Professor Emeritus of the Department of Sociology at the University of Oldenburg
( August 20, 2022)
The Vedic language knows no "interpunctions", no "grammars", no "dictionaries" and no "reference books". The rules of nature apply, the rules of the universe. The graphic "characters" of the Vedic language were later used as support against individual forgetfulness. Not for exchanging experiences and thoughts.
Man is born with "nothing". Man is not capable of surviving without the unconditional "care" of the society, initially mediated by the "parents". The exchange between new and old babies takes place by means of body movements, gestures, facial expressions, sounds and the surrounding atmosphere. Harmonious and unmistakably in harmony with nature. These means together form the language, later the language spoken in society.
Sounds become more important over time. Possibly due to the different band and range of articulation and listening skills. The importance of body movement, gestures and facial expressions for communication remain equally important. The sounds have proven to be more variable in comparison.
These natural conditions are important for the exchange of experiences and for the exchange of objects for everyday life. across generations. The immediate and indirect environment, the "local" atmosphere, in short that of the "micro-cosmos" determines the "content" of the exchange.
This is why different “societies” and different “languages” emerge. Always within the band and range of the given “means”. The variability of sounds increases over time. The distinguishable sounds are tested whenever the known offer cannot “transport” the current content.
The "content" to be transported arises in the course of life through the events within the respective society and through the efforts of the individual people to understand the environment and the "universe". The contents are the building blocks of social knowledge.
As already noted, man is born with "nothing". Man begins life, grows and works in society. Man leaves life with "nothing". The result of his work remains in the society. Not everything that happened. Only that part that is considered worth preserving by the following generation. This is how “collective memory” is created.
The "collective memory" stores a selection of all events. Everything that happened but was not recorded in the collective memory is lost forever. Out of the nature of things.
The "collective memory" is the acquired "knowledge" of the respective society, authentically transported through the directly spoken "language". The spoken “language” is learned across generations in order to acquire the traditional knowledge. Face to face. undistorted.
In Bharatavarsa the Vedas are stored in "collective memory". The pre-Vedic people did not hand down to posterity the wrong ways and paths they had taken in order to bequeath the four Vedas to posterity. The pre-Vedic people did not hand down who “wrote down” the Vedas. I would like to assume that it didn't matter. The Vedas are a collective work of the pre-Vedic people on the way to the summit of processable human knowledge. The pre-Vedic people transformed into Vedic people over time.
The four Vedas contain the maximum knowledge attenable for humans so far. According to this knowledge, the Vedic people lived to keep this knowledge sustainably available for all descendants.
The vehicle for this knowledge was the oral Vedic language. This language requires 97 sound expressions in order to gain access to the Vedic "knowledge bank". The Vedic people were aware that after climbing the peak, the descent begins. The Vedic people have succeeded in establishing sustainable social institutions for the care and learning of the Vedic language.
In addition to maintaining the "knowledge bank", the Vedic people had also succeeded in anchoring knowledge in the actual areas of everyday life. The "anchoring" of knowledge in everyday life meant creating "secondary" memory in addition to the main memory in the "head". The main memory in the "head" had the full knowledge.
Head-to-head transmission took place via face-to-face speech. Head-to-head transmission is complete. The Vedic people reckoned that the Vedic language would be difficult to establish in everyday life. The development of knowledge required the perfect Vedic language. The application of the knowledge in everyday practice did not consistently require the perfect Vedic language with 97 sounds. Out of the nature of things.
The connection between the development of knowledge and the application of knowledge remained intact. Everyday practice shifted over time to the secondary storages in addition to the main memory "head". The Vedic people considered the main storage "head" and the secondary storage in everyday practice as a unit with facets.
The exchange took place exclusively face to face. Using spoken language. It is not known in which phase of development in the Vedic societies the need was recognized to support the main memory in the head, to create additional indirect forms of exchange up to individual "drawings" as secondary "vehicles" for the preservation of knowledge. The secondary "vehicles" and the secondary "storages" always remained additional supports, never as a substitute for the primary storage. Out of the nature of things.
The “individual human being” is realized in society. On the way to society and later also in the way of development, he remains playful, sometimes leaving his mark on smooth surfaces in nature with hard objects as individual, additional "one-way messages" to his fellow human beings. No exchanges.
In contrast to spoken languages, these secondary traces have no environmental or environmental atmosphere, no gestures, no facial expressions, no sounds. These traces can be secondary (indirect) individual messages to fellow human beings. Without direct exchange. So, without built-in corrections like face-to-face exchanges.
The Vedic people had succeeded in devising and testing a way of breaking down the sounds of speech into small parts; with the aim of using the disassembled parts as supports in the event of weaknesses in the "memory". Seeing the small parts of the drawings should fully restore the sounds in the mind.
It is not possible to verify whether this reconstruction in the head is complete. If the restoration in the head is not completely successful, there is an uncontrolled loss of "experiential knowledge" for the "individual human being". Therefore, the drawings can never "translate" the sounds. Peril of the object. And sounds and “atmosphere” are parts of language.
This arduous journey of “translating” the sounds into 'characters' on manufactured smooth 'material' as a possible substitute for sounds has led to 'written language'. Artificially solid smooth surfaces had to be produced to store the characters, and tools had to be produced as “mediating instances” for drawings. "Alphabets", "syllables", "words", "sentences" are derived from the characters. The final product is then called "script language". The written language is a deceptive package.
Face-to-face communication through speech is perfect. With the presence of everyone involved. Forgery-proof. It does not require any artificial rules. This exchange is a "transfer" from head memory to head memory by means of language, across generations. This form of exchange has proven to be the shortest, the most comprehensive and the most efficient form of interpersonal exchange in the history of mankind. Without loss of information, without falsifications.
A society of people becomes a society through their language. The exchange of individual experiences leads to components of knowledge. Individuals come and individuals go. The social knowledge remains. The accumulation of knowledge leads to civilizations, eventually also to cultures.
Only a few societies have created the one-way exchange via "characters". With far-reaching consequences: Might-media manipulations. Knowledge is replaced by belief.
It is known in Bharatavarsa that the "Bhoota Bhasha" with 42 sounds was not enough for the pre-Vedic people to compile the Vedas. It is not known when the "Bhoota Bhasha" with 42 sounds developed into the "Chhando Bhasha" with 97 sounds. There are no reports about the timeline. A timeline in this context is irrelevant.
Relevant is the fact that the "Bhoota Bhasha" was not able to convey the growing insights face to face.
Also relevant is the fact that the "Chhando Bhasha" as a "transporter" turned out to be too laborious for the Vedic people when using the Vedic knowledge in everyday life over time. It is the peril of the object: the journey down from the summit.
The “Vedic people” in my understanding were the “Pre-Vedic people” before they reached the summit and the “post-Vedic people” after had reached the summit. The "post-Vedic people" morphed into the "Upanishad people" over time. Questions related to the timeline are irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Upanishads arose.
Four Vedas have been handed down. A large number of Upanishads have arisen over time. Not all are fully preserved. The Upanishads are "treatises" (elucidations, commentaries, etc.) on aspects of the Vedas. None of the Upanishads are handed down in the Vedic language, but in a language that needed far fewer sounds. The number of sounds used had stabilized at 64 sounds. This Vedic "Light Language" is the "Laukika Bhasha".
In my understanding, the Upanishads are dams to slow down the descent of Vedic culture from the peak of the Vedas. In this context, the descent of the Vedic culture means that more and more "post-Vedic people" were forgetting the Vedic language and thus the direct access to the Vedas.
As with the Vedas, no compilers are recorded for the Upanishads, except for a very few of the last recorded Upanishads. The emphasis given to the compilers of the last few Upanishads is a clear indication that the social knowledge acquired was valued differently. The “authors” highlighted in this way no longer wanted to be on an equal footing with the rest. The Upanishads could not stop the unequal distribution accompanying the descent.
But the compilers of Upanishads have fully received the Vedas and Vedic language as the most direct access to the Vedas. Despite all the adversities of the descent.
The Upanishad people in the Vedic societies have dealt with the lack of understanding in partial aspects of the content of the traditional knowledge. The Upanishads in the "Laukika Bhasha" are the consequences of these disputes.
The Upanishad people did not try to translate the Vedas composed in the Vedic language into the 64-phone Laukika Bhasha. They cultivated all the paths to the Vedic language to keep the path to the Vedas clear.
The Upanishad people turned into "Mahabharata people". Mahabharata is also composed in the "Laukika Bhasha". Mahabharata is an inventory of the people, of the Vedic societies, of the Vedic civilizations in the Vedic culture during the descent from the peak.
The decline of Vedic culture brought forth many "Bhasha" like the "Devanagari Bhasha" with 51 tones. During the descent so far, the post-Vedic people have cultivated all the paths to the "Laukika Bhasha" and to the Mahabharata, to the Upanishads, to the Vedic language, in order to keep the path to the Vedas free.
(Translation with permission of the author by Dr. B. Zeiger using Google Translator)