Bhagavata-Purana
Taylor’s primary point of interest is in situations in which the language is either not known, or only partially known to the audience, such a case applies to the Bhagavata-Katha. The discourse of Bhagavata-Purana events, regardless of the scale being tens of thousands of disciples or solely ten devotees, includes the verses of the narration of stories being either recited, chanted or sung in Sanskrit.(Taylor 2015, p522)- a locutionary act. Few devotees who attend the Katha events understand the majority of the utterance which leads to the function of the Sanskrit verses coinciding with the essence of power and knowledge in the Sanskrit, Hindu belief system. (Taylor 2015, p523). Furthermore, Bhakti is eminently facilitated through the hearing and repetition of the verses phrase by phrase, allowing the devotee to attain ‘co-identity with the divine through devotion.’ (Taylor 2015 p524) this is a prime example of how a locutionary act- utterance of verses, results in an illocutionary act- coidentity with the divine, and is doubly significant as the illocutionary act is facilitated by a language which many devotees do not natively comprehend, highlighting the significance of the occult language which is Sanskrit. There is a theme of the utterances often being devoid of semantic meaning to those who listen.
Our understanding of the recitation on Sanskrit texts is also furthered as language can be deemed as a vehicle to liberation. Taylor exemplifies a trance-like state induced by a devotee who upon hearing the translation attains liberation (Taylor 2015 p525) On a worldly scale Similarly, the majority of Muslims do not know the Arabic semantic content of the Quran, yet many Muslims around the world, regardless of their ethnicity pray in Arabic and sense that they are speaking to God.
Taylor’s interpretation reduces Hindu devotion to mundanity as he seems reluctant to inquire into the occult whereas for Hindus, Sanskrit recitation is deeming you to complete an illocutionary act by default- Channelling cosmic order in language.
Thank you so much for your help – I am currently in a mass work situation as my Nan broke my laptop and my deadline is in slightly over a week, and I have so much to do. Thank you for helping, I really appreciate it, as finding it almost impossible to get one really big important essay done in time and i have all these other smaller ones which are actually quite tricky. Let me know if you need any other information on this – i have loads of notes. And thank you again. !
(Here are some tiny notes):
speech act theory, pragmatics, the idea of someone cinema, am sick example
– taylor:
– he’s applying this idea of speech acts where you convey more than you mean
– apply the theory to the sanksrit
– looking at the interesting phenomena of how it can have these extra meanings and effects just by the fact that people don’t understand it
– not just the further impaction of the owrid itself, but a further complication of the language
– he gives brief overview of sat.
– looks at Sanskrit
– middle part he’s comparing it to the use of the ..other language
– saying it’s similar in usage –
– conclusion – this is the effect it has
He’s applying this theory in a novel way – to a language that isn’t even understood by the audience.
((Also the one source is the file I’ve attached!)
