Sheldon Pollock on what makes Sanskrit special..
What work then did Sanskrit do in much of the Sanskrit Cosmopolis?
What makes Sanskrit’s cosmopolitan career remarkable
- The historical career of Sanskrit
- The conditions of possibility for Sanskrit’s diffusion as a language of politics
- It’s social domain
- It’s political work
- Not as material power
- Common aesthetics of political culture
- Sanskrit “ecumene”
Relationship between Sanskrit and Khmer
- Unequal relationship; Sanskrit uninfluenced, Khmer massively invaded by Sanskrit at least at the lexical level
- Vernacular literacy mediated by Sanskrit literacy
- Assymetrical cultural authority
Culture and Ideology
- Cultural colonization
- Gift of civilization – the division between inferior and superior cultures
- Transculturation
- Global Ecumene
Definitions
Vernacular Culture
- Dominant assumption
- Gramsci – “The vernaculars are written down when the people regain importance”
- Relations between language, literature and social power
- Ideology
- “Linguistic relations are always relations of symbolic power..” – Bourdieu & Wacquant
- Sanskrit Cosmopolis: transregional cultural formation in the premodern world
- Polis: Political dimension
- Premier instrument of political expression in most of South and Southeast Asia
Research Questions
- How did the transculturation process at work in the Sanskrit cosmopolis function?
- Can we make any valid generalization about the relationships between Sanskrit and vernacular culture especially in terms of political language?
- Can we theorize this process without risking mechanical functionalism and anachronism (‘legitimation’ being a causal explanation that illustrates both problems)?
Java
Khmer Country
- Khmer language for everyday speech and documentation
- Khmer scripts used by and for royals
- Khmer heavily influenced by Sanskrit
- No proof of original Sanskrit lit being produced
- Used Sanskrit differently than Khmer people
- Sanskrit died when Old Javanese became popular
- Big influence in javanese works
- 40% of old Javanese lexicon is derived from Sanskrit
Expansion
- Kannada
- Calukyas of Madami and Rastrakutas
- Tamil literature
- Calukyas
- England
- New theorization of a politics of a vernacular culture
Sanskrit's lasting impact
Sanskrit for socio-political needs
Section I
- Language for ‘political legitimization’
- Aesthetic use to legitimize political power
- No political/cultural center, especially from the mainland to manipulate the spread of Sanskrit
- Separating Sanskrit from local languages for everyday, communicative purposes
- Used as a language of politics and literary discourse
- Not a language of everyday life
- Throughout a millenium (300 – 1,300 C.E) undergone significant changes in South and SE Asia
- Transculturation without imperial subjugation and/or bureaucratic control
Inscriptional Discourse
The Cosmopolis
- “Unique” discourse
- Enhancement
- Increasing Popularity
Section V
- Common imperial formations
- Hierarchical Societies
- Cities planned in geometric orientation
- Similar language led to similar beliefs
Relationship between Sanskrit and Khmer
The Sanskrit Cosmopolis
When and how does Sanskrit enter the domain of “public” political discourse in South Asia?
- Sanskrit culture was completely indigenized
- Why are the Khmer using Sanskrit?
- Poem inscriptions as prayers
Section II
- The first public political text in Sanskrit
- Kavya
- Sanskrit at the end of the first century C.E
Inscriptional Discourse
Sanskrit in the Transculturation Process
Comparing Sanskrit
By Arman, Giri, Jeremiah, Monica, Riju, Sherrine & Shivam
- Angkoran inscriptional discourse comparable to India
- Sanskrit deployed in Khmer to make literary claims about the world
- Usage of Sanskrit and Khmer language
- Introduction of Sanskrit into local, distinct cultures embraced as a linguistic ideology
- No cultural conquest of local languages
- Literization of local languages into Sanskrit texts accompanied and accepted as part of local culture
- Use of Sanskrit as a unifying, political language for empire-building
- Best comparative is Latin in 800 CE
- Imaginaire politique
- Key difference
- The Latin Vernacular
- New Persian – 1000 CE West Asia
- Sanskrit’s aesthetics
Inscriptional Discourse
When and how does Sanskrit enter the domain of “public” political discourse in South Asia?
Division of Linguistic Labor
- What is “public”?
- What is the significance of Sanskrit?
- Maurya & Gupta
Parallelism
- Relationship between Sanskrit and Prakrit among the southern regions in India And
- Pallavas of Tamil Nadu for most of the 1st millenium
- First appearance of the metrical prastasi and its appearance in the Pallava records of Tamil
- Sanskrit is used to interpret, supplement and reveal reality, whereas for documenting reality in the pragmatic portions of the grant, non-Sanskrit is required
- Cambodia follows that of continental South Asia
- Badami Calukyas & Rastrakuta successors
- Between 9th and 13th centuries, fascination with sophisticated forms of royal poetry in Khmer country
Emphasis on “Expectabillity”
Sanskrit in Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian speaking countries in Southeast Asia
- Production of political culture throughout the region
- “Funan Polity” in Khmer
- Growth of Sanskrit in Khmer during Angkor period (dated 20%, undated 35%)
- Pallava dynasty primary example
- In 600 years no transcription where Tamil did any work beyond recording the everyday
- Functions usually denied to Sanskrit from an early date
When and how does Sanskrit enter the domain of “public” political discourse in South Asia?
- Satavahanas & Ksatrapas
- Sungas
Kannada
Drastic change in inscriptional style of Pallavas
- Parallel with Tamil
- Epigraphs of the Gangas “documentary”
- Percentages of inscriptions in Kannada relative to those in Sanskrit rose from 30% to 90% from 960-1200 C.E
- Sanskrit’s competitor languages were only allowed to serve documentary function
Sanskrit political-cultural idiom offered in the historical records of Pallava Dynasty
Emergence of Sanskrit inscriptions
- 5th century appeared almost simultaneously across Southeast Asia ranging from Burma to Indonesia
- Some dies out rather quickly, and in some last for hundreds of years
Section IV
When and how does Sanskrit enter the domain of “public” political discourse in South Asia?
- 4th generation after Sivaskandavarman
- Elements of the standard prasasti style developed
- Fixing of the genealogical succession
- The catalogue of kingly traits of the dynasty
- The eulogy of the ruler lord and a documentary account of the gift that the record inscribes as well as conditions against violation
- Stone inscription of Simhavarman
- Copper plate in Prakrit without prasasti portion
- Land-grant on copper plates (338 C.E)
- Prakrit & Sanskrit
- Diglossia & Hyperglossia
- Basim Plates
Before the beginning of the common era..
Generalizations on the basis of epigraphical evidence
- Trades were limited to small groups of traders, adventurers, religious professionals
- No evidence that large-scale state initiatives were ever at issue, or anything that resembles colonization
Namaste for listening to our presentation!
- Institution of the transregional use of Sanskrit for public political texts in South India
- Development of Sanskrit at expense of local literary traditions
- Cosmopolitan character generated by transregional developments as a shared language practice that points to the aestheticization of the political
Section III