The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10

Section Four

XV

The Evolution of Language

Human language was born out of the necessity of intercommunication among human beings living together. The necessity naturally related to the physical life and its demands and requirements. Man being a mental being sought intercommunication through his mind. So mind yoked to the physical demands gave the first form and pattern to human speech.

Language in the beginning must have been an echo or a graphic expression of man's sense-bound mind. But as the mind developed, became more and more rational and intellectual, language also tended to become more and more abstract and intellectualised. Even so at its best, language could be the vehicle and embodiment of man's mental and intellectual world.

But man moves on, his mind opens on new horizons, his consciousness is not tethered to sense-experiences nor even limited to the region of thought and ideation built or grown in accordance with the mode and schema of sense-experiences.

Man began to possess, to acquire intuitions and inspirations, that is to say, movements of consciousness that lie beyond the frame given by the sense-mind. These new perceptions could naturally be expressed with difficulty through what one may call the earth-nurtured or earthbound

Page 59

language. The aerial luminous character of the mystic consciousness is always said to be beyond speech, beyond even mental formulation.

And yet poets, mystic poets have always sought to express themselves, to express something of their experience and illumination through the word, the human tongue. It is extremely interesting to see how a material, constructed or formed to satisfy the requirements of an ordinary physical life is being turned into an instrument for luminous and effective communication and expression of other truths and realities in the hands of these seer-creators (kavi-kratuḥ). They take the materials from ordinary normal life, familiar objects and happenings but use them as images and allegories putting into them a new sense and a new light. Also they give a new, unfamiliar turn to their utterance, a new syntax, sometimes uncommon construction and novel vocabulary to the language itself so that it has even the appearance of something very irre­gular and twisted and obscure. Indeed obscurity itself in the expression, in the form of the language has often been taken as the very sign of the higher and hidden experience and mumination.

The Vedic rishis speak of the different levels of speech —the human language is only one form of speech, its lowest, in fact the crudest formulation. There are other forms of speech that are subtler and subtler as one rises in the scale of consciousness. The highest formulation of language, the supreme Word—vāk —is 'OM'—nāda —śabda-brahma. That is the supreme speech-vibration.

Page 60

the rhythmic articulation of the Supreme Consciousness Sachchidananda; the expression there is nearest to silence, almost merges into silence.

Our human language cannot expect to attain that supreme height of felicity of expression but wherever something of the vibration has been communicated to it by the magic hand of the creative poet, we have the 'mantra', the supreme, the mantric poetry.

Page 61