[INDOLOGY] "Psychological complexity" of Sanskrit language/literature

[Gleb Sharygin]

Dear Antonia and Professor Deshpande,

Thank you very much for your replies. These are indeed wonderful
examples of "psychological precision" of Sanskrit.

I even wonder whether we need to go into such details as physical symptoms
of emotion, when, for instance, we have a number of words in Sanskrit, that
in English (and most other modern languages) would be rendered simple by
"love" (and equivalents in other languages).

Professor Minoru Hara in the paper "Words for love in Sanskrit"
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41913379

   -

lists and discusses eight of them: *kāma*, *sneha*, *preman*, *prīti*,
*praṇaya*, *vātsalya, bhakti*, *maitrī,*

and adds that "there still remain many words which are translatable as
"love"", for instance *anurāga*, *rati*, *sauhārdya*,  *hārda*.

He concludes that it is "just a modest approach to the problem", and a
systematic study is a desideratum.

These are all different types, shades, tinges and forms of love (or is
"love" just one instance of those?), and as such these are distinct
psychological phenomena.

Kind regards,
Gleb Sharygin

ср, 19 авг. 2020 г. в 02:24, Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu>:

> I don't know if this is related to the question asked, but I have noticed
> a lot of Sanskrit words referring to emotional states that literally
> narrate the physical symptoms of that emotion.  Here are a few examples
> that come to my mind:
>
> विश्वास । विश्वसिति
> नि:श्वास । नि:श्वसिति
> आश्वास । आश्वासयति
> समाश्वासयति
> लोम/रोम+हर्ष
> वि+स्मित / विस्मय
> Buddhist usage: सीतीभूतो'म्हि निब्बुतो
> निर्+वा > निर्वाण
>
> These are just a few examples that come to mind.  One can think of more.
> Descriptions of various विभाव, अनुभाव etc. contributing to the experience
> of रस may be another place to look for the connection to the physical to
> emotional states.
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
>
> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 2:52 PM Antonia Ruppel via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dear Gleb,
>>
>> I dimly remember the study that I read some 15 years ago by an Indian
>>> scholar by the last name Basu (or Vasu), that estimated that Sanskrit has
>>> about 30-40% more psychologically relevant terms/words, than classical
>>> languages (i.e. Greek and Latin), and 80% more than modern European
>>> languages.
>>>
>>> My (perhaps entirely unhelpful) first reaction to this is that Sanskrit,
>> due to its history and stylistic conventions, has many more words for
>> pretty much anything than most other languages do, literary/ancient or not.
>>
>> Also, my guiding principle in the questions you ask would be to make sure
>> I keep questions of language/grammar and of literature/style very clearly
>> separate. The one truly linguistic aspect of a language that could express
>> its 'psychological complexity' to me would be its lexicon (unless we were
>> to consider morphemes such as inclusive 'we' vs exclusive 'we' that are
>> found in some languages, but not e.g. Sanskrit; or perhaps verbal moods
>> that distinguish between 'would', 'could' and 'should', all expressed by
>> the same verbal category in Classical Sanskrit). The main distinguishing
>> features of the Sanskrit lexicon (I am here thinking especially of the fact
>> that it has such a beautiful wealth of synonyms) seem to be due to the
>> pressure to be innovative that writers using a grammatically fixed language
>> could only channel in a limited variety of ways.
>>
>> That said, I would be greatly interested in literature that shows my
>> curmudgeonly attitude to be wrong:-).
>>
>> All the very best,
>>      Antonia
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> But all my attempts at finding that study failed. I would be very
>>> grateful if someone helped me to identify that study or suggested something
>>> recent and authoritative on the subject. I would be grateful for any
>>> comments as well.
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>> Gleb Sharygin
>>> PhD Candidate
>>> Institut fur Indologie und Tibetologie
>>> LMU München
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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