debates, grammar, & VAc

[thompson at handel.jlc.net]

Madhav Deshpande responded to my query re "debate, grammar, & Vedic" by
pointing out that "the focus on debate [among grammarians] was more a focus
on the logic built into any situation, rather than on language per se."  To
this extent, I suppose, they are logicians rather than grammarians.  The
point that concerns me, rather, is that interest in *language* links the
grammarians not only with rhetoricians [kAvya] but also with Vedic RSis,
conceding that the interest of each in language may have been somewhat
different from the other's.  I will defer to specialists in the grammarians
and the rhetoricians concerning what the interest of these may have been,
respectively.

But for the Vedic RSis, in my view, interest in language was huge [think of
the goddess VAc, majestic queen of the gods, followed by her retinue of
utterly dependent gods - a Vedic metaphor, not mine], encompassing not only
skill in debate and rhetoric, but also magical efficacy or performance, as
well as metrical, grammatical and phonological analysis, lexical polysemy
[the problem of metaphor, and puns, what we call folk etymology].  One of
the more attractive features of current Vedic studies is the growing
interest in, and recognition of, the poetic, oratorical [i.e., in debate],
and linguistic skills of the Vedic RSis.  I will admit, however, that they
appear to have exhibited little interest in logic.