through thought (root man, "to think," and tá¹›, "to cross over") from the Absolute or Unmanifested to the human experience of manifested language. [53] As pure Sanskrit language, the mantras are conjunctions of certain powerful seed syllables which induce a particular rhythm or vibration in the psychosomatic structure of consciousness and arouse a corresponding psychic state. Such seed sounds can be differentiated in a great variety of ways producing an immense progeny of language. The evocative power is at its height before the mantras become too locked into particular forms of articulation. Poetry is at its peak before language becomes too fully elaborated. Then it must be deconstructed or evolved backwards to recover its original power for signification. Articulation is necessary, but the further it goes the greater the loss of freedom and power within language.
This also seems to be what Derrida means when he refers to the prose book as a corpse of language which must be exited from or transcended [54] -- the delimiting of the multisignificant roots has been pursued to its logical conclusion, and the power of the word has been exhausted. The aim of the project of deconstruction, says Derrida, agreeing with Aurobindo, is to get back to metaphoric, poetic language, where the power for signification has not yet been used up. [55] Bhartá¹›hari also reminds us that as language divides and separates, this necessary process in the end can become a source of confusion. The process of difference, pushed to its logical conclusion, produces such a plethora of speaking accents that communication of knowledge is obstructed. [56] Unlike Derrida and Aurobindo, Bhartá¹›hari's solution is not to deconstruct or reverse the process of differentiation, but to control it by the imposition of strict grammatical rules (the science of the Grammarians) by which the power of the root mantras to convey knowledge and action will not be obfuscated. [57] Bhartá¹›hari, along with the other Grammarians, claims to have uncovered the pure forms of the correct unfolding of the patterns of differentiation inherent in the Åšabdatattva and symbolized (anukÄra) in criterion form in the initial speaking of the Vedas. [58]
Another aspect of the meaning of anukÄra, as we find it in VÄkyapadÄ«ya I:5, is the notion of resemblance. Carpenter puts it well:
The Veda, as the anukÄraḥ of Brahman standing in a position of imitative resemblance to its source, occupies a mediating position between this source and the diverse forms of the world. It presents, within the dynamic framework of the world as a whole, a level of expression and action which is directly related to the unitary ground of that world. It thus presents the established order of dharmaḥ in contrast to the often disorderly world of everyday experience (vyavahÄraḥ). [59]
The Veda is not a direct description of Brahman, the Åšabdatattva. Language functions to mediate action, not ideas. It is the verb not the noun that is basic. Vedic revelation, for Bhartá¹›hari, does not provide us with a representation of the transcendent object, the Word-Principle. What the Veda does do is to mediate the inherent action of the Åšabdatattva directly through the dynamic idiom of language. "The Veda is thus the outward linguistic form of the dynamic self-manifesting act of the Word-Principle itself." [60] To the extent that other language use approximates the Veda, it also shares in the self-manifesting of the Word-Principle. The function of the Grammarians is to help all language use, from whatever science, realize that goal. [61] It seems dear that Derrida would not agree with Bhartá¹›hari's privileging of scripture in general or of the Veda in particular. He would probably also criticize the notion of the Veda as manifesting the original linguistic form or anukÄra of arche-writing. The critique Derrida offers of the Bible as a Grammar of Being in accordance with which "the world in all its parts is a cryptogram to be constituted or reconstituted through poetic inscription or deciphering..." [62] has yet to be tested against the Veda -- but that is another project. It is clear, however, that Bhartá¹›hari's emphasis on language as active rather than passive, as necessarily engaging both thought and action, as not representing but mediating the absolute, is largely in agreement with the overall thrust of Derrida's deconstructive critique.
Language as a Means for Spiritual Realization
If language is experienced as a mediation of arche-writing or Åšabdatattva, then it is also a means for spiritual realization. Language is not merely epistemological in function. Over against Åšaá¹…kara's assessment of mÄyÄ (including all language and even the Vedas) as having epistemological but not ontological status, [63] both Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari locate the real in arche-writing or Åšabdatattva, which is not separate from manifested language. While for Åšaá¹…kara language (and the Vedas) must be transcended for spiritual realization (moká¹£a), for Bhartá¹›hari it is in language that union with the Åšabdatattva is realized.
Before looking at Bhartá¹›hari's clear conception of vÄk or speech as the means for the spiritual realization (prÄptyupÄya) of Åšabdatattva, let us test Derrida's grammatology to see if, like Bhartá¹›hari's science of grammar (vyÄkaraṇa) it can also be construed as a means for spiritual realization. In his deconstruction of the Western metaphysics of logos or presence, Derrida takes pains to distance himself from any suggestion of theistic religion. Derrida considers his own notion of arche-writing or prototrace to be an atheistic or, more properly, a nontheistic proposal. Of course the term arche-writing is meant to be confounding. How can a writing or trace precede that writing or trace which is left behind? But, aside from Derrida's perplexing play of language with regard to the divine, we do find some hints that support our interpretation of arche-writing as being parallel to Åšabdatattva. In Of Grammatology [64] Derrida discusses the nature of arche-writing or trace. The manifested trace cannot be thought, without the thinking of the retention of difference, of all manifestation, so that the trace contains all history and all possibility. This history and possibility is not static but contains an inherent force for unmotivated self-manifestation. [65] This self-manifestation is structured according to the diverse possibilities -- genetic and structural -- of the trace. "This formulation is not theological, as one might believe somewhat hastily," says Derrida. "The 'theological' is a determined moment in the total movement of the trace." [66] The theological is a historically second dissimulation of the trace. The general structure of the unmotivated trace is that of temporal becoming. The trace is not more natural than cultural, not more biological than spiritual. "It is that starting from which a becoming-unmotivated of the sign, and with it all the ulterior oppositions between physio and its other, is possible." [67]
Derrida's writing is purposely not systematic. But he does give a fair hint as to the shape that the becoming of the trace takes:
Representation mingles with what it represents, to the point where one speaks as one writes, one thinks as if the represented were nothing more than the shadow or reaction of the representer... In this play of representation, the point of origin becomes ungraspable. There are things like reflecting pools, and images, an infinite reference from one to the other, but no longer a source, a spring [source]. There is no longer simple origin. For what is reflected is split in itself and not only as an addition to itself of its image. The reflection, the image, the double, splits what it doubles. The origin of the speculation becomes a difference. What can look at itself is not one; and the law of addition of the origin to its representation, or the thing to its image, is that one plus one makes at least three. [68]
It is the direct experience of this dynamic process of becoming, not as a process of static reflection or metaphysical opposition, that would for Derrida be the realization of the spiritual whole. The sensitive deconstruction of the illusions of permanence, of stasis, or presence (which our ordinary experience and many of our philosophies have superimposed on the becoming of language) is Derrida's prescription as the means for the realization of the whole. We cannot name this whole "spiritual," for that is already to engage the vocabulary of metaphysical opposition. But to understand the whole as manifestation of the inherent difference of the trace is for Derrida the goal. To go from the inscribed trace (writing) to the spoken word and the arche-writing which prefigures and predisposes both, only to be thrown back again, in a continual deconstructive reverse, would seem to be Derrida's use of language as a spiritual discipline. Although this may look like a MÄdhyamikan answer, it is not. The deconstructive reverse does not result in the silence (śūnya) of language, but rather in the realization that the dynamic tension in the becoming of language is itself the whole. For Derrida, all of this cannot be understood as abstract theorizing. The language we are deconstructing is our own thinking and speaking -- our own consciousness. We ourselves are the text we are deconstructing. That is why, for Derrida, there is nothing outside of texts. Deconstruction is the process of becoming self-aware, or self-realization.
Can we say that this Derridean deconstruction of language is a means for spiritual realization? A comparison of Derrida with Bhartá¹›hari helps us to see why we can answer this question in the affirmative. Like Derrida,
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Bhartá¹›hari maintains that the analysis of linguistic experience is an examination of the very nature of our consciousness. Just as for Derrida consciousness is nothing but trace or writing, so for Bhartá¹›hari consciousness is nothing but Åšabdatattva -- the inextricably intertwining of consciousness with the word. [69] But one difference that must be acknowledged immediately is that while Derrida deconstructs all books, all scriptures, privileging none, Bhartá¹›hari explicitly states that the Veda is the means for the realization of Brahman. [70]
Bhartá¹›hari is not simply privileging one book or one scripture over all others. His thought is more complex and subtle than that. On the one hand, as we have seen above, Bhartá¹›hari has said that the Veda is the anukÄra of the Åšabdatattva -- that is, the Veda is the normative form of the manifested Åšabdatattva. All other language is merely a further elaboration of the criterion manifestation of the Åšabdatattva as the Veda. The Veda is not one book among others; it is the true manifestation of the Åšabdatattva. That is why Bhartá¹›hari describes it in VÄkyapadÄ«ya I:5 as both the anukÄra and the prÄptyupÄya or means of realization of Brahman. On the other hand, however, Bhartá¹›hari also describes the science of grammar as the royal path and door to spiritual realization. [71] Grammar is no longer merely an aid to the study of the Veda but is itself a yoga or means to realization. This shift is possible because Bhartá¹›hari sees Veda as the manifestation of the Åšabdatattva itself; grammar, as the science of the Veda, is at the same time the science of the Åšabdatattva or Word-Principle itself and thus a yoga. A few verses later, Bhartá¹›hari specifically describes a "Yoga preceded by the knowledge and use of the correct forms of words," namely, the science of grammar. [72] Later on at VÄkyapadÄ«ya I:131, Bhartá¹›hari gives more detailed indications as to what this yoga of the word involves. I have given a detailed analysis of this passage elsewhere and will not repeat it here. [73] For our present purpose the important point to note is Bhartá¹›hari's locus on the individual's inner experience of language as involving an inner transformation -- which parallels Derrida's emphasis on grammatology as the science of writing before speech and in speech with power to change the individual's self-awareness. [74]
Bhartá¹›hari's emphasis on language as an inner transformative experience not only provides promising links with the modern thought of Derrida, but can also be seen as a compromise between the more individualistic Buddhists and NaiyÄyikas. Carpenter puts it this way:
This is the case because for Bhartá¹›hari, the Word-Principle is the foundation not only of the Veda and the orthodox traditional world derived from it, but also of the individual's experience in appropriating that world. This experience is characterized by elements of genuine interiority, yet these elements are grounded in the same Word-Principle which manifests itself as the Veda. [75]
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Like Derrida, however, Bhartá¹›hari analyzes the individual's inner experience not as the static presence of a set of divine words or forms (the logos model), nor as a superimposition of epistemological forms (Åšaá¹…kara's mÄyÄ), but as an inner word which is primarily productive of activity and only secondarily productive of knowledge. [76] Bhartá¹›hari's Åšabdatattva, the Word-Principle, is primarily an ontological principle, and only secondarily epistemological.
We have seen how for Derrida the movement of language was a continuous sequencing of the arche-writing or trace into the spoken and written words, only to be thrown back again in a continual deconstructive reverse. The same kind of implosion-explosion cycle can be found in Bhartá¹›hari. Just as the Åšabdatattva manifests itself objectively as the cosmos, [77] so the same Word-Principle manifests itself within all individuals in their experience of language. [78] Within the individual, the experience of the sequenced parts (letters and words) is subordinate to the unified whole (the sentence). Understanding of the sentence is only possible because its words taken together evoke a flash of illumination (pratibhÄ or sphoá¹a) which is in some sense already prefigured (Derrida's arche-trace?) within consciousness. [79] This is due to the activity of the Åšabdatattva. Bhartá¹›hari describes it as follows:
When the meanings (of the individual word) have been understood separately, a flash of understanding takes place which they call the meaning of the sentence, brought about by the meanings of the individual words.
It cannot be explained to others as such and such. It is experienced by everyone within himself and even the subject [of the experience] is not able to render an account of it to himself.
It is something indefinable (avicÄritÄ) and it brings about a kind of amalgamation of the meanings of individual words, covering the whole sentence as it were, it becomes its object.
No one can avoid in one's activity that (flash of understanding) produced either through words or through the working of one's predispositions. [80]
This pratibhÄ or flash of understanding is insight into the whole meaning and form of the Åšabdatattva. PratibhÄ precedes and predisposes all human and animal activity. But it is also the culmination of our sequenced language activity as the illumination of the sentence. As such pratibhÄ is the means for the realization of the Åšabdatattva, for they are but two sides of the same coin. PratibhÄ is of the nature of one's inner self (Åšabdatattva), but requires the words of language for its manifestation and realization. [81] Bhartá¹›hari's theory of intuition is not separate from his theory of language, but, indeed, is its fulfillment. PratibhÄ is the experience in which the twofold manifestation of the Åšabdatattva - as language and world, as knower and known -- meet. This intuition is neither
a purely subjective event nor an intuition of a thing-in-itself. "It is rather the intrinsic luminosity of the world as a dynamic interrelated whole which is revealed by language." [82] Language is the enactment of the interrelatedness of the manifested Åšabdatattva. As Bhartá¹›hari puts it in VÄkyapadÄ«ya III:2:14:
That one Reality is seen as the word, the meaning and their relation. It is the seen, the seeing, the see-er and the fruit of the seeing. [83]
PratibhÄ is the intuition of all of this and is described by Bhartá¹›hari as the light which removes ignorance. It is indefinable (avicÄritÄ) because what it reveals is not some "thing," "idea," or "presence," but rather the dynamic interrelatedness of all things -- an insight giving rise to action resulting in spiritual realization.
For both Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari, the science of grammar enables one to experience language as more than purely epistemological in function. As we speak and write it, it "speaks and writes" us impelling us to action (dharma). While it is clear that Bhartá¹›hari's speaking, writing, and acting of the word is a yoga or means of spiritual realization, Derrida only offers hints in that direction. It is clear that for Derrida the "theological" is a secondary manifestation of the trace, and that its problem and the problem with most Western metaphysics (and religion) is that the theological is a reification resulting from the suppressing or the difference inherent in language -- the locus of its power in both spiritual and worldly action. Derrida's rejection of theology, metaphysics, and much philosophy is rooted in Bhartá¹›hari's observation that the dynamic interrelatedness of language cannot be described by the agent who experiences it. For both Bhartá¹›hari and Derrida any such description would be a reduction of the "dynamic interrelatedness of all experience" to some "thing" or "idea." Such a reductionism robs language of its power of action. This loss is simultaneously a loss of linguistic power, and a loss of the power of spiritual realization.
For both Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari the correct understanding and practice of language results in a teleological transformation of experience. This common conclusion arises from remarkably different religious roots: Derrida's understanding from a prophetic critique of the Jewish and Christian experience of God; Bhartá¹›hari's from an interpretation of Vedic dharma which took into account the NyÄya and Buddhist claims for individual spiritual experience.
We cannot say much of Derrida's religious roots and goal. In his relentless deconstruction of every logocentric theology, and even every negative theology, he keeps his spiritual self well hidden. [84] But perhaps this is the clue. Could it be that his spiritual source and vision are rooted in the Hebrew prophets? Just as Hebrew prophecy ruthlessly criticized every objectification of God which packaged and separated God from the divine demand for ethical action in daily life, [85] so Derrida rigorously deconstructs all theology, philosophy, and ordinary language which objectifies our experience into false Gods and unreal presences. That Derrida's deconstruction does have a prophetic goal is suggested by his essay "Of an Apocalyptic Tone Recently Adopted in Philosophy." [86] In this reading of the New Testament "Revelation or Apocalypse to John," Derrida suggests that the apocalyptic be considered "a transcendental condition of all discourse, of all experience itself, of every mark or every trace." [87] The Apocalypse of John, he suggests, could be taken as an exemplary revelation of this transcendental structure. And the theme of the Johannine Apocalypse he identifies as the recurrent and imperative "come" of the text (Revelation 22:17-20). "Come" evokes both the imminent coming of the Lord and the imperative that the hearer come quickly. The call beyond being or logos itself comes from beyond being. It cannot come from a voice which is given any personification in our hearing of it -- for that would be to "package" it in categories of presence. "Come" is plural in itself, in oneself. Its only content, says Derrida, is its resounding imperative tone [88] that calls forth from us action. The other characteristic of this exemplary book of Apocalypse is indicated in its final words "Do not seal [close] the words of the inspiration of this book..." To seal is to encapsulate or close off the inherent "come" of language and/as religion. The "come" from beyond being and the imperative "come" within oneself never close. The action of coming to the call that never ceases is the end to be realized. All of this fits well with the prophetic impulse of the Hebrew Bible. Its relentless negation of any conceptualization or speaking of the divine (the sin of idolatry), its prophetic hearing of the call to obedience which must always translate into action, and its open-ended future which calls us to become to an end which is always simultaneously a new beginning -- all of this seems to justify our rooting of Derrida in the spiritual critique of the Hebrew Prophets, which Derrida has reformulated as a critique of all idolatrous use of language.
Like Derrida, Bhartá¹›hari's science of grammar is also a call to action, to dharma. Bhartá¹›hari reinterprets Vedic dharma as the dharma of the Word-Principle, the Åšabdatattva. This shift means that the dharma that one seeks to realize is no longer outside oneself, one's language or the Veda, but is the very essence of one's consciousness just as for Derrida the voice of the prophetic "come" becomes the "come let us go," the inner voice of language, so also for Bhartá¹›hari, the Vedic dharma as the Åšabdatattva becomes the dharma of "correct" language within individual consciousness. The purification of speech, the task of the traditional Vedic discipline of grammar, becomes the means for inner spiritualization.
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Conclusion
This initial comparative study of Derrida's deconstructive grammatology and Indian philosophy has proved stimulating and fruitful. It has identified many points of formal and often substantive contact between Derrida and traditional Indian thought. Further analysis of these areas of contact should prove challenging and invigorating for both Eastern and Western thought. That this will be the case has been exemplified in the more specific comparison offered between Derrida and Bhartá¹›hari. This comparison has demonstrated new insights on both sides. Reading Bhartá¹›hari with Derrida highlights the error of previous interpretations which have read the VÄkyapadÄ«ya through decidedly Advaitic eyes. It has also highlighted the remarkably original way in which Bhartá¹›hari accommodated the Buddhist and NyÄya stress on individual spiritual experience while yet retaining an orthodox grounding in Vedic dharma, now reinterpreted as Åšabdatattva. Derrida's challenge to Bhartá¹›hari would take the form of a thoroughgoing deconstruction of the VÄkyapadÄ«ya. The most evident point of challenge here would be directed at Bhartá¹›hari's PratibhÄ doctrine as a case of "mystical perception." This is of course the very criticism mounted against Bhartá¹›hari by the MÄ«mÄá¹sakas. Since Derrida does not believe that anything like "pure" perception -- perception free of representation or interpretation -- exists, [89] his challenge is a significant one.
From the side of Western thought, the comparison has also been fruitful. It has called into question current suggestions that Derrida can be understood as a MÄdhyamikan Buddhist -- for this analyst shows him to agree with Bhartá¹›hari on exactly those points which separate Bhartá¹›hari and NÄgÄrjuna. The comparison with Bhartá¹›hari also suggests that Derrida's relation to scripture (as evidenced in his reading of Revelation) may well turn out to be functionally parallel to Bhartá¹›hari's
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