Philosophy of language in India

Abstract

The potentialities and limitations of language have attracted the attention of Indian thinkers from ancient times. The poet-philosophers of the Ṛgveda were greatly concerned with the powers and limitations of language as a means of communicating their mystic, personal experiences of an ecstatic nature to their fellow brethren and consciously tried to stretch the power of language to the realm of the inexpressible, almost to the fringe of silence. Two approaches to language are seen, one praising it as a powerful and benign deity (Vāc) ever ready to bestow favours on her devotees, and the other complaining about the inadequacy of language for communicating the intimate, personal experiences, and for dealing with the ultimate reality. Does language act as a barrier or as a bridge? Is it a veil on the face of Reality which we must tear asunder before we can see her face to face? Or, is it a sort of coloured lens which helps us in seeing Reality, but at the same time distorts our vision?