Bhāṣā

The role of language in the Hindu tradition raises complex questions for a number of reasons. Chronologically, the languages used by the Hindus for religious expression have varied for reasons of pure linguistic change over time as well as through migrations and adoption of this religion by different communities in South Asia and elsewhere. While there tends to be a greater linguistic unity at the higher end of Hindu religious and philosophic expression, as one looks at the middle and the lower levels of the Hindu society, the languages vary considerably in different regions as well as in different social strata. Therefore, it is difficult to make broad generalizations about religious language as used by all Hindus. One must look at the specific social and regional contexts. The role of language in the religious tradition also needs to be looked at from various points of view, for example, the faculty of language, the role of specific languages, ritual performance of language, particular manifestations of language in various forms of texts, their reification into scriptural traditions, and the attitudes of the religious community towards all these phenomena. The Hindu tradition goes back to the prehistoric mergers of various linguistic and cultural communities in the South Asian region. The two main prehistoric sources of this tradition lie in the Indus Valley civilization, on the one hand, and the migrations of the Indo-European speakers, on the other. As far as the Indus Valley civilization is concerned, its linguistic identity has not been conclusively determined, and the suggestions regarding its language range from Dravidian and Munda to some form of Indo-Āryan. In any case, since the linguistic identity of the Indus Valley civilization has not been fully established, we cannot say much about the role of language in that tradition at this point. The Indo-European tradition and its proposed invasion or migration into South Asia are also hotly debated, along with the suggestion coming from some that Sanskrit originated in India and was the mother of the Indo-European (and other) languages. We need not go into these debates here, except note that most of the languages of modern North India are members of the Indo-European language family, and Sanskrit, and particularly Vedic Sanskrit, is the oldest known language of this family in South Asia. As the language of the Vedas, the formal scriptures of the Hindu tradition, Sanskrit plays a very important role. Related to Sanskrit are a whole range of ancient vernaculars, generically called Prakrit, which were used as languages of religious expression by the Jainas and the Buddhists in ancient times, explicitly in opposition to the Sanskrit language used by the Brāhmaṇical tradition. The interactions among these various traditions and their conflicts and compromises over linguistic issues are an important part of the religious history of South Asia. In later times, vernacular languages throughout South Asia emerge as vehicles of devotional approaches to god, again in opposition to the Sanskrit language used by the Brāhmaṇ elites, and there are interesting conflicts and compromises between upholders of the prominence of various language varieties. These also form a significant part of the religious history of South Asia.