Professor Girish Nath Jha at Jawaharlal Nehru University had been in touch while I was in Orissa, He is a member of the Special Center for Sanskrit Studies at the University and directs a lab on computational linguistics. Computational Linguistics is a new application where the computer algorithms are used to translate material from one language to the other and help to analyze words from their etymological structure. The lab at JNU is one of the leaders in the field in the world. Jawaharlal Nehru University was conceived as a world-class center for learning on topics catering to an international student body. Jawaharlal was a visionary leader. He had dreamed of making India a leader in intellectual pursuit in the modern world. He had thought that studies on world culture and social sciences are best done when the Faculty would restrain from bias. He had conceived the path of non-alignment for India in the world political stage. His vision initiated the foundation of Indian School of International Studies which evolved to Jawaharlal Nehru University after his death. I took my usual Delhi transport of auto-rickshaw to go to the University. It is a well spread out campus of about several hundred acres. Apparently there were several "gates" and we entered through the main "North Gate". University campuses by definition can be clumsy and a visit needs be facilitated through an escort. Overgrown trees on the sides had covered up the signs that were posted on cement stones. There was very little traffic on the road, but no navigation. There had been a landscape design to the campus as one can observe from the set up. But there was almost no maintenance. I thought it was the example of many ad hoc copying that the public figures in India get attracted to without sufficient examination. Density of tree planting and the choice of tree is a parameter of the climate. I did see occasional playgrounds again weeded because of lack of use. In an academic setting the students should be able to see through the trees to the horizon as far they could. Young people must imagine the expanse of the universe and that of knowledge. After about a mile or so through various bends and turns, we reached our destination through a short diversion from the Campus Road. The Center was a nicely set modern building. The surrounding did not fit the design. While the students and the Faculty might have limited voice on the place of activity, I thought the University authorities should get to the sense of "Sanskrit" which literally meant "well done". Like in the west, Sanskrit Center was competing with hundreds of other centers which were more "visible" and "vocal'. In the west, Sanskrit is treated as a "dead" language and is studied as a part of Indo-European etymology. In India, Sanskrit should be the "life" of the country. India's identity in the world is due to her language. The wholesomeness of Sanskrit has influenced contributions in arts, sciences, architecture and philosophy. To me, Sanskrit is the flag that India should carry high. I was led to Professor Jha's office. Prof. Jha was a young scholar in his '40s and worked with dozens of students and staff members. He showed me his laboratory of many computers. Several students were there diligently busy at work. The space looked crowded. They had made impressive contributions to the language morphology and had collaborations with many other laboratories in the world. Though Sanskrit is an oral language, there is huge interest in text analysis to search for words and reconstruct history. The work at the Computational Linguistics Laboratory was aiding in this line of work. I was escorted to the Conference Room at the Center. The students and some of the Faculty members had gathered and taken their seats around a rectangular set up. There were about fifty people attending. The Chairperson of the Department Prof Upender Rao dropped in. There was a brief presentation on the Department. I was introduced by Professor Jha and was requested to offer my seminar. I had thought about to speak on the aesthetics of speech. "Aesthetics" is a global concept that channels external information to our brain. The brain itself has the sensors through which information is received, but the final resolution is achieved through the "mind." If the "mind" is not connected, the sense information does not register. "Mind" also has the ability to distinguish the nature of the sense information in order to create a reaction. This particular process of information registration through the "mind" has been called "rasa" in Sanskrit literature. rasa is an old Indian word, possibly pre-Sanskritik. Broadly it means "essence". An Indian scholar called Bharata in 4th century AD compiled a book called Natyasastra where he noted the discovery of eight distinct rasa's in human recognition. It could be possible that the human brain processes identify eight rasa's as dominant modes, while the rasa field itself could be a continuum.
Once the rasa is cognized, it triggers a neurological process called "bhāva," the manifestation of which is a function of the individual. That each individual is differently wired comes from another Indian cosmological speculation called sāṁkhya. However, once the bhāva is triggered, there could be a "rasa-bhāva" hand-shake, and the body processes would immerse in bhāva manifestation.
I addressed the students to examine this theory from the neuro-science point of view. We have to conduct experiments to check how does the rasa impression occur in the mind and if there is a finite interval of time before bhāva gets triggered. Then we have to check how long the human subject might sustain himself or herself in the bhāva immersion before a new transition might take place.
The science of this is possibly the thesis behind poetic and artistic compositions. A poet or an artist by default attempts to express his or her internal aesthetic view to the world at large. The neurological process in a reader or a viewer should be similar from a theoretical point of view. There is finite line when a sense of satisfaction and happiness transcend into immersion and joy. The aesthetics is the tool in such transition. The process begs scientific study.
I gave examples from Indian poetics including Valmiki's Ramayana to make my point. i explained our own work on the subject. There was good discussion following the talk. Faculty from Science departments had dropped in and did probe further. I emphasized that the whole concept of creative aesthetics was invented in India and suggested that the Faculty and students in JNU were properly positioned to conduct the necessary research.
